(Interview) HRTLSS: "It felt more like a self-reflective process, you know, things we all go through."
Updated: 2 days ago
What do you get if Bad Omens, Bring Me the Horizon, and The Weekend all blur their sounds together, and yet it still comes out sounding fresh and original? Meet HRTLSS. Starting originally on soundcloud as a solo project during 2020 before gradually forming HRTLSS we know today. Cut to 6 years later, and with a fully fledged band, they’ve toured with Mallory Knox, released numerous singles, and October 2nd sees the release of their EP, The Devil on My Shoulder.
I spoke to lead vocalist G at great length about not just the album and the process but about the industry at large and the perils and plight of social media.
October sees the release of your first album The Devil on My Shoulder. What made you choose that specific title? Did it gradually come from the themes of the album or after its final completion?
G: It was chosen as one of our title tracks of the same, "The Devil on My Shoulder", because it stood out as the right title after the music was completed. It felt more like a self-reflective process, you know, things we all go through. Things like our inner struggles, imposter syndrome and anxiety that I think many can definitely relate to, right? It’s a lot different from our previous, I suppose, EP of Blood Moon, which I guess was much more concept-driven, as this one was more of a "go with the flow" approach to music creation.
With regards to new releases, do you like to have a concept to create a storyline around the themes of your music, or are they all ideas flowing as things progress?
G: I think if you go in with too much of a plan, it never works out how you want it to, so for this release it really became a very go-with-the-flow, as that is kind of who we are as a band. So it was most definitely a very go-with-the-flow project, for sure.
I guess that's life in general, though, right? When you have a solid plan, if it never works out, in a way it can end up better than what you probably imagined if you'd stuck to that plan, right?
G: Yeah, absolutely. It's just so unpredictable how it turns out, and we’re really proud of the end result.
And you started up quite quickly, would you say, or is that just me just imposing that answer on you? (Laughing) As you guys have evolved from the pandemic to now, that's a very short amount of time. As now you seem to be everywhere, with online reactors recommending you and then the playlists too.
G: That means a lot, because I’m sure many bands feel this way, but you feel like you're such a small fish in this huge pond. You feel like you haven't blown up. So, other people's perspectives – it's so interesting. For example, your perspective and other peoples', they say the same to us. You guys are everywhere; you're doing this, and you're doing that. I guess, to me, it doesn't really feel like it (laughs). But it’s so nice to hear, as you know, sometimes it feels like the algorithm loves us, and other times it doesn't (laughs).
I try not to put too much pressure on anything. Because I find when you do, that's when you get disappointed. So, we’re very much just trying to enjoy the process and enjoy the people we're working with and just see what happens. But it's certainly nice to know that you're seeing us in places that I'm not seeing us in, so that's great!
When it comes to release days, do you like to check in on peoples reactions or just let it do its thing? When the album comes out on October 2nd, are you going to be online actively looking at people's feedback? Do you want to hear it or eventually, you're going to be like, 'Actually, don't…' I should switch off from it all?
G: Yeah, I mean I don't let opinions get to me at all. I used to when I started the project in 2020. I started this project with my guitarist. Before, it was a band. Many people don't know this, but we started as a solo project. It was myself and I was still working with the guitarist, Adam, he was just the producer, and it was an R&B project. I've always been in the metal and the rock world, like in other bands, but I wanted to try my hand at R&B.
What made you switch from metal? As I imagined, it’s a bit intense, right?
G: I feel like that too and it used to get really bad. I feel like that world actually just wasn't really made for me, and the feedback, you know, reflected that. As soon as I said, 'Right, let's just turn this into a band,' I said, 'Adam, would you like to be in the band?' Yeah, cool. (Laughs) And then we adopted two other people.
As soon as HRTLSS became a rock band, officially in November 2023, when we released a single with an artist called REEBZ, called “Signs of Life". That was our inception into the rock world. As soon as that dropped, it was like wide-open arms, we were so welcomed into the rock world, and it was so cool. Technically, HRTLSS kind of began in 2023 and 2024, but I was around for the COVID period, just making R&B tracks and doing the whole SoundCloud rap stuff, and you know, I used to love Juice WRLD, Little Peep, and The Weekend, like, that kind of scene. That's what actually inspired HRTLSS to begin with, and then eventually I was like, what am I doing? I just need to make heavy music.
And all of that is 100% showcased in your sound. I kind of like that there's no box for you. Not that genre's not important, but have you purposely done it so you're not boxing yourself and your creativity in?
