Sink The Ship erupted into the underground heavy music scene with their energetic, bold and bright post-hardcore and pop-punk infused blend of metalcore in 2012 – and since then, they’ve been sailing stronger and stronger with each passing year. Their debut full length album ‘Persevere’ is released April 27th so we spoke to vocalist Colton Ulery about the new songs and how it all came together.
Steve: Hi Colton how’s things with you guys?
Colton: Good man we are dropping the new album very shortly and we are preparing for a tour of the States so we are excited and busy.
Steve: Great! So for the people reading this interview and without sounding nasty or rude I hadn’t heard of you guys prior to getting the press release so would you mind giving us a brief history and how your sound came about?
Colton: Sure thing. We are a four piece band from Ohio in the United States, we’ve been grinding it out for the past six years basically since 2012 and we finally got an offer from a label which was SharpTone and for the last year has been kind of like, I stand up for what we are doing now and all that stuff. As for our sound it comes from what we want to hear, we get a lot of influence from bands like A Day To Remember so yeah there you go.
Steve: Awesome so I also see that you have teamed up with one of my favorite vocalists in Levi Benton from Miss May, I how did that one come about?
Colton: We talked about the options with the label about features and stuff like that and Levi said he wanted to do something so we sat down and decided on what track we thought he fit best on and next thing you know he is in Ohio and we are all shooting a video together, so that is how that all happened.
Steve: Cool so is Levi from the same town as you guys?
Colton: No we are from Cleveland and Levi is from Dayton so we are about four hours apart but I think all of us being from the same area, that sort of helped him say yeah I want to help you guys out.
Steve: So the album title “Persevere”, how did that come about? Was it a name that you guys liked?
Colton: I think the album title basically it sums up the theme of the album, that life sucks, try to find your own way through it and be as happy as you can be.
Steve: Ok fair enough, so do you have any favourite track or is that difficult to call at this point?
Colton: Oh no man going into it, it would have to be track five “Nail Biter”. I put a lot of myself into the lyrics, I think that it’s relatable to a lot of people with things like anxiety so yeah I hope that that song hits well with people and it’s definitely my favorite song.
Steve: Exactly and I’ve had the pleasure of listening to the album in its entirety and just when you think you have it figured out, it takes a sharp left or right and I think that is what will set you guys apart in my opinion anyway.
Colton: Oh yeah man I think that is what we were going for and it’s not to knock any other band but we didn’t want to write the same album that sounded like the same song over and over and we were trying to go left and right up, and down, to try and keep people on their toes with it.
Steve: Awesome and I suppose you guys get asked this a million times but are there any plans to head down under at any stage?
Colton: Well right now we have some tours planned for the United States and Europe, something probably will be in Australia in 2019. Probably not this year just because I haven’t heard anything, I’ve been doing a lot of interviews with people out your way so I think the label is trying to build a presence so we can do something like that.
Steve: Well it would be awesome to see you guys for sure! So what was the inspiration behind this album? I know that we have spoken about anxiety and those types of subjects, was there anything else that was kind of burning away?
Colton: I don’t think so, there were things I had to deal with and things I drew inspiration from 2 or 3 years ago and it’s all things that have happened to me and it feels great to have it off my chest. I’ve wanted to write and have songs like this for a long time.
Steve: Was there any musical inspiration? I know you want to take your own direction and that is awesome but was there anything at all musically?
Colton: We get compared to a lot of bands but honestly no, when I’m writing I don’t even listen to music because I want it to sound as organic as possible. The only thing I listen to while writing is rap but obviously we aren’t in the genre, I’m not sure if that leaks into our music but I don’t hear it.
Steve: It’s always interesting to get people’s perspective on this as it can vary so much. Some people I’ve spoken with previously walk away entirely, some immerse themselves and some go “lighter” dare I say.
Colton: For sure man I totally get that!
Steve: So if you could have your dream producer who would get the call?
Colton: Well we were extremely happy with the production on this album but it would be awesome to work with Andrew Way or Jeremy Mckinnon from A Day To Remember, reason being that I think they have a strong hold on the genre and I think if we were in any spot with what to do next they would know. I think they would be able to compliment anything we weren’t able to do.
Steve: So in other words you would feel like your in safe hands?
Colton: Absolutely!
Steve: Well it’s been great speaking with you today, thanks for your time and thanks for putting out a killer album!
Colton: Thank you man, it’s been fun. We’ll talk soon, cheers!
Grab the new album ‘Persevere’ on iTunes.
