Delve Deeper on I Have Four Names Killer New Album Suspended Sentence

To celebrate the release this week of I Have Four Names' album Suspended Sentence, we caught up with the creative force William Raleigh Vere Evatt as he takes you through everything you need to know about the record. You can also stream it on your favourite service here. 

About the Artistic Direction

I wanted to find a way to create a tie between the album art for 'Suspended Sentence' and the album and EP which came before. I've always had this aesthetic of orange and green hands stemming from a very messy photoshoot I did, so I retroactively came up with an idea that there's this person who is being terrorised by these giant malicious hands. Since I had a song on the first album called 'Are We Clear, Krystal?', I figured I'd use this character of Krystal as the protagonist. There's a kind of concept tying the whole album about my experiences as an independent artist always on the verge of falling into a pit of despair, hopelessness and dodgy paid playlist placements. Krystal's plight agains the hands became a very loose metaphor for this.

I found this amazing artist on instagram called @tiger_june and commissioned the mind-blowing cover art. It was ready for a year before the album was finished. It actually motivated me to make the album as good as possible to live up to the art. I also found this voice artist on fiverr called LunafreyaVA to voice Krystal for this little opening vignette, and they did an awesome job. I think having an intro sort of softens the harshness of just launching straight into something as crazy as the first real song...

Lock Him Away (Pts 1 & 2)

This track has two distinct parts - a frenetic fast-paced first half and then an electronic second section. When I was recording the track, I couldn't decide which part worked best, so I just kept adding to each with the intention of eventually deleting the part which didn't work. Eventually I was left with the 4 minute track, which is a behemoth in the world of I Have Four Names. With both parts, it kind of covers the entire spectrum of sounds on the album, so I thought it might make a good opening track to give people a taste of what to expect, or alternatively warn them off.

This is the first time I've had other musicians on record - Stewart Geddes plays drums on the album, and you can really hear him tearing it up on part one here. Also I have to give massive props to the other 3 people who helped me with the record. Jack Garzonio, who gave me guidance and really pulled the album together. Stefan du Randt, the mixing engineer who wrangled it all together. Andrew Edgson, the mastering engineer who compressed all this down into something smooth sounding. All masters.

Silent Partners

Towards the end of my recording process I wasn't sure I had enough decent material to make an album, so I opened up a new project called 'make a good song' and this is what came out as I was messing around. I really like how the chorus sticks out from the rest of the song - almost as if I had no idea what I was doing when I jammed it in there. I'm really proud of how the guitar comes together at the end. The whole song feels like a fluke.

The lyrics carry the bitter theme which is running through the whole album - people who take advantage of others when they're in a weaker or desperate position. I try to offset the nastiness of of it by making the lyrics as stupid as possible. Here I'm looking at examples of people who didn't get the named credit in famous partnerships. We all love chocolate Lindt bunnies, but that company was started equally by two dudes called Lindt and Sprüngli. Where are the Sprüngli bunnies?

The Krystal Method

On this album I worked closely with this amazing musician called Jack Garzonio. Usually I record everything myself, and that's it - done. This time, I took those 'finished tracks' to Jack, and we would spend hours together picking apart the track, moving parts around, fine-tuning things, adding layers. He wasn't really a producer, more like a guru, giving me the guidance to unlock the potential in the songs.

This particular song I had floating around for ages, but every recording I made just sounded flat. I basically dumped it on Jack and said "fix it!". He worked his magic on it. Add in Stewart's drums and the mixing from Stefan du Randt and it finally sounds like what I was trying to capture myself. This song is probably the most organic on the album, in the sense that it has the least amount of synthetic elements and clutter. Hopefully it fits in with the rest of the album.

Delorean Mail

I made a really quick demo of this song years back, with that basic two-note bassline and "I got a message from you today" lyric. It was always stuck in my head, so I decided to just knuckle down and flesh it out. I had this one pretty complete when I took it to Jack - he added some atmospheric flourishes and vocal tricks, and that was that. It's one of the few tracks without live drums. It has a low-key vibe which I really like, and I thought it would be a good palate cleanser at this point in the album.

The song's title is a specific reference, and I built a lot of the lyrics around that reference. If you know, you know.

Suspended Sentence

This is the title track. The title has two meanings - the first: I was on the verge of giving up music after years of not making any inroads at all. Then I was lucky enough to find an audience with my first proper album, mainly because of people who supported the vinyl and cassettes I had made. I felt like I was given a new lease on my musical life - previously I'd been sentenced to obscurity forever, and maybe that feeling will come back soon, but for now, that sentence is suspended. The other meaning:  just a terrible pun. The idea that you're hanging on someone's words, literally. Those words are suspended in the air and you're hanging on for dear life. This also inspired the album cover.

This track probably has the hardest guitar tone I've ever recorded. There's also a breakdown that was directly inspired by a Vines track called 'Outtathaway'. I remember hearing that song as a kid and being blown away what they were doing with clean guitar sounds in the middle of all this havoc. I'm always chasing parts of songs that I love, trying to find a way to jam them in I Have Four Names tracks.

