MY DESIGNS
BY RICK FULTON WHEN his twin brother Tom died of skin cancer two years ago, Dan Searle of Brighton metalcore band Architects had two choices.
He described his options as: “Feel sorry for yourself, and believe the world to be a horrible place and let it defeat you. Or let it inspire us to live the life that Tom would have wanted us to live.”
Not only did Dan lose his sibling, he lost the main songwriter of the band he’d formed with brother Tom in 2004.
It’s the hardest decision for any band after they’ve lost one of their members – carry on or walk away.
But Dan opted to draw inspiration from their tragic loss – and was determined his pain and loss would benefit others.
He hopes new album Holy Hell, their first since Tom’s death, will help anyone going through loss.
He said: “To help other people through their pain would be an amazing thing to be able to take away from this.
“I was very worried about people taking away a despondent message from the album.
“I felt a level of responsibility to provide a light at the end of the tunnel for people who are going through terrible Architects drummer Dan Searle tells why he kept the band going after tragedy in the name of brother Tom experiences. Because I would after Tom’s death, I didn’t deal have liked that when Tom first with it at all and I felt so died. Hearing someone else unhappy and anxious,” Dan articulate it in the way we have said. “I hadn’t dealt with it or done here would have been acknowledged it – I’d ignored it something that would have and just tried to cope. But I really helped me.” knew that at some point, I had The group won best to learn from it. British live band at “At the time, we told people the 2018 Kerrang! that we had no idea what Magazine Awards would happen to the band. and fans will find And that was for real. I really out why on January believed we could keep going 17 when they play as a band but, in many ways, it the O2 Academy in felt like a ridiculous ambition Glasgow. to have.” With Holy Hell reaching The group went on a No18 in November, this year pre-booked tour of Australia will all be about touring the and then the UK and Europe, songs that rage and rip at the eventually bringing in Josh heart in equal measure. Middleton as a full time But it’s taken Dan nearly guitarist. three years to get in the right What feels different about headspace. Tom died in the band’s album is not Tom’s August 2016 after a private, absence but a more accessible, three-year battle with his melodic song structure that illness. “In those first months feels like Biffy Clyro’s fourth album Puzzle in 2007. A step up that might have disappointed older fans but brought many more new fans to their door.
And like Puzzle, which dealt with singer Simon Neil’s loss of his mum, Holy Hell doesn’t shy away from the hard questions.
Dan explained: “For me, broadly speaking, Holy Hell is about pain: the way we process it, cope with it, and live with it. There is value in pain. It’s where we learn, it’s where we grow.”
The album opens with Death is Not Defeat, a song dedicated to Tom.
“I think a bit of him felt like he was letting us down by dying and I couldn’t have him feel that,” added his brother.
The final track, A Wasted Hymn, is devastatingly beautiful with its lyrics: “Can you feel the empty space? Can you feel the fire at the gates? Can you live a life worth dying for?”
Dan added: “I desperately wanted the album to be lyrically authentic.
“I originally wanted to make a sequential album that went from, ‘f*** life’, to, ‘life’s OK’, but that’s simply not how grief works.
I wanted to express the blunt end of grief, where it can feel like there is no point in life any more and I didn’t want to censor that.”
Holy Hell is out now. The band play O2 Academy, Glasgow on January 17.