G: Definitely. You know, not to sound negative, as there are so many talented people out there. But when I’m scrolling through TikTok, I see so many amazing bands every day, but a lot of them sound exactly the same, so we try and do it a little bit differently, but without trying. I think we're just, you know, we're inspired by Bad Omens, Architects, Dayseeker, and Bring Me the Horizon, but I definitely think we just have our own sound. I don't think we try to, I think we just do. Whether that's the vocal style, I think my vocal style's a little bit weird, so to speak. (laughing)
So I think that kind of separates it. But certainly, when we're in the studio, if you strip my vocal off the track and you're just listening to the production. Especially because we work with this guy called Nathan and another guy called George, and they've worked with, like, Sleep Token and Loathe. If you strip the vocals away, it does sound similar to those bands. As soon as you add that vocal back in, it sounds completely different. So I think it's a lot to do with the vocals. I think the soft vocal and the R&B inspirations – I think that kind of makes it sound a bit different. So yeah, I guess we want to hold on to that. Rather than trying to sound like everybody else.
Online reactors always tend to say your music is for fans of Bring Me, Bad Omen, etc., and it's a mix of so many bands, yet they still call your music so fresh and original. How do you go about doing that? Your process has obviously made it that much more organic for yourselves just by doing what you want.
G: I mean, for sure it's one of those things. I mean when I was a kid, there was this band called Mode Step. They were like a mix of that scene, the sort of alternative scene, and yet they were just so different. And then came along 21 pilots. Again, in that scene, yet they are so different and stand out with various sounds. So I guess yeah, perhaps it was always my intention for HRTLSS to kind of be that in the metal and rock scene. Switching the sounds around and then came along the giants that are Sleep Token. And I was like, oh…(laughing)
Great. (Laughing)
G: (laughing) Ah, we aren’t the first anymore, they've gone and smashed it. It's cool to be slightly different, for sure. But yeah, Sleep Token, you know, they're the new pioneers now of making rock and metal accessible and commercial. I mean, I guess you could argue Linkin' Park did that back in the day. You've even got Jutes. Who I love, I feel like Jutes is also doing a stellar job of making metal. really commercial, and even likable within the commercial world. Does that make sense?
For sure, and I’m always intrigued by the word commercial. For some people they hate the word commercial. I think the idea to make music eventually is that you want it to go to a bigger audience, and that is not the main goal, but obviously you do want it to be seen a bit more.
G: I mean, a lot of people just try to be so niche, and I think it gets a bit tiring. You know, if it's good, it's good
If you like it, you like it.
G: If you like it, you like it. If it's bad, it's bad. So… (laughing
Something else about your music is the contrast between your heaviness and your vulnerability in your music. Is that something that, again, you've naturally come through in your songwriting, or is it something you've consciously explored, or do you specifically sit and have to sit with all of that emotion put into your songwriting? Say, Pulling The Thread, that, to me, sounds incredibly vulnerable and I couldn't think of sitting down and writing all these words, singing them, putting them out to the world, and letting everybody else sing along. I think that's really brave. Do you intentionally do it, or again in that state of go with the flow process which then results in this great song?
G: Damn, that's such a good question. The songwriting is split 50-50 between me and Adam, our guitarist. So, as you mentioned pulling the thread, I can answer that (laughing) because that's the one that I had a lot of parts to play in the writing of that song. I mean, me and Adam we come across, like, such strong people. But we've both been through so much. When I met Adam, he was the full-time carer to his dad and I had been through a decade or so of a bunch of stuff. But, we've been through hell and back, so we have a vulnerability, so it has to come across in the music, and actually, I don't think…we've done it well enough yet.
Personally, I feel like we will; whether that's another EP's time or another two EPs' time, there's a lot more vulnerability to come out, and actually, back to what you were saying about what Pulling the Thread is about. A lot of our songs are relationship-based. And that's great sometimes in the pop world, but I feel like in the metal world, some people just don't care, you know? I would rather be singing about, you know, the things I've been through, the stuff Adam has been through, outside of relationships. Because that's much darker and much more relatable. So I think in the future, we're going to focus more on that side. The internal struggles, I feel, are more relatable, especially in this world, this heavy world. I think it's time we probably stop singing about girlfriends and ex-girlfriends (laughing)
But that’s not a terrible thing, though is it? (laughs). That's a good stepping stone, right? As listeners will go, 'Oh, I've been through that.' Do people come to you and say, 'Oh, that really resonated with me,' or 'Thank you for writing this song'? XYZ? That feels surreal to you, like, that little song you've put out into the world has made an impact.
