Interview: Will Putney on END's 'Splinters From An Ever-Changing Face'
Composed of Brendan Murphy (vocals), Will Putney (guitar), Gregory Thomas (guitar), Jay Pepito (bass), and Billy Rymer (drums), END are a hardcore supergroup to be reckoned with. Their debut EP From the Unforgiving Arms of God was released in 2017, and from that release, fans have been itching for the latest instalment of the bands concoction of groovy riffs and punishing breakdowns. With END’s new album Splinters From An Ever-Changing Face on the horizon, we were able to get into the mind of guitarist Will Putney, to get the inside scoop on what went into the new record, and so much more. Give the interview a read and be sure to check out the album when it drops on June 5th!
Ryan: Is END excited for this upcoming release?
Will: Yeah, very excited! We've been sitting on this record for a minute, so I'm glad it's finally coming out.
Ryan: How long would you say you’ve been waiting?
Will: We've actually had the record recorded for probably over a year now and we were just trying to align it with our schedule, so we can go out on tour on it. Which obviously isn't happening, but it took a while for us to try to get all lined up, because everybody's busy with their other projects. But yeah, regardless, I’m just glad the record will be out soon.
Ryan: Starting with the humble beginnings of the band, how has it been for you guys coming together with so many different experiences? Is the vibe different from your original projects?
Will: I think so, yeah. I think the whole concept behind wanting to start this band was it's just to get an outlet to play this kind of music that I knew I wasn't really getting with my other band and Brendan wasn’t getting with Counterparts. We're all doing other things, but we really like this style of music and I just thought it would be fun to put some people together and try to make a record. That's really how the band started. The first time everybody even met each other - they're all other musicians who I had previously worked with in-studio, so I knew we would all gel - but we actually all were in the room together for the first time like on day 1 of recording, which was fun! A lot of the whole foundation of this band was just to make music that we all liked and we're passionate about. But I knew being able to start with talented guys and hand-pick these dudes to be like, “Hey you're good at this and you seem to really understand it, like let's do this” and it was just a cool concept.
Ryan: How has the fan reception been considering the audiences for the different bands that everyone's in, the different genres that everyone kind of fits into?
Will: I think it’s been pretty good. I'm surprised that we had as many cross over fans with our other projects as we did, because I think it's such a different band. For example, I guess for me I like if a band is cool in whatever sub-genre they’re in and I enjoy it. I can understand why people who like more melodic metalcore stuff like this and then some of the death metal kids, who like Fit For An Autopsy, could you know find something about END that they like - so there's definitely some crossover. I think initially that was a good catalyst for getting the band off the ground. Now I think we're starting to get fans from the actual genre that I think this record will live in, you know. I think it is cool to see new people who don't even really follow the other bands to take an interest in what END is doing.
Ryan: Nice. For making the follow-up to your last record, was there something involved in the recording process that you guys wanted to prove to yourself?
Will: I don't really know if we had anything to prove, other than this one was really fun in a sense that we just wrote whatever we wanted, you know? Usually when I make a record with other people, they are fun, but if I'm producing a record and it’s still creatively fulfilling for everybody involved at the end of the day, I'm still sort of making a record for somebody else. It's like it's a group thing; it's a group call, but it's still somebody else's vision and goal that I have to cater to and make sure that the artist is happy and we get the record to a certain place. With this record it was just us doing whatever we wanted in life, not really caring at all about what other people wanted to hear from the band, what people would expect from the band. So it's very liberating to do records like that when you're just making music for yourself that you like and I’m just fortunate that other people like it as well.
Ryan: Does the work in END allow more freedom than your originating band?
Will: It’s just a different kind of thing, like for Brendan and me for example, as we’re members of other active bands. We definitely both have a foothold in certain styles of music and it’s not that we can’t experiment and venture out with our respective bands - because we both take risks with those bands and every record tries to do something fresh - but it's in a more defined lane. We can't really go too off the rails or it's sort of not really servicing what's cool about the bands and what the fans want. So I do feel like END was a good outlet for getting this stuff out of our systems that we would have been trying to maybe force into those projects and that divide in saying, “No this is kind of thing we would do for END” kind of focuses the other bands. It's made all their projects feel more cohesive and stronger and I think that's what my favorite part about doing this band is. I can sprawl out of focus to my songwriting for both projects.
Ryan: That's awesome! Does the term “supergroup” introduce a welcome pressure to push the music further, or is it nothing more than a buzzword that has no effect on the band's work ethic?
