Dan talked to Matt Hughes from Australian sludge metal band Loner about their upcoming Album “Warning Signs”, Metal Alliance Festival 2024 and more…
Metal-Roos: LONER \m/ Hell yeah!! Matt is great to have you on Metal-Roos for a chat. Mate I remember watching you guys make your debut at the Marrickville Bowling Club back in June from my memory. It’s been awesome to see you guys slowly building the hype in the local scene. What has your assessment been for the band’s journey this year as you look back to when the band made their live debut?
Matt: Thanks mate, The last 6 or so months have been amazing, we’ve had a lot of support and friends uplifting us and helping us out. The scene is absolutely thriving right now, there’s so many amazing bands and shows going on every weekend all over Australia, I can’t even express how grateful I am for the support we’ve received in such a short time.
Metal-Roos: Loner released the debut album “Warning Signs” back in September. I listened to the album a few times this week. I think it kicks arse bro. I personally love the title “Warning Signs” Also I love the Chorus in “Happy Ending”. Those tracks are one of my favourites on the album. When I listen to your music, I feel there are some elements of Nu-metal. Nu-metal is what got me into metal back when I was 15. Overall it’s a good blend of that sludge metal genre you’re after I’m guessing. What was the reaction of those who had listened to your album?
Matt: I appreciate that a lot mate, I grew up on metal and nu metal myself and am a big fan of chunky riffs and breakdowns, I was trying to mesh a lot of genres I like together and incorporate the style of bands like Korn and Crowbar.
The reaction we’ve gotten has been pretty positive but of course on youtube people aren’t always nice, you can’t always please everyone unfortunately but I’m very happy with the sound and response!
Metal-Roos: Good thing about the album. I like the production of the album. You can hear the snare from the drums, the distorted bass, the guitars and the creativity of your music. It has a great groove and I can hear it in the mix. Tell us a bit more behind the scenes of the production of the album, in more of the recording and mixing process?
Matt: The production was amazing, I wrote and refined the album during the pandemic and lockdowns while stuck inside, We recorded with Voya from Morava Audio and he did a stellar job, he’s a close friend who I’ve worked with before so I knew he was perfect for the job, we used an Australian built Charles Cilia custom 8 string and an S7G custom 8 string that was originally built for and recorded with by DL formerly of The Acacia strain.
We used an Orange rockerverb 3 and a Victory super kraken into a Suhr reactive load with blending a few different IR’s and boosting every track with a Fortin 33.
In terms of mixing, Voya pretty much knew how we wanted things mixed because we’ve worked together before so it was a quick and easy process – and I can’t recommend his work enough to anyone looking to record.
Metal-Roos: I mentioned earlier the song “Happy Ending” (ft Devin Mcgillivray) which was also released as the lead-in for the album “Warning Signs”. Can you tell me more in detail what the song is about and also the other tracks that are on the album that inspired the band to create the album?
Matt: Happy Ending is about coming out of a toxic experience in a relationship and seeing the other person going on to find happiness without you and wondering why you were never enough to provide that happiness for them.
One of the earliest songs I wrote the music for was Suspect, we’d done a bunch of demos during the pandemic while we were stuck inside and used and re wrote some of them, so we were already sitting on a bunch of great ideas and concepts that laid the groundwork for the album.
Metal-Roos: The artwork for the album looks wicked mate. Can you tell us who created the artwork and how it ties into the album?
Matt: The art was done by Grymm Darkart, It’s showing the figure in the back basically looming over you, letting you know that something is following you or has a grip on you, such as depression.
Metal-Roos: You guys had a lot of awesome gigs this year in the scene. Are there any personal favourite gigs that stand out for the band?
Matt: Definitely playing Feels Good festival was amazing, I’d just gotten my custom ET 8 string, and the backline at the venue was amazing. I had such a good time there!
Metal-Roos: I hear Loner are doing a cover of Silverchair’s iconic song “Israel Son” scheduled for release on December 2nd. That is such an awesome song. How did the recording process go and can you give us a tease of what we can expect? I feel there will be some Loner elements in this cover song.
Matt: It’s one of my favourite songs of all time and I already knew how to play it, so the recording was super easy. I did slow the overall bpm of the song down and we slightly tweaked the ending to be even slower. I’ve never seen another band cover it and am grateful I got to put my own spin on one of my favourite tracks and I think people will really enjoy hearing a modernised version.
Metal-Roos: Congratulations on the slot for Metal Alliance Festival 2024 returning back to Marrickville Factory Floor next February. I’m excited about the lineup of bands in this festival. (I’m still, like the others waiting for the final announcements) How exciting is it for Loner to share the stage with awesome bands, like Burial Chamber, Pyrefly, Thraxas and Stormtide just to name a few?
Matt: I was fortunate enough to play a previous Metal Alliance with a different band and it was absolutely amazing, great turn out and great bands, to have been included for 2024 as such a new band means a lot to us, some of the bands on it are our friends and being able to share the stage with them and other amazing bands from all over Australia is awesome, looking forward to making new friends and a great show. Big ups to Thraxas too!
Metal-Roos: Apart from the festival, Does Loner have anything planned for 2024? Is the band looking to expand their shows outside of NSW and share the Loner live experience with the rest of the country?
We do have a few plans for 2024, we’ve got a couple shows booked that haven’t been announced yet, plans to release a single and may potentially be doing a split EP and east coat tour to support it, I definitely want to get to Canberra and play Basement and get down to Melbourne for some shows too as we’ve got many friends down there, hopefully we make it happen!
Metal-Roos: Matt, On behalf of myself and Metal-Roos is being wicked having a chat with you. This is the part I say is there anything you’d like to say to the people that have supported Loner?
Matt: Thanks to you and Metal-Roos, this chat has been great. All I can say is to anyone that’s supported us thank you from the bottom of my heart, not speaking for the band just myself, I was quite burned out on music and was thinking of walking away for a long time but decided to finish writing the album during the pandemic and put it out, I couldn’t be happier with the result and the support. It means to world to myself and the band and we hope to see you all at a show soon!