Two Thirds

This song is about being in your thirties and having this constant fear that you can't keep living the way you have been your whole life. At what point do you have to give up things you enjoy because you're ageing out of them? 

Apart from the existential angst I think this is a fun little song. It incorporates elements of a song I wrote when I was 18 called 'One Third'. I was really obsessed with The Hives and the whole new rock revolution back then, so that was my attempt. I even spliced in the misguided bass solo breakdown I recorded back then. This is the end of Side A of the vinyl.

Count the Gulps

Most of the songs on my first LP were under 2 minutes. On this album, they all became bloated 3 minute whoppers, so I wanted to do something short and fun. My favourite part is the little guitar solo - I tried to copy what Rivers Cuomo did on the Green Album, where every guitar solo was just the vocal melody played with this cheesy tone. The lyrics are about all the fun stuff I deal with having OCD. I get physically uncomfortable if I don't listen to at least 50 songs a day. It's weird. But also, it's cool. 

One of my favourite artists is a Canadian rapper called Abdominal. He has a track called 'Sock Hop' where he details his own experiences with OCD. I contacted him and begged him to let me sample some of his lyrics in the track, and he was cool enough to send me his 'abcapella' version. Check him out.

D-FRAGMENTS

This is absolutely my favourite song on the album. It's got everything I'd want an I Have Four Names track to have - it's fast, it's catchy, it has a big bassline and it has kitchen sink production. Unfortunately as the artist I think I might be able to see through the mess of the track when everybody else just gets overwhelmed by it. It's hard to detach yourself from the experience of recording and writing the song - you know "oh this cool part is coming up!" Actually a listener is probably never even going to notice that little part. That's why I put it in the second half of the album and didn't push it as a single.

This song started with a synth line that I made sound like a guitar. Then, when it came time to actually record the organic guitar, it turned out I could only play that line by dropping the tuning to C. In the end, the track starts with the synth guitar and it slowly gets replaced with the organic playing during the course of the song. I always like to find ways to squish together synth and real instruments in a song. It was a nightmare wrangling this song for Stefan to mix. It had so many tracks all over the place. Jack and I worked for days trying to tidy it up. I hope it came together! 

No Brain // No Body

I really like the instrumental for this, which I recorded quite early in the process. The bassline has this really atmospheric vibe. I couldn't for the life of me figure out a vocal melody though. The chorus is much longer than I'm used to. In the end I just set up a mic at my parents' place and recorded different vocals all day until something hit and/or my voice ran out. Still not sure if the chorus works that well. One thing is for sure, it's one of the few songs out there with the word "infinitesimally" in it. 

I tried out some really high vocals which are out of my usual range here. You should have seen the wince on Jack's face when he heard it. Anyway, the track is on the more experimental half of the album. One thing I really like is how it fades into the next track. That transition might honestly be the best part of either song.

Temple of Lead

This was a song I had previously completed but wasn't totally happy with, so I had Stewart record drums, did new vocals and let Jack mess around with it a bit. There's a part at the end where the guitar solo combines with the final chorus which I think sounds really amazing. Like this grand moment. As for whether the track works as a whole? Well, it's in this second half isn't it? By this point in the album I realise that I'm creating songs which maybe a few people will pick as their favourite, but the majority have tuned out after the first half, which was front-loaded with singles. We're in deep cut territory. 

I include a line from Kool Keith's Dr Octagon project here. There's a reference to MF DOOM's Viktor Vaughn project in the next song. There's a surprising amount of underground hip hop references on this album. I have no business doing that and should stop!

Flashback Light

This was originally intended to be the album closer. I wanted a sort of traditional 'ballad' track to close the album, but with an I Have Four Names twist. Something that starts out with a traditional acoustic guitar ramble but then takes a left turn. Jack was really proud of how we got the harmony in the final chorus to this sort of euphoric finish. 

Throughout the song there's this repeating little phrase that I played on water-filled glasses with a spoon which we then tuned up. To be honest, the album could have easily ended with the last track. See, when you're writing and recording everything yourself, nobody is there to tell you when to quit while you're ahead. I think there's enough here for someone to feel like it's a worthwhile listen though, hopefully.

Rat Sounds

This song shouldn't be on the album. I know it doesn't fit. Especially as the closer. But it's just so stupid that I couldn't bear to leave it off.  You get attached to these little songs and feel terrible throwing them away. The lyrics are about overreacting to something when somebody is trying to gently talk sense into something? Oh, you want me to help tidy up at home? What if I just left altogether and lived with some rats. They'll be my new friends. They won't ask me to take out the trash when I'm just trying to enjoy some quiet time. The nerve!

I couldn't find anywhere to put this song in the tracklist, so I originally thought maybe it could be a hidden track, or on a 'deluxe' version of the album. If you look at the physical copies of the album, this song and 'Two Thirds' are actually in a different font in the tracklist, indicating that they're 'deluxe exclusive' tracks. But people advised me that putting out a deluxe copy of the album a few months after the standard release is a chump move. So here is 'Rat Sounds', ending the album. You win some, you lose some.

Stream the whole album from your favourite streaming service here.