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Hi guys, welcome to VENTS! How have you been?
Hello! We’re doing great, thank you
“The Others” adds a new character to your growing mythos. When did you realize that this character needed his own chapter?
So the song itself was actually written during the studio sessions for our first album, around two years ago now, and the story was in a very different place then in terms of how much
of it I’d thought about and planned out. Over time as the ideas began to really take shape, I realised that although the first two albums were always planned to take place in a very specific setting, I wanted to be able to move around a lot and sort of break the rules of my own story in the future. I invented this character that’s almost like a supernatural Doctor Who, a pretty intense guy who has the ability to move through time and cross between universes, because I knew that eventually I was going to want to play with that idea. He’s the key to the entire thing.
You said that the main character was a former Sweeney Todd who became a ghost hunter in space and time. That’s a crazy and movie-like jump. What made you want to mix gothic horror with sci-fi multiverse stories?
I’m a huge fan of Sweeney Todd as a character, i’ve always loved how dark but also whimsical and off kilter his story is, and I especially adore the musical. Him being a reincarnation of Todd is a fairly recent development, the character himself is public domain and as soon as I realised I could use that as a playground it all began to fall into place for me narratively. The interesting thing to me about our character Daedalus Grim is that although he has this horrible, dark past, he is genuinely trying to be a better person and live a better life. But then again, he is capable of these incredible acts of violence, and that will act as a narrative time bomb. There’s always the risk that he may return to some of that violence, if pushed far enough.
The song has the groove of Queens of the Stone Age, the story-telling ambition of Coheed and Cambria, and the progressive complexity of Dream Theater. How do you take in those sounds without losing your own?
The Others actually felt like a stylistic diversion for us in terms of sound, which has been fun. We’ve always worn our influences proudly on our sleeve, but The Others, and most of the new material that we’ve yet to release, definitely feels more “us”.
“The Others” looks at cycles of destruction and starting over. How much of that theme is about how you’ve changed as artists?
It’s a deeply personal song for me. It was written during a difficult period of time, we had just parted ways with our original drummer back in 2024 and there was some bitterness around that. The theme of reinvention and rebirth, trying to make amends for the sins of your past, is something I latched onto because I’ve always felt like quite a self destructive person, and that’s something I want to change. This band’s original form as Fate’s Hollow, our previous name, had a completely different lineup of members and for all intents and purposes was a different band. That project was beautiful until it wasn’t, and I played a role in it falling apart, which I don’t feel wonderful about. This song presented itself as an opportunity to acknowledge that change, take ownership of it whilst embracing the potential for the future. It’s a song that felt necessary for me to be able to move past the guilt and bitterness I held about it, it really does feel like an important stepping stone both inside the concept we’ve built and for me as a person. Sometimes as people we fail, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way forward. You just do your best not to repeat those mistakes. You have to keep moving forward.
Your music sounds like it was made to be in movies, almost like parts of a bigger story. Do you plan out the mythology ahead of time, or do the characters come to life naturally as you write the songs?
A lot of Part Is story wasn’t planned, but there were some core ideas and themes that were present. The idea of a character dying young, having a difficult relationship with his father, being a troubled youth in general, these ideas all came from my own life experiences and definitely informed that first chapter quite a bit. For the things we’ve got in the works right now, eventually leading to Part II, we’ve had a lot more time to think about it, and so the story will feel a lot more present and complex than it has in the past. Starting with this song we wanted to really push the narrative to the forefront and bring people into this world in a way that they can follow from the start.
What makes “The Others” the best place for new listeners to start when they first enter your world?
It was designed to work on its own, but also tie into the future of the story. The song is fairly self contained narratively, it’s very much about Daedalus and who he is, so it works almost
like a side story. He will eventually become a significant part of the main storyline, it’s going to be very fun. Outside of that though, it just works really well as a sort of microsomic version
of what we do in general. It’s everything we’re about distilled into three minutes.
The video that goes along with the song expands on its story. How important is the visual part of THE HEIR APPARITION’s world-building?
It’s a pretty vital part of our project that we have some visual representation for what’s going on, and who’s involved. From the very beginning we’ve involved some very talented artists in this project to make sure we’re giving life to it in a meaningful way. When people see the cover art for our music, I want them to be able to connect that to the music it represents in a way that tells them who these characters are and what’s happening. The artwork and visuals need to invoke a certain sense of place, or a specific emotion or feeling, that’s going to enhance the songs. For example, the cover art for The Others give you a very clear idea of who this character may be. The esoteric imagery of a shadowy figure in a top hat, framed by a ouija board, its very alluring imagery and the intent is to invite you to think about who this guy might be before you even hear the song.
Progressive rock is often hard to get into and hard to understand at the same time. How do you make sure the riffs hit hard while still giving the music depth and complexity?
While we do have some progressive roots, musically and being a concept band, we aren’t as complicated or technically inclined as the genre label usually suggests. We do have moments where we go a little off the rails, especially in some of the newer material we’ve been working on, but we’re pretty accessible on the whole.
With festivals planned all over the UK and a full tour later this year, how does this kind of storytelling work in front of an audience?
We definitely don’t shy away from it, but it’s not something that we focus on for live shows at the moment. After all, you can’t stop to explain what’s happening between each song, the most important thing is just playing the songs well and giving the crowd a good show, but in the past some people have picked up on the music being a little bit more fantastical in theme, that’s always fun when people can tell there’s more going on beneath the surface. Eventually we would like to incorporate more imagery from the concept into our live shows, maybe we’ll get some banners printed up.
As your mythos grows, are we moving toward a bigger conceptual release, maybe a full-length narrative arc, or will these standalone character-driven chapters keep coming out one at a time?
Without giving too much away, Part II is the next huge narrative milestone, but it isn’t necessarily the next thing on our plate. We’re written quite a lot of music over the last year or so and
not all of it is meant for that album. Based on some discussions I can bring to mind, I think what we’d like to do next is keep working on these little side stories, introduce more new characters, and really give them the spotlight like we have with Daedalus in The Others. That could eventually culminate in bringing them all together for an EP or something like that, but its been really fun writing these one shot character study songs, there are a few more to come for sure.
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