G: For sure, I've had that on Instagram a lot, and it is just the best feeling. Like you were saying earlier, when you say, you see us in different places, I think the artists never truly see the effect they have, but, you know, I get messages on Instagram saying that this song meant so much, or we had to reduce our catalogue a little bit, because through my SoundCloud years, 2020 to 2023, I'd accumulated all these tracks on Spotify and everything, and when we went rock, I needed to clean it up. I felt like, personally, I needed to, just for the future of HRTLSS. But when I reduced the catalogue and removed it, I think it was, like, 15 songs, the amount of people that reached out. It was overwhelming.
With this album, how many songs did you have? Did you have so many that you had to just whittle it down to a certain select, or did you have a set goal in mind when it comes to the tracklist? How do you put them together?
G: For The Devil on My Shoulder. , we had about 15 different demos. And then, we just went over them with the producers we've been working with and whittled them down. There were some disagreements, for sure, you know, some of the songs we thought were the best ones, they thought were the worst (laughs), but we worked together, we got there in the end, and I think it's a good project, for sure.
When it comes to listening, how do you prefer that first listen to be for fans? Do you just want someone just to sit with it fully? You know how some artists are like, 'We want you to just sit in the dark, put your headphones in, and just listen start to finish, instead of skipping or just putting shuffle on?' What do you prefer?
G: Yeah, I mean, it's hard, isn't it, these days, with attention spans? You know, we're a baby band as well, so we're still not at that level where like thousands of people are obsessing over our projects. We'll get there, I'm sure, but, you know, right now if we were to do an album, which I can't say we're going to do anytime soon, because I believe you only get one chance to do that, like a full album, I'm talking 10 or 15 tracks.
If we're to do that in the future, definitely, I want it to flow in a certain way, I want it to tell a story, I want people to be able to listen from start to finish and go, oh my goodness, you know, this song now makes sense because of that song earlier. And, you know, there's an artistic approach to it, but with this EP, it's very much just, right, guys, we've got four songs, which order should they be in? (laughs) Which track should be the title track? What should we call it? It was very much like you said earlier, go with the flow process.
It'll be more organic that way, instead of it being too try-hard on your first album. What's the best single off the album for you, personally? Be it lyrical or sonically?
G: I mean… Probably… Okay, vocal performance – I was most pleased with how I sound in the next song that's coming out. It's not a single per se, but it's on the EP, The Devil on My Shoulder, it's the title track. It's track 2, and I feel like that was the one for me where my vocals were probably the best. I'd never actually screamed in any of our songs before. I literally learned how to scream for this EP. I think I've got it, so I put it down on this track. There's a little bit in "Pulling The Thread," you can hear a few aggressive vocals. I've always done the kind of the Chester Bennington-esque, like, we call it scringing (laughing). Scream singing, which is essentially singing but closing your throat to get a raspiness. I've always done that, but as far as, like, actual aggressive vocals.
I hadn't tried that, so I put that down on Devil on My Shoulder, so that's our first track where people will actually hear me screaming properly. And I'm really proud of it. But as far as songs in general, I think "To Dust" probably takes the lead. I think that track is just a really cool track. I think it's a very good book tok. I think it's very current, and yeah, it's a very good song.
So, when you say you're learning to scream/springing, just in general, who do you take influences from today amongst the music world, or do you prefer to stick with, like, the old school? whoever influenced you growing up, like, the classics, the icons.
G: I mean, it's such a mix. We'll be in the studio messing around on the guitars, and we'll do something and be like, that sounded a bit Korn, you know? Like, I like that. Or all that vocal sound sounded a bit nu-metal. There are definitely influences from the 90s, the noughties, the early noughties, and even the screamo days, Under Oath. Devil wears Prada… And definitely all the new bands.
We love Day Seeker, we love Bad Omens. I love Day Seeker, and I especially love Rory's voice, and I love what he's about. I mean, these are the guys we look up to. I can only hope that one day Heartless becomes that good. These guys are, you know, the pinnacle of this industry, so, you know, very much in a flow state, and I’m just glad that people like this band. It's just cool to be in a band, you know? Like, I took 10 years out of music where I wasn't doing it at all.
If you don’t mind me asking.. What made you stop and take that time out?
G: Well, I mean, the first band I was in. We did a lot of touring, like, I kind of lived the dream at a really young age. We did so many tours. We were around the same time as Youmeatsix, Enter Shikari and then Architects were coming up, and so we were sharing stages with them, but we were like a baby band, and super niche.
Many people would have heard of us, and many people wouldn't have. I'm not even going to mention the name. But we were sharing stages with all of those bands and I performed one of our biggest sets in my first ever band. I remember Sam Carter from Architects watching me from the side stage. Nodding his head. I did all that at the age of 15 and 16 and toured around Europe, spent days and days on the road, skipped my GCSEs, and missed all of it.
