Sleeping With Sirens: 'This Is A VERY Important Record For Us'
Kellin Quinn tells MTV why he wants to surprise everyone with Sirens’ new music...
“Lots of whiskey!” is Kellin Quinn’s cheeky reply, when MTV UK asks the Sleeping With Sirens frontman how the band are surviving the epic World Tour they’re on with Pierce the Veil, Mallory Knox and PVRIS.
With both headliners having been on the road since late 2014, the World Tour finally comes to the UK at the end of March for a string of sold out (*sob!*) shows, when fans will hear Sirens play songs from their new album, Madness. “This tour has been great, the fans have been awesome and the shows have been really fun. It’s been a pleasure, really,” says the ever-charming, suuuuper confident Kellin, a man standing on the brink of next-level success with the already massive Sirens.
Madness is already getting major hype – after their last album, Feel, debuted at #3 on the Billboard Chart, Kellin (and his trademark high-pitched vocals) knows he has a lot to live up to as the band’s main songwriter. But right now, speaking backstage at a show in Oklahoma City, he’s being unusually modest. Gone is the swagger from Sirens’ early days (back in 2013, he told MTV “we’re the band that inspires other bands,”) and instead, Kellin is appreciative of the fans that have got them to this point.
“It is a little surreal,” he laughs. “We are so thankful for how much our fans care. Up until recently, at least, our success has all been thanks to them telling people: ‘hey, check out this band Sleeping with Sirens’; our band has grown just on that alone.”
“People my age [Kellin is the ripe old age of 28] don’t make the effort to find new music anymore,” he continues. “But our fanbase is constantly checking out new music, and that is why we are so successful, why people talk about bands like us, because there is such an energy and a fire in our fans.”
Sirens’ latest video for ‘Go Go Go’ appears to be a none-too-subtle dig at Rise Records, the band’s former record label before they recently signed to Epitaph. That track, along with ‘Kick Me’ and ‘We Like It Loud’, both released post-Rise, are screaming loud and clear about Kellin’s burning desire to move on and be allowed to grow into the band they want to be.
At the worst time you know
We've never been the smartest
You know you could have anyone
But standing on the edge I said
I don't want no one else
They say, it's time to grow up
And stop with these foolish games
But I say, they're wrong
She said go, go, go, I don't wanna take it slow
There's plenty of time for us to finally get it right
Why don't we crash and burn tonight?
Shoulda know we were too young to feel this much
It could kill us, you know
My nearly departed
Said you were currupting me
I was naive, but no one knew
I kept it to myself
They say, it's time to grow up
And stop with these foolish games
But I say, they're wrong
She said go, go, go, I don't wanna take it slow
There's plenty of time for us to finally get it right
Why don't we crash and burn tonight?
This is how we'll always be
And they will see that we were right
And they were wrong
So I'll put it in a song
So you can sing along
She said go, go, go, I don't wanna take it slow
She said go, go, go, I don't wanna take it slow
Go, go, go, I don't wanna take it slow
There's plenty of time for us to finally get it right
Why don't we crash and burn tonight
Crash and burn tonight!
“I’m being more vocal about that on this album; I’ve painted the picture a little bit better,” he agrees. “There is definitely the theme of growing up, because I still feel like I’m discovering who I am. That is the journey of life: figuring out who you are and why you are here, what your purpose is.”
But does growing up equal a whole new sound for SWS? Kellin definitely hints at big changes ahead with Madness. “To grow and evolve as an artist has always definitely been the goal for me. I always want to surprise myself, more than anybody else,” he says. “I am ALWAYS thinking about writing music; my wife is constantly asking me: ‘is there any way you can turn off the music part of your brain for a minute?’ but I really can’t! It’s my form of therapy.”
That constant stream of songwriting means that Sirens wrote and recorded an album in 2014, before scrapping it and starting from scratch [hmm, we wonder if we’ll ever hear those tracks?] “I grew up listening to The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and every record those bands put out was very unique in its own right,” Kellin starts to explain, “I have that mentality too: if a song sounds like something I’ve already done, then I’ll throw it out, because I want each record to be a progression.
“This is a very important album because we are finally coming into our own with our sound; we found a producer (John Feldman) who really understands us, and it’s a really important record for me because I put a lot of work into it - that is gonna show.”
Woah
Could you check my pulse for me
To see if I'm alive
Cause everytime that I am near you
Is the only time I feel alright
If there were anyway
I could think to turn back time
I'd stay here with you
Sometimes I sit and wonder
Sometimes I feel like letting go
All I know is no one should have to be alone
Woah
I don't want to be alone
I don't want to die alone
I could fall apart here and now
I don't want to die alone
I want to be with you, you, you
I only want to be with you, you, you
Tell me what's the point of life
Is it material?
Had everything I could ever want and probably more
When I lay in bed at night
All I do is think of you
So when all this is gone what do I have to come home to?
This life goes by so fast
Pretty soon I'll grow old
What would I have but some stories now that I have told
No one to share them with
And when it's all done
What am I left with?
Tell me what's left
I don't want to be alone
I don't want to die alone
I could fall apart here and now
I don't want to die alone
MGK!
Leave me?
How the fuck you gonna leave me?
When I'm the one that's on TV
With these girls screaming
Outside with my CD
And I'm begging?
Naw baby, you're the one that can't keep me
Leave me?
Girl how the fuck you gonna leave me? Huh?
You know I love you, when we fight and we argue
I kiss and I hug you
You push me back, you say that I'm trouble
But every Bonnie got a Clyde with her
Every woman needs somebody that's gonna ride with her
Yeah
And I can't go on staying alive if I'm alone
Pick up the phone and say hello
I'd rather die with her
Now my night's so cold
When your heart is frozen
Mine's exposed you know this
Try to blame the fame for the way I've changed
And you know those claims are bogus
Baby it's not me, it's us
Maybe now all we need is trust
Maybe this Hennessy will solve our problems
Baby pick it up
I don't want to be alone
I don't want to die alone
I could fall apart here and now
I don't want to die alone
I don't want to be alone
I don't wanna die alone
I could fall apart here and now
I don't wanna die alone
Could you check my pulse for me
To see if I'm alive
Apparently, even Kellin’s mother-in-law likes the new record, mainly because “she can hear what I am singing on this one,” he laughs. If that’s not the biggest hint that Madness is going to offer up some huge, pop-led bangers, with clean vocals, then we don’t know what is. But while he admits that he’s always been determined to take Sirens to the next level, Kellin can’t – and won’t - predict just how mainstream this record could make them.
“For any band that ends up becoming really big, yeah, hard work has something to do with it,” he says, “but a lot of it is just pure luck. I can’t say that my band is going to be the next biggest band because I don’t know that. All I know is that what we are doing right now seems to be working.”
The new album Madness by Sleeping with Sirens is released on Epitaph on March 16, and the Sleeping with Sirens/Pierce the Veil World Tour comes to the UK from March 29 - April 11.
By Georgina Langford @george_langford