BRYAN GARRIS OF KNOCKED LOOSE

Bringing their southern metal core to the Southern Hemisphere, Kentucky outfit Knocked Loose join Knotfest 2023. The bespoke festival conceived and created by Slipknot is headed down under this March. Musicology speaks with vocalist Bryan Garris about their inclusion as well as their love of touring and blown-out pedal boards.

Question: You'll be appearing on the heavily curated bill for Knotfest, not only must it be a nod from your peers, but you can you tell us how you were approached and what it means to be featured on a lineup like this?

Bryan: It's a huge honour to be a part of the line-up. We were fortunate enough to be a part of Knotfest in Iowa, which I believe was their first time doing a show in Iowa in a very long time. That was one of my favourite festivals that we've ever played, just the entire day, like performing and experiencing it and being there as a fan. So, to be a part of the first time they're bringing it to Australia is a huge honour, and something that we're very, very looking forward to

Q: When playing a festival slot, do you approach your set in a different way with perhaps a more considered set list, venue / atmosphere considerations, or simply treat it as you would a stand-alone show?

B: We definitely have to switch things up a little bit. Normally on a festival, especially a festival like Knotfest with so many artists and just two stages, usually you have a shorter set time and a faster change over time, so you gotta be on it. Every second that you take a little bit longer to set up, it's less songs that you get to actually play. So, we definitely try to keep a set list that's focused around the hits and, and just come out swinging and playing all the favourites back-to-back. We try to squeeze as many as we can into a festival set list so that it doesn't feel like we're just getting three or four songs. And our songs are pretty short, so we can fit like nine songs in a 25-minute set.

When it comes to curating the experience, you just kind of have to learn how to communicate with the different crowds. Like obviously I can't talk to a giant outdoor festival the same way I would talk to like a little DIY hall. You just kind of learn how to communicate to those crowds and what people respond to and in different atmospheres. And it definitely helps make for a better show.

Q: With so many shows under your belt, can you share with us a particularly memorable gig and what made it so remarkable for you?

B: I'm going to narrow it down to Australia specifically. The first time that we ever came to Australia was a time that I'll never forget. Like - it was the furthest we had ever been from home, it was the summer and we were swimming every day while we were trying to fit in as many shows as we possibly could. So, we were doing shows on the off days, we were doing after shows, we would play a show and then we'd go play another show somewhere else in the same city. There was one night that we played we played a show with Stick To Your Guns, and then we branched off and played our own show at, I think it's called BANG, a nightclub-type thing.

So, we went there and I think we were slotted to play around midnight. We had already played a show, so we were all pretty shot, and we were just in the green room, like laying around all tired and just trying to rest before we had to play the second set. And then around midnight we went to set up, and it felt like nobody was there to see a show. They were just there because it was a bar and they were hanging out, and I was like: “we're about to really interrupt these people's good time”. And then the people that were helping us set up accidentally plugged our pedal boards into Australian converters, or Australian power. And there wasn't the converter to help switch it, so it blew all of our pedal boards and we couldn't really play.

Our tour manager left, and he went and got the converters from Stick to Your Guns who were at a hotel asleep and then brought it back to the venue. Then we set up, but I think we didn't start playing until like 2:00am. There were so many people there, it was probably the biggest attended show that we’d played so far. But, like I said, they weren't there to see Knock Loose, they were just at this club. And since we didn't have any pedal boards, there were no noise gates. The second we turned the guitars on, it was just this loud, piercing feedback, and they had to tune out loud, because the tuners were busted. I remember that we were so tired and I was just like: “if they're not here to see us, we've gotta do whatever we can to get their attention”.

So, we were standing there and then the house music went off. They were playing like Linkin Park or something, and the house music went off and everybody's just kind of standing there watching us like: “okay, start”. And the band was like: “okay, are you ready?”. And I remember they were like: “let's do this!”. They turned their amps on, and it was this obnoxious feedback. And the second that the feedback started, I ran as fast as I could and I just jumped as far as I could into the crowd. Like the second our set started, I staged dove with my arms wide out. And the set was insane, the second that I jumped into the crowd, people started stage-diving. I feel like by the time we played, everybody was just so drunk because it was 2:00am, and the show was reckless. People were jumping off of random stuff and jumping onto us and stage diving and moshing, and it ended up being so much fun that when we were done, we were like: “who cares about our gear! Twas insane, we just played a show at two o'clock in the morning in Australia!”. And I remember when I jumped into the crowd like that, I hit like somebody's head with my hip and I had this giant bruise for the rest of the tour. But it was worth it. It was so much fun.

Even when we tour now, we did a tour with $uicideboy$, they're two rappers that are doing like 20,000 tickets a night in the US, they're so big. And they had all these giant video walls, and for the first four days, they couldn't get them to work. And I was like: this is somewhat comforting knowing that no matter what the level is, there's still a level of DIY where you can run into stupid problems like this, and it's not just Knocked Loose!