And yeah, we were little rock stars (laughs) But just way too young you know, then came the drugs, alcohol and it was really bad. Like, it went to our head. And after about 5 years of it, I was like, you know what, I need to get a job. I'm a scrub. So I went and took an apprenticeship in hairdressing, and that's what I still do now. I work a few days a week in that, because of course, you know, HRTLSS is my baby, but it's still my part-time job.
I like hearing people talk about how they have another job around their music. Like, a lot of people creatively don't have this as their full-time job, so it's quite nice that you said that.
G: I absolutely love it as well, it's so creative. I spend most of my time just chilling with really cool people, and making their hair look amazing. (Laughing) But after 10 years of ONLY doing hairdressing, I was, I suppose, getting a bit bored. And I was like, right, let's start a new project. So, yeah, I started it in lockdown and released the first track in summer 2020.
Of course I’m not saying it was a good thing as it was shit, but if COVID hadn't happened, then many perhaps wouldn’t have ventured into going down a creative route again. Did it make you sit and go, 'Oh, I want to be creative again. Like, what can I do?'
G: Yeah,(laughs) I think it was an accumulation of things. I think, you know, during that time, during those 10 years where I was only doing my hairdressing, which, again, I love, it was nothing against that, but, you know, I had nothing else. I had no other outlets, so my outlet was substances and alcohol. So, there was a lot of that, and I was, you know, going out 3 nights a week, getting up to no good. And in my head, I was like, 'I need something to balance me,' and I was like, 'It's music; it's got to be music.' So, I started it up, and music's been great for me, and also my wife, like, throughout lockdown, she was like, Start a band. So, the short lockdown was amazing, because I couldn't work. I did have time to write all these songs.
You guys had a lot of time off, right?
G: Like 12 months without hairdressing. I mean, broken up, it was great. Like a Sabbatical. (laughs)
You guys have always been, I would say, from the looks of it, your socials you always seem very independent-based, and you have this freedom to do as you want. How hard is it to hold on to that in the future and continue to be unique to yourselves?
G: That's cool, I'm glad that it comes across that way. Yeah, for sure. We're trying not to be too manufactured. It's really difficult, you know, because you want to look like a really cool and slick project and product, but at the same time, you don't want to be impersonable. And I think HRTLSS has really struggled with that, actually, because, you know, we've had meetings with humongous label executives, right, that promised us the world. And said to us we think you guys should go masked. It’s like, 'No, we've had that.'
Really? I was going to say, everyone's going to start doing that especially with President becoming so big. But what's the point? Like, that one person's doing it, it's doing really great. Leave it.
G:I think it makes you even more impersonable, personally, I think as well. I love it, and I love President. But it's going to go so far, and it's going to get boring.
Yeah, and it's been pandered to, and it feels like it's going to be more commercialised, again, but for money.
G: Exactly. I'm pleased that it comes across like we're kind of doing our own thing. We're definitely, you know, trying to find a balance between being personable and letting people into our world but also looking slick. (laughing)
Talking of Instagram, your tagline says, 'Where heavy meets fragile.' Is that essentially your two main keywords to the group, 'heavy' and 'fragile', together?
G: Definitely heavy and fragile. I should have probably asked the other three boys if they were happy for me to do that (laughs), but I just thought, "We need a thing, and we're a heavy band, but with like vulnerable vocals."
Okay, now we're getting a bit more, you know, aggressive and spicy with it, but it's still mostly vulnerable vocals, so I was like, 'Right, vulnerable.' But what was the word I used? Fragile. Fragile is a great word, and also metaphorically, if you think about 'heavy' and 'fragile', what happens when you mix the two? It's broken, right? And that is, very much the inspiration, I feel, behind a lot of the songs.
So, like I said, you've made good use of your social media, it's not too in your face. It's curated quite nicely. How is your approach to social media? Do you feel like, as an independent artist, you have to build that audience really, really quickly, or is it just something you want to organically do?
G: I'll be honest, I really struggle with it. As I do run our socials, and I really struggle with it, in the sense that the algorithm is so unpredictable (laughs).
It's difficult, right? But the algorithm never works for anybody, no matter how many followers you've got. I have a love-hate with our socials too (laughing).
