Music Q&A with Alex Gray of Palps
Photo courtesy of Palps
Palps is a rock band based in the UK that is getting ready to release their album, Black Heart! Although the album won’t be out till the fall, the band is busy telling a story with their music videos. In this Q&A, vocalist, Alex Gray, talked about the album, the music videos the band has released, how he tries to stay positive, and more! For fans of Movements, Citizen, and The World is a Beautiful Place, Black Heart will be available everywhere October 7th!
Congratulations on the upcoming release of Black Heart! What does this album mean to you?
As a band the album means everything to us. It's the culmination of months of hard work and sacrifice. To see the singles actually being released now brings us so much joy after so much stress and so many sleepless nights.
On a personal level, it's a bit of a double edged sword. On the one hand, I am so very proud of what we have achieved. On the other hand, a lot of the songs are deeply personal and can often remind me of some pretty dark places I've been to. That being said, making the album and getting it all out there has been a wonderfully cathartic experience. I don't want to sound too artsy here but it was almost like this poison that I had to get out of me, once I started being more open about everything, things began to get better.
Black Heart sees the band turn the eight-track album into a harrowing eight-chapter short story with the utilization of music videos to highlight the daily struggles of someone navigating their poor mental health and how it affects not only them, but those around them. How was it decided this was the path the band would take; creating music videos for each song?
I was actually watching a podcast featuring Danny Freeman from A Few Too Many and Jaret Reddick of Bowling For Soup. During the podcast, Jaret mentioned that albums aren't really consumed in the same way they used to be and you are better off releasing all the tracks as singles every couple of months, then compiling them as an album later if you feel the need to do so.
After hearing this we started toying with the idea of releasing each song individually and I knew that we needed to have a cohesive story to tie everything together. I went to the guys with my scheme and they were all (luckily) on board!
What’s your favorite song off of Black Heart?
It's not out for a few months but the song 'Imprint' I think has to be my favourite. It's so different from anything we have done before and I hope people will be pleasantly surprised when they hear it!
How did Covid affect the making and creative process of the album, if it did at all?
I think Covid had a huge affect on how the album turned out! We had a long period of time where we were practicing weekly but there were no venues open to play live. Because of this we had nothing to do except write new songs and tweak songs we already had. So I would say we spent much more time on an individual song than we normally would during the writing process. There are also a few extended instrumental sections I'm not sure we would have included if we had been playing the songs live at the time!
Also, I found lockdown incredibly difficult after the first few months and really spiralled into a bad place. I think this could have really affected the tone and lyrical content of the album.
We all have our days where it may not be going as well as we’d like. People deal with their worst days in different ways. What helps you get through the bad days? How do you stay positive?
I think you're 100% correct where you say that people deal with sadness in different ways. My advice to anyone struggling would be to take time for yourself and do things that bring you peace, no matter how small or silly they may seem to other people. As long as they are not damaging to yourself or others in the long run! I'm certainly guilty of not being able to process my emotions properly, so I would often drink to shut my brain up.
For me, as silly as it sounds, my dog has been such a lifeline for me in my darkest moments. He needs me, so no matter how terrible I feel, I have to get myself up and feed him, take him out for a walk etc. I also have terrible self esteem issues, I quite often feel like I'm a failure or broken by design. Then I come home and he is so excited to see me, it's totally unconditional love. To him it doesn't matter how successful I am or what's wrong with me etc. He just loves me for being me and it brings me tremendous comfort.
I'll probably lose some Rock and Roll points for this second one but I absolutely love playing golf. I find that when I'm particularly stressed, going down to the driving range and just aimlessly hitting balls for an hour really relaxes me!
Thank you for taking the time for this Q&A. Any last words or final message for the readers?
Thank you so much for having me and I really appreciate your support in featuring our songs!
I'd just like to say that whilst the album is very bleak and as dark as the music videos get, I hope listeners can derive some positives from the album. This album is the culmination of ten terrible years for me, where I went to hell and back and quite often I just wanted things to end. But, tomorrow I am going on tour with my 3 best friends and for the first time in forever, I'm excited to be alive and can't wait to see what the future holds. I guess what I'm trying to say is, there's always hope and things do get better given the right support!