Will: I think it's a little silly. We’re just dudes in bands that like this kind of music, you know? Of course if I'm going to start a band nowadays, I’ve worked with hundreds of bands, I'm not going to go get strangers to play in a band with me or try to find some guy who just hasn't toured, hasn't been through it, like in my area or something. I just wanted to make music with people who I respect, in this course they're going to wind up being guys in bands. By nature this music is just so anti-hero at its core like that I don't really understand why people make such a big deal about supergroup-style stuff. This is the type of music that certain individuals don't make or break anything like this. There’s no rockstar ego shit in hardcore and grind. I think it’s a talking point press stuff and I appreciate that people care enough about the projects that we do to consider that we're some kind of supergroup. But at the end of the day, I just think the music speaks for itself and that’s all I really care about.
Ryan: What were your influences going into writing and recording Splinters From An Ever Changing Face?
Will: We definitely wanted to push the extremes a little more from the EP. I think we brought a lot more of a grind influence to this record and just bands like Napalm Death and Rotten Sound, things like Decapitated. More over-the-top stuff that we all like. We were like, this is like the most full on way to do this, why don't we do stuff like this? I think you'll hear more of that on this one. There's more chaotic dissonant hardcore stuff that comes with having Billy in the band now, so that gives us a little more freedom to get a little nutty that way because that's sort of his bread and butter from the Dillinger days. There's more songs - the record’s 11 tracks, so we're able to explore different vibes for different types of songs on this one. I think the EP was kind of down the line, one style and one thing and there's a little more variety to this record.
Ryan: What do you want people to take away from the new album?
Will: It's pretty uncomfortable as a record. You know that we like making this sort of dark, heavy, full-on music and I just want people to get out of it whatever makes them feel good. I don't really have an answer. People consume music like this for different reasons, you know some guys just want a gym playlist, some people use it to escape reality. Some people used to relate in a lyrical sense on things, topics, and themes that they can kind of relate to and kind of helps them see that they are not the only person in the world that feels like that. So there's a positive take from negative emotion, but whatever people want to get out of it is good to me. I'm just happy that people give it a shot and listen to it.
Ryan: That’s good. On that note, what track are you most excited for fans to hear?
Will: Ooh, that's a good question. I don't know, we put out a few that I was stoked on already. There's some that are more adventurous later in the record. I'm excited for people to hear the outro cause that's a bit of a different style and approach to this than we’ve done before. We’ve got another single releasing closer to release week that I think people are going to dig. It’s called “Hesitation Wounds,” that’s one of my favorites. It’s kind of a good problem when trying to pick the lead tracks and singles because I liked the whole record, so I was stoked on the whole thing.
Ryan: Are there any big plans moving forward for END?
Will: Well we want to be on tour. We'd actually be on tour right now and the record would have been out but with the state of things, stuff moved a little bit. But now it's all kind of waiting to see when we can get back out there.
Ryan: Cool dream bands that you would want to go on tour with?
Will: Ooh that's a good one. Would love a Napalm Death tour, definitely would be into that. Rotten Sound, really love those guys. Would love for Trap Them to reunite. Could rip some shows with some classic Swedish bands, I would be really stoked. Wouldn’t mind a Dismember run and At The Gates run would be cool. Any of the Euro stuff that doesn't really make its way over here would be really fun to watch those guys play every night. There's a lot of new younger bands I would be very excited to tour with. Anything with Cult Leader, I really like their last record. I think that's a band that kind of gels really good with our sound. I could sit here all day listing bands though.
Ryan: The use of paintings as your album covers is now a reoccurring thing is there a reason for your choice of artist and the style?
Will: We just like that vibe. I really like working with Adam Burke. He did the last record and he’s also a friend and I have trust issues with artists when I haven't worked with them before. I had a couple bad experiences where the album art didn’t go the right way, or a design didn’t go the right way. When I find an artist I really like, I try to back them and support them. Adam’s one of my favorite painters in the world and it was kind of an easy one, and the concept was similar to the EP. Just go to Adam and get exactly what we want.
Ryan: Between the EP and this LP, what was one thing you guys wanted to do differently / accentuate / highlight that you feel that the EP didn't do?
Will: We definitely did the EP for fun and we didn’t spend a ton of time on it. Once you realize people are actually pretty into it, we just wanted to take the LP a little more seriously. For the LP, we wrote more songs, we cut more fat. Like I said before, we were able to take the music in directions that wouldn't fit on an EP, cause it would have felt a little more confused over the course of five or six songs. Now I feel like on a full-length record we have some new vibes, ideas, and approaches. It's just a little more experimental, yet focused than the last one.
Ryan: Final question, if the world returned to normal tomorrow what would be the first thing END would do?
Will: We would try to book a tour, immediately. I’d probably chase down some retail stores to make sure they had our records, because it comes out next month. Try to rebook some of those dates we had to cancel or push back in the pipeline for shows.
Ryan: Probably my first thing too, buy a ticket to an END show.
Will: I didn’t realize how much I’d miss shows.