Interview by Kris Peters
Asking Alexandria have always traversed the sonic tightrope between rock and metal, refusing to be stereotyped or labelled in the process.
Over the course of seven previous albums the band has had moments of pure aggression offset by lashings of beauty, creating their own musical boundaries with a contempt for convention rarely sustained by bands with a global fanbase.
Frontman Danny Worsnop has been behind many of the sonic disparities released by Asking Alexandria, his voice capable of shredding with the best of them but also becoming a source of emotional and sorrow at will.
They are a band who are divisive in some quarters but have only ever proclaimed to be serving themselves as master with others more than welcome to board or alight the train at any time.
With Asking Alexandria's eighth album, the ominously titled Where Do We Go From Here? due out on August 25 it seems the band have taken personal stock of their career to date and committed to disk a collection of songs that serve as a culmination of their career to date.
HEAVY caught up with Worsnop as he sat in the tattoo chair recently to talk more about the album.
"It always sounds bad to say, and I don't mean it in a bad way, but I don't care about releases," he answered when asked if nerves were still a factor before an album drop. "This has been our album for the last year and as of three days from now it's not our album any more. It's everyone elses album. A lot of people look at the release date as the start of the album, but for me it's the end. Come Friday, that's when I get to start the next one."
Where Do We Go From Here? is being promoted as a culmination of Asking Alexandria's historical body of work, so we ask Worsnop how much of a tightly wrapped package it is.
"We very much didn't want to try anything new," he offered. "We didn't want to re-invent the wheel. We didn't want it to be anything exploring or adventurous. It was supposed to be a look back on the last 15 years and a snapshot of everything thus far, sonically touching on everything we've done prior to thematically going back to subjects that have resonated with people from those albums. Instead of it being a personal record for us it's definitely for them."
The title Where Do We Go From Here? could serve as both a statement or a question, but Worsnop argues the way it was written was slanted more towards the latter.
"It's a question, and one I ask myself a lot," he answered. "And one I think everyone should be asking themself all the time. I'm very goal motivated and orientated, so in my life that's the question I ask the most because regardless of the success or failure or win or loss that's the first question because you've gotta figure out what the next step is. When things are bad that's the only question we can really ask ourselves."
In the full interview, Danny talks more about the subject matter on Where Do We Go From Here?, how it encapsulates the last 15 years of Asking Alexandria's life, closing certain chapters of music, the one minute banger Kill It With Fire and its surprising origin, the title and closing track and how it ties in with the album theme, his personal line of tequila and more.