G: (laughing) Right? So ours goes through phases. We went through a phase where all of our TikToks were popping off to at least a minimum of, like 1,500 views, which would be our lowest count. Then suddenly we’d go up to, like, 25K on average, right? It's posting every day, doing really well, but now it's, like, gone back down again. I'm sure it'll go back up again. When this EP is out, I'm going to post a hell of a lot. I've just decided, why not? I'm just going to throw mud at the wall, especially on TikTok. But yeah, it comes in trips and traps to go up and down with it. I don't like our Instagram to look too spammy. But at the same time, I should probably be posting more on Instagram.
Now that people's attention spans are much shorter, did you feel like you have to create music with that algorithm in mind? Like, is this going to be clippable for a 60-second reel, etc.? Is that another part of making music today that gets mentioned or part of what you have to think about now, right?
G: It's the worst. We sat down with our team the other day, and one of the questions that came up was, like, what song and what specific 20-second section of that song. Guys want to push the most.
When you have those talks it must be a bit frustrating. Do you have to talk about how the title track has to have a clippable chorus? etc
G: Yeah, I mean, generally the chorus has to be the most clickable part, right? I think if you're an amazing songwriter, which I definitely don't declare I am at all. I have got a long way to go, but if you are an amazing songwriter, clipping your songs is so easy. But equally, if you are an intricate, interesting, avant-garde band like Sleep Token, that's harder to clip. So it's difficult these days, for sure. Which is why you then have to go either for a mega commercial and clippable chorus or be really bloody interesting, and it's… It's hard finding either one.
So, besides the album, what does the rest of the year have in store for you?
G: Get the EP out, and we've got another show coming up, Castle Fest, in a week or so, which I'm looking forward to. That should be pretty cool. We are in talks for a tour for next year, but, you know, with these things, it's like… Anything can happen, but it's looking likely that we should be out of the UK and Europe next year. With a really cool band, but we're just waiting for them to work out what they're doing, because they've got so many amazing opportunities coming their way, and they want us to go out with them. As an opening band for them. So fingers crossed that comes together.
What's your approach to touring, now you're a fully-fledged, mature adult?(laughing) Do you enjoy it more now?
G: I'm a… I'm a sucker for comfort, so, like, I love cuddling up on the sofa at night with my cat and my wife and having two hot showers a day and a bubble bath. (laughs)I don't tour too well, to be honest. I prefer comforts, so I will probably try and find the nicest bathroom in every town I go to. I know that's not very rock and roll. Call me a princess. (laughing)
That’s just your home comforts (laughing) Will you do any festivals next year?
G: We're not lined up for any festivals, we've done two this year, by the time we've done the next one. They're good staples on how you build, and both the festivals we've done this year, so you've got Collision Fest, which is the first one we did, which is a new festival, and then you've got Castle Fest. They're kind of your stepping stones. You know, we want to go do 2000 trees, and we want to go do Download, but you can't really do those until you do these two. We're working on it. Let’s see what happens. We belong at Download. They need to pick up and book HRTLSS for sure.
Plus your sound, I imagine, translates well live too.
G: It translates so well live. So, yeah, we want to go out and do a lot more. But we don't have a booking agent, you see. We're fully independent, besides a little bit of help from Papercut Recordings, which handles our distribution side of things, but, you know, without an agent, it's a lot slower. But we've managed really good quality over quantity thus far. I mean, our first tour was with Mallory Knox.
Which is huge, right?
G: It kind of helps that the band was formed around two of the members originally. When HRTLSS spawned as a band, we were working with Dave, Mallory Knox’s drummer, and James. Mallory Knox's guitarist. We're still working with Dave on and off. He fills in when our drummer's not available, he's a busy boy. And we're still working with James, he is our bass player. So, you know, we had a way in. They were helping friends, but that was an amazing tour to do. And, you know what? In this industry, even when you've got friends in high-up places, it means nothing. It means nothing. They can sing your praises only so far.
There are so many bands out there that deserve the success, but without that viral moment, or that one song, then some of them don't get to the top as they should, I think.
G: Yeah, 100%, 100%. But one of the coolest things about this industry is now being able to meet people I admire. Like I'm pals with one in particular that I can think of, that I would have said, to 14-year-old me you're crazy. I'd be like, no way, you know? That's one of the coolest things about this world for me, personally, is, like, chilling with heroes. Even getting good advice, but, you know, even they can only do so much. I think if the way it worked in this industry was, who you know, it still helps, but that’s just not the case. You know, every friend of Beyoncé's, Bruno Mars, Taylor Swift, you'd hear about them all, but you don't. You have to have that stuff.
You have to have the idea, concept, and of course the talent. (laughing)
G: (laughing) Exactly, and at the end of the day it comes down to the listener and fans. The people have to love you.
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