Q: Having met and performed with so many different musicians and artists over the years, during that time, have there been any defining moments or words of wisdom that were spoken to you that really resonated with you and in turn altered the way you approach your craft?

B: I would say that when we started touring, I feel like we were the “young band”, our guitar player’s the youngest one in the band, he's like 25. So, when we started touring, he was like 17, 18 years old. I feel like we all tried to learn as much as we could from the bands that we would tour with, and there were a lot of bands that kind of like, I don't wanna say “took us in”, but a lot of bands saw that and really went out of their way to make sure that we made the right decisions. And there are friendships that we still have because of that. To this day, I never want to get to the point where I stop learning new things or stop being excited about what we're doing and making new friends and learning from them. I know that's kind of like a blanket statement to answer that question, but we're always trying to learn and we are always learning. Like, every tour we do, I feel it's just a little step forward, and every time we kind of just show up. And we're like: “one, how did we get here? And two, how do we do this?”. And it's been a very, very rewarding process, learning how to do it so far.

Q: In what ways has Kentucky shaped your music and helped carve out your signature sound?

B: Kentucky itself I don't feel like really shaped the way that our music sounds, but I feel like it kind of shaped the attitudes that we carry and the way that we like to present the band to the world. I feel like Louisville is such a small city that everybody kind of has to stick together and work on it together in order for something like a hardcore scene to exist. Therefore, you have a pretty mixed bag of individuals. And then you have a lot of mixed shows where you'll have metal bands and punk bands and hardcore bands and metalcore bands and whatever you want to call it, all playing the same shows. And we just kind of unconsciously took that attitude into touring. When we started touring, it was like: “we'll tour with whoever, we'll tour with rappers, we'll tour with a pop punk band”. We just want to play shows and it doesn't matter who's playing before or after us, it's not gonna change the way that we sound or the show that we give.

It kind of worked in a sense of spreading us out over different subgenres and putting us in front of different people that would've never heard about us other than that. It’s kind of just like that small-town mentality I guess, of everybody being in it together. It helped us not have any sort of ego attached to what we're doing that somebody that's spoiled from the coast would've had or something.

Q: From 2016’s Laugh Tracks through to 2019’s A Different Shade of Blue, how has your sound developed, and in what ways have you tried to push the sonic boundaries?

B: I would say that with our music, it's never really a conscious decision to change. And I wouldn't say that it has changed tremendously. I would just say that over the years we've found new ways to challenge ourselves as songwriters, and that's definitely introduced some new elements to our music. But the main goal of our music is to just create intense, aggressive, heavy music. That's one thing that will always stay the same. But I love finding new avenues to take inspiration from and seeing new ways that we can expand on what Knocked Loose is sonically without jeopardising the most important thing to us when it comes to our sound; the important thing being the heaviness.

Q: Lyrically, is there a common thread tying your tracks together with an underlying constant or do you tend to approach writing in a very topical and current manner that tries to encapsulate a given moment or period in your lives?

B: I would say it's very time and place situational. It kind of revolves a lot around mental health or just my own personal struggles with grief or loss, those are topics that I've touched on a lot. But it's never been an intentional decision to tie anything in. It's just very much what I'm feeling at the time or what I feel like I need to talk about since the last time I wrote. And those things just kind of naturally come out in the writing process.

Q: Can you elaborate on your methodology towards that of your artwork. Not just album art but also that of your video clips and what kind of thought processes and creative discussions go into designing each?

B: So, me and our graphic designer, we have one guy that does everything. Him and I work together very, very closely when it comes to how we want to present the band aesthetically. And we work on everything together. He does everything from, like, website layouts and backdrops to merchandise and artworks and everything in between. It's been an awesome experience having somebody that I can work so closely with where I can really focus on small details that I may not be comfortable enough to really express at an agonizing point with someone that I don't know as well. It's been awesome working with him, and through working with him, we've kind of shifted into this lane of our own vibe, aesthetically, which isn't something that I really planned on doing.

We would create a bunch of influences and a mood board. And through that, we got the album art for A Different Shade of Blue, which is the first thing that him and I worked on together. And then going into A Tear in the Fabric of Life, we knew that that was kind of the standard for the aesthetic. So, we kind of built from that and just brought in new, darker elements, and it's a very rewarding process being able to work so closely with him on the art because I've always cared so much about the art. I look forward to continuing our relationship so that we can keep coming up with crazy stuff!

Q: On a personal level, what does music give you that nothing else does?

B: Everything, really. I feel like everything that I have in my life, I can credit music and my journey through music. And it's given me the opportunity to travel the world, which is something I never ever did before I toured with Knocked Loose. I never really travelled and it's given me the opportunity to meet people that I've always looked up to. And it's strengthened my relationships at home because it makes me value my time in between tours more often. It's strengthened my relationship with my brothers because they've gotten to travel with me. And my partner Taylor, she's such a huge hand in what Knocked Loose does.

It’s kind of just this thing that started as a hobby that has taken over every aspect of my life in a very positive way. It's something that I'm constantly very, very grateful for.