WORLD OF JOY: A SILLY LITTLE THING CALLED HARDCORE
March is at the mercy of World of Joy! From their new single ‘Exposed’ to ‘New Bloom Festival’ and their upcoming tour with Gatecreeper (USA)…WOJ are all smiles. I had the pleasure of discussing their upcoming record, tour plans, and vulnerability in the HC scene.
Interview + Images by Day West
How would you describe WOJ as a collective & what drew you together?
The band was initially started by Liam, Mitch, Jake, Josh and Nathan. Played a few shows and two of the guys stepped away just for family matters. Which brought Al, who in turn brought Axel into the band. As a collective, we’re just a group of friends who spend most of our time chatting and hanging out, which eventually leads to music.
I guess this silly little thing called hardcore is what drew us all together and what keeps our friendship forever changing.
WOJ has a distinctive sonic element to its sound - a liveliness and strong sense of self that carries through all of your material; especially on your most recent release ‘Exposed’. What do you think your music is a projection of + how do you translate your energy so seamlessly into your recording process?
It’s definitely a projection of self, and being able to deal with a variety of different elements and aspects of life as an immigrant. Being able to say something loud and proud, and feel like I’m giving a voice to people who feel like me - Exposed being an example. As a result of that, it just helps amp all of us a band and give energy to the music.
The recording process is something we take a lot of consideration into. We spend time working through pre-pros and playing parts, then restructuring and reworking portions until we find something that translates into what we envisioned. Then it’s listening to various inspiration points for time and vibe before jumping into the studio with some of our favorite engineers (shout out Pip and Kriz).
Your new record is almost upon us… How do you personally connect with the music you’ve created, and what do you hope listeners take away from this record?
As a whole - it feels like the most cohesive sound we’ve had to date. All of our favourite elements from previous work, melded together into something that we loved writing and will love playing too. We hope that not only do people take away the message in the lyrics, but that it makes you excited to go to a show or start a band. We’re really proud of these tracks and we hope people love them as much as we do.
The mood and atmosphere is just creating something fast and punky, but incorporating a lot of grit into the mix. Almost like standing next to a speeding E.M.U. train.
What role do you believe vulnerability plays in the creation of authentic and relatable music, especially In a genre like hardcore - which at heart is highly emotionally driven music?
More than anything you need to be true to self when being vulnerable. If you feel as though you have a message, you need to first be comfortable with yourself before you’re able to show that kind of openness with a larger audience.
By this point in time, I think we’ve seen a wide variety of artists and bands with messages that truly mean something and listeners and show goers are able to tell when something is genuine and when it’s being phoned.
Can you reflect on the symbiotic relationship between the artist and the audience, and how you harness the energy of live performances to inform your creative decisions in the studio? Hardcore is a very give-take genre in a way where live shows are very much an energy exchange, so I’m curious to know how that form of connection instructs the recording environment.
This is a great question, especially for anyone who has never done a band before. If you try to write music that inherently is for a live performance, it typically loses the element of effect after you play a few times. If you write something that you care about and are proud to put forward for people to experience at a show, that energy is almost impossible to replicate and only comes when there is substance behind the music.
Every artist has a different way of composing - Can you walk us through your creative process when writing and arranging songs for a new record?
Jake is the mastermind behind the sound. He usually demos out a bunch of various riffs (train noises included) that he sends to us to sit on. From there, we workshop different parts together in our practice room, and talk about where we think certain parts could go, what we like about parts, what we’d like to do and build off that further. Collaboration is very fundamental. That way you get 5 style points heading down the same path with the chance to branch off into different directions and give you different sounds.
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Axel
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Jake
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Liam
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Al
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Mitch
WOJ is headed on tour in April with USA’s Gatecreeper! You’re hitting a lot of locations too - this is a really solid amount of tour dates, about 10 from memory? What are you most looking forward to when it comes to touring outside of playing the shows themself?
I think most of all we’re all just excited to see our friends from different cities, but also making new ones along the way. Food will also be a huge part. We’re going to be trying a bunch of different spots along the east coast and hopefully, even get some time to try something when we’re in Perth as well! But the main thing is really just catching up with the people we don’t get to see outside of QLD as much.
Touring means long hours of travel and spending a lot of time together as a band. How will you maintain camaraderie amidst an avid magic player?
We’re going to bully each other. Endlessly.
Really though when you’re stuck traveling, you get to find out little bits and pieces about each other that you wouldn’t really get to know. There’ll be stuff like fast food tier lists, learning about what someone’s favourite type of album is from a niche genre and just chill and listening to that as you drive. You also get to find out how deep each other’s mid-week hobbies go, like spending hours and hours playing Magic the Gathering, as well as revisiting each others’ first bands!
But we’re also going to bully each other. A lot.
As we know, the DIY ethos is integral to HC - Can you talk about your experiences with self-promotion, booking shows, and releasing music and give some advice to younger bands in the scene who are starting up?
The DIY mindset comes from really wanting to control the outcome of something that you’re passionate about, and in tern - people get to see and even experience that passion. For something like self-promotion, it’ll always be the building blocks of how anything starts. It’ll be an echo chamber as the beginning but with any subsequent growth, comes expansion and that leads to more eyes on what you’re doing. That goes for making music, booking bands, running shows or even doing a label.
When it comes to advice on doing any of that as a younger band or someone trying to start booking/a label - you really just have to ask questions. Look around and see if there’s something you particularly like, and from there talk to that person and see if they have some time to chat about how they got started. You have to remember that they themselves would have been in your same position, so they would have the best methods in terms of getting started.
Can’t be stated enough that there are no trade secrets in hardcore and if you put in the effort, people will see and eventually resonate with your work.
‘…there are no trade secrets in hardcore - if you put in the effort, people will see and eventually resonate with your work.’
