Music Q&A with Chris Lawless of Stay Inside
Photo courtesy of Stay Inside
Brooklyn based post-hardcore/alternative band, Stay Inside, released their latest EP, Blight, last month via No Sleep Records and it marks the band's first new music since 2020's Viewing. In this Q&A, guitarist and vocalist, Chris Lawless, talked about the EP, what he would change about the industry if he could, and more! Blight is available for purchase HERE.
Congratulations on the release of Blight! What’s your favorite song off the EP and what does it mean to you?
Hey thanks! I really think of the record as more of a short story than as a collection of songs, so picking a favorite is really difficult! But I'd say that “Hollow” is a song that feels to me like the platonic form of this era of our band. Feels like what we were getting at with Viewing boiled down to its purest state. But also, “Dissolve” is us really trying something new and I think achieving a different type of mood better than we had before. So those two I guess!
You released your first full-length, Viewing, in the spring of 2020 via No Sleep. When looking back at Viewing and Blight, how would you say the releases are similar? How are they different?
Viewing was written and recorded over a very long period of time and we were tinkering with a lot of different influences and digging deep emotionally to build a thing that was personal and relatable. We found out a lot about what we were good at and some things we weren't so good at. Blight was written completely in 2020, so it feels more like a fever. It was difficult and stressful and it kind of just became a cohesive thing because we were all feeling basically the same way and wanted to express a similar thing, but we were able to map that onto the structure of the lessons we learned from viewing. So to me, Blight feels like the sturdy skeleton of viewing with alien monster skin on it.
If you could change one thing in the music industry, what would it be?
Personally, I don't think a profit generating industry around creating art shouldn’t exist, but that would require a lot of restructuring of the entire world so maybe too large for the scope of this question!
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?
Being outside and talking to people. close friends preferably, but strangers are good to talk to as well! there's a lot of horrible shit going on in the world, but creating a community around you can make a better world for you. Also buy a faraday cage, put your phone in there and don't look at it for as long as you can manage. You literally do not need to look at it, stop looking at it.
Thank you for taking the time for this Q&A. Any last words or final message for the readers?
Posting online will never change anything, if you wanna do anything, log off, talk to your neighbors. If you don't absolutely have to make music, don't do it. Love u bye.