A shadowy band utilizing masks to hide their identities. Non secular iconography. A easy, tantalising assertion: “No names. No previous. No distractions. Solely the mission forward.” Anyone else getting Déjà vu?
In February, a mysterious new band received the metallic world speaking. They’d no music, no on-line presence and solely a single teaser video that raised extra questions than it answered. However someway, President had simply been introduced for the UK’s greatest rock and metallic pageant. Naturally, on-line sleuths went wild. The very fact they shared a invoice with the equally enigmatic Sleep Token helped stir up curiosity, and the discharge of singles In The Identify Of The Father and Fearless months later poured gasoline on.
By the point President made their inaugural handle on Sunday June 15, the thrill had grow to be a frenzy. Not solely was the Dogtooth Stage tent fully packed, however a curious crowd was packed tight across the perimeter, as a lot as six or seven folks deep at some factors.
“That’s essentially the most nervous I’ve ever been in my life,” the mastermind behind President (eponymously generally known as “President”) admits. “It was trial by fireplace – however I’ve seen in case you do one thing that’s actually uncomfortable and laborious, and it goes effectively, the gratification you get from it’s so a lot greater.”
Discomfort has been a key driving pressure behind President (the band) for the reason that starting. Raised in a non secular family, President (the person) left faith behind as he grew older, triggering an existential disaster. The masks he wears isn’t a advertising ploy; it’s a bodily barrier that helps him work via his points and tough topics.
“If you’re institutionalised into one thing and you ultimately get out of it, you find yourself questioning, ‘How a lot of that is what I believe, and the way a lot is what I used to be informed to suppose?’” he explains. “President is the right means for me to discover these emotions and never have it really feel like ‘me’ who has the highlight on them.”
With their masked, mysterious nature, comparisons between President and Sleep Token had been virtually inevitable – and that was earlier than they’d launched a observe of music. With In The Identify Of The Father and Fearless, the band unveiled a sound that felt decidedly indebted to Vessel and co., adopting a equally disdainful strategy to style boundaries as they combine parts of tech metallic, pop and electronica.
However the place Sleep Token have the deity Sleep, President are a lot much less esoteric about their non secular iconography. However whereas it’d be straightforward to think about President as being a unfavourable response to President’s personal non secular upbringing, he’s fast to make clear that’s not the case.
“None of that is anti-religion,” he refutes. “It’s baring the soul of the seek for greater which means. I used to be in a really darkish place 5 years in the past. I couldn’t write about it [in other projects] as a result of I felt too susceptible with all of it; this undertaking has allowed me to return out of that. It’s an enormous journey of discovery.”
That journey started in earnest round Christmas 2023. Lengthy earlier than the thought of masks or hidden identities had arisen, President was writing lyrics for what would find yourself being debut single In The Identify Of The Father, pouring all his anxieties and struggles with faith and God into the track. Quick ahead 18 months, an enormous crowd had been singing those self same phrases again at him.
“They had been singing In The Identify Of The Father like they’d recognized it for 20 years,” he marvels. “I began crying after I got here off-stage. It fucking broke me! I’d written that track earlier than I’d actually discovered how this was all going to suit collectively and play out. It was a observe to myself, the place I used to be and what I used to be going via.”
After Father…, President spent the following eight months engaged on the remainder of the songs that make up the band’s debut EP, King Of Terrors. Maintaining with the non secular themes, the title is a biblical metaphor for loss of life.
“It’s the final word marker – if there’s nothing after loss of life then that adjustments all the things about life, and the identical is true if there is one thing,” he explains. “My uncle handed away a number of years in the past, and that was the primary time I’d had somebody die who was near me after I wasn’t a part of this non secular considering. It hit me actually laborious. So King Of Terrors sums up the journey I’ve been on.”
Though President began out as a solo undertaking, it has since developed into a totally fleshed band with drummer Vice, bassist Protest and guitarist Heist serving to realise “a collaborative imaginative and prescient”, because the singer places it. Hypothesis concerning the identities of its members was inevitable, however President doesn’t thoughts. Discussing a number of the extra outlandish theories, he grins and waves the entire thought away. “We’re by no means going to debate or acknowledge our identities,” he shrugs.
As for the long run, it’s anybody’s guess. The band’s first headline gig bought out in minutes and early subsequent yr they’ll open for Architects on an enormous enviornment run round Europe. The singer hums thoughtfully, contemplating the long run and decides on what he needs. “President is therapeutic, in a means,” he muses. “It’s became this secure area to discover issues I didn’t suppose I may earlier than. So I’m going to put in writing a full-length just about instantly.”
The King Of Terrors EP is out September 26
