SEPTEMBER: ARCHITECTS
The band released their first single since Tom’s passing
It was a tragedy that fans weren’t prepared for. On August 20, 2016, Architects guitarist Tom Searle passed away after a long and private battle with cancer. The band took the decision to honour their touring commitments, but remained out of the public eye and made no promises about their future. So when they surprise-released new song Doomsday on the morning of September 6, featuring Tom’s riffs, it was an emotional event for all.
“We wanted to do it completely pressure-free,” explains Sam. “When you tell people you’re going into the studio, they start expecting something. If it wasn’t good enough, we wouldn’t have released it. We drove ourselves insane with it, really, with the amount of different choruses and vocals that we put over it. We loved Tom’s riffs, it was just working out the rest of the song.”
Doomsday was accompanied by an equally poignant video, directed by longtime collaborator Stu Birchall. Filled with imagery of space and matter, Tom’s brother, drummer Dan, is the focal point. It hit home with fans, who posted about how much they had connected with it.
“It was exciting, because it felt like we were giving something back to our fans that had been so supportive to us throughout everything,” says Sam. “Stu is just a genius and he completely gets where we are. He was a really good friend of Tom and completely invested. It felt so important for the focal point to be Dan – he wrote the lyrics to the song, and it’s basically his point of view.”
The day after Doomsday came out, former Sylosis guitarist Josh Middleton, who had been touring with the band since Tom’s death, took to Instagram to announce he had become a permanent member of Architects.
“As soon as he started touring with us, we knew that he was the one,” says Sam. “He’s such a great musician, and someone that Tom looked up to a great deal. And he looked up to Tom. It already felt like he was in the band straight away, especially on the first tour. He was playing through Tom’s guitars and amps. Sometimes you could turn the other way and you’d be like, ‘That’s literally Tom playing,’ which is a massive compliment to him.”
A few months on, Sam still feels rightly proud of Doomsday. It also marks the start of the band’s next chapter, which they’ll continue at their sold-out show at London’s Alexandra Palace in February.
“The funny thing is, we’ve never played Doomsday live,” Sam reflects. “This amazing song’s come out, and at the moment it’s our most popular song on Spotify. We’re out of touring cycle, so it’s like, ‘OK, I guess we’ll just wait until Ally Pally, that’s fine!’ I love the song. We pushed ourselves to get the best performance we could, on all of our instruments, and it’s wicked. We’re moving forward.”
“Tom looked up To Josh a great deal, and he looked up To Tom. We knew he Was The one”