Interview: Weatherstate Talk Up Their Latest Single, ‘Hangar’

Weymouth punk band Weatherstate are hitting the ground running in 2021 with the release of their cathartic new single ‘Hangar’ via their new record label Rude Records. The riff-fuelled composition is expertly produced by Four Year Strong impresario Alan Day and is a first taster of what’s to come from the band this year. We sat down with the four piece to get to know them better.

Congratulations on the new release ‘Hangar’, where did you guys draw inspiration for this one?

Thank you so much! It’s hard to tell where it all started. I think the initial idea for “Hangar” came about around the start of the first lockdown. I was just messing around with some weird guitar pedals which became the intro riff. It developed from there into a bit of a rocker. It’s certainly different from what we’ve done before. It’s more driven and hard hitting. We really spent time on making the instruments sound way different to our older works, especially the drums. Lyrically, Harry took a tonne of influence from a phone call he had with a friend discussing how f*cked everything is and from that, learning to find our own individual coping mechanisms and how resentment can come before that. Understanding that sometimes a crutch is needed to stay sane, whether that be self-destructive, or progressive through the helping hand of a friend.

How would you describe your music to someone that has never heard a Weatherstate song?

It’s a tough one, I guess at its core Weatherstate is gritty punk rock band so naturally that’s what comes from us. We’ve always prided ourselves on melody and energy. We’ve dipped our toes in a lot of the sub-genres within that, especially when writing over the past couple years. We’re usually the ugly duckling of the line-up, no matter what kind of show we play on.

What has been the highlight of your music career so far?

Jeez, that’s a big question! I haven’t really thought about it too much. I guess some of our favourite moments have been building a campaign up which is something we very much elaborated on with our last record “Born a Cynic”. We decided to throw “the rules” out the window so to speak. We just wanted to have more fun with it. This culminated in us doing a shot for shot parody of Green Day’s Basket Case video in 2019. I guess we did this after being compared to them for the majority of our band’s lifespan haha. The crowning achievement of our video was getting the attention of Mike Dirnt of Green Day. It blew our minds that we managed to get our art to an idol of ours. It was more than surreal to see him tweet about us after a long shift of flipping burgers for me. Truly weird.

You’re signed to Rude Records alongside Australian artists Stand Atlantic and Waxflower, how’s that going?

Yeah! Great bands too. Australia has always been a great export for music. It’s been amazing so far to work with Rude and I’m so stoked that they have such a great team there. They’ve really got stuck in with some of our crazy ideas it’s super cool to see they also have so many ideas too. Really excited for what’s to come and it’s a pleasure to be part of the family.

When the world eventually gets back to normal, can we expect a tour to Australia?

Ah that would be so good! It’s certainly on our bucket list to make it over there one day. Right now, the priority is just making sure everyone’s safe in our own country before we can even think about that stuff. Travel really did put a spanner in the works for our plans in 2020. However, we’re remaining positive and we’re really looking forward to what this year will bring, and fingers crossed that we will be able to see the fine Australian folk one day in the future!