Image Courtesy of Eleven Seven MusicEscape the Fate releases their new album Hate Me today, October 30. Going into the album, the band wanted to avoid one thing: cohesion. While creating a "cohesive" piece of music is often something bands strive for, frontman Craig Mabbitt believes that Escape the Fate's previous devotion to that concept has kept them from fully embracing the diversity of their sound.
"We kinda got pigeonholed in over-thinking that aspect of it way too much, and I mean that in the fact that we tried making our albums cohesive," Mabbitt tells ABC Radio of Escape the Fate's previous mindset. "Like 'Oh man, I really wanna do a heavy song, but let's not make it too heavy because is it gonna fit on the record if this poppy song comes right after it?' And we just threw that all out the window [on Hate Me]."
By ditching the goal of achieving cohesion, Hate Me contains what Mabbitt believes is Escape the Fate at their heaviest and at their poppiest. Case in point: the album's opening song is "Just a Memory," one of the band's heaviest tracks, while its closing song is "Let Me Be," is a big, poppy ballad. In fact, Escape the Fate had a long discussion about whether they should end Hate Me with such a poppy song.
"We got in that same mindset where it's like, 'Does this heavy song really belong right after this?' and it was like, 'You know what? F*** it man, let's end the album with the ballad, let's end it with the slow song! Why not?'" says Mabbitt. "I've been listening to it a lot lately and I really, really like it there, I like that it ends off with that, because it kinda leaves you like, 'Whoa! That was different. That was weird, that was good, that was awesome. Let's listen to that whole album again!'"
Even with some of Escape the Fate's poppier songs, Hate Me carries an aggressive tone thanks to its title. Before the album got its name, the band wrote the song "Hate Me," the chorus of which Mabbitt describes as his favorite on the record. As he continued to write lyrics for what would become Hate Me the album, that phrase was stuck in his mind.
"So I had this 'Hate Me' title in my head since that first chorus we wrote, and then once the record started coming together, I noticed that that same theme, and even the same word 'hate,' is throughout the album," Mabbitt explains. "Even if it's a positive song, it kinda seemed like it was a theme throughout. And so I figured that was the best title to give it."
Escape the Fate is currently on tour in support of Hate Me, including a show in Poughkeepsie, New York on Halloween night. As for the band's planned costume, Mabbitt says they will be paying tribute to their love of video games.
"It seems to be the consensus of the rest of the guys that we all wanna dress up like Mortal Kombat [characters] for Halloween," he tells ABC Radio. "So anybody coming to that Halloween show, make sure you bring your cameras and you get prepared to record whatever we're gonna walk out on stage as."
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