Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Alex of High Road Publicity for setting this one up. I checked out Written By Wolves’ single entitled “Follow Me”, and I was instantly hooked by how catchy it was! Written By Wolves is making waves in New Zealand and beyond with their infectious rock and commanding stage presence. They have already shared the stage with some heavy hitters in Machine Gun Kelly, Falling In Reverse, and Escape The Fate. Fans can check out Written By Wolves at the following locations:
Madness To Creation: Tell us about the music scene in New Zealand.
Michael: The music scene in New Zealand is amazing, we have some incredible local bands that are doing some amazing things and most importantly writing good tunes and putting on great shows. With the likes of Lorde, her Heroine co-writer, Joel Little and Broods we are starting to receive some international attention which has a great flow on affect for those of us still down here in little old New Zealand. We are still faced with the same issues that music scenes are facing world wide and are currently struggling with live music venues closing down. We have had a few institutions of our music industry in this country close down recently with our favorite venue, The Kings Arms Tavern closing down this week. More live venues are popping up though and we have an increasing number of epic festivals popping up all over the country, we are also becoming more of a destination for big international tours so on a whole the music scene over here is currently really exciting!
Madness To Creation: What are you most proud of from a cultural perspective of New Zealand?
Michael: New Zealand is culturally very rich and diverse and that is something we are very proud of down here. All of the members of Written By Wolves have very different cultural backgrounds yet we are all raised in New Zealand and that is part of what makes the band what it is. The Māori culture is one that is unique to New Zealand and is a bit of a national treasure, if you haven’t heard of them before go and check out a band called ‘Alien Weaponry’, they are a young thrash metal band that sing in Te Reo Māori (the indigenous language of New Zealand), they are amazing!
Madness To Creation: Tell us about the music video for “Follow Me”, take us into the song and music video.
Michael: Follow Me is the first live video we have released and takes place at Bay Dreams festival in Mount Maunganui, New Zealand. This was Written By Wolves biggest show to date and it was an absolute ripper. It was shot and edited by Matthew Clode of AURORA Digital who is an incredibly talented videographer from New Zealand. He did an amazing job of capturing the intensity of our live show and we hope it leaves the viewer super excited to come and see us play live. That is kind of the essence of what the song is about as well, letting go of what you are being told you should do and not being afraid to live a little and have some fun. It’s about not being afraid to be different, or break a few rules or not live up to societal expectations. Everything you should be able to do when you go to a rock show – let go, be yourself and have some fun.
“Follow Me” by Written By Wolves music video here!
Madness To Creation: Machine Gun Kelly is very popular over here in the United States, tell us what it was like sharing the stage with them.
Michael: Machine Gun Kelly was amazing, I (Mikey) got to watch his show from side of stage with Big Shaq of all people, (for those that don’t know who he is search Man’s Not Hot on YouTube) who I might add had taken off his jacket which was a little disappointing, *laughs*, MGK’s show was so much heavier that I had expected, his band was amazing and everything sounded massive – it was just like being at a really epic rock show. He played guitar and was incredibly charismatic. He even played a stripped back version of Numb by Linkin Park as a tribute to Chester which was really emotional and even more special as we had played our own little tribute to Chester earlier in the day as well. He hung around for quite a while backstage after his show as well and was super personable and friendly – all with his guitar still on his back!
Madness To Creation: You are playing the Storm The Gates festival, tell us about that festival and what can fans expect from it?
Michael: Storm The Gates is going to be incredible, we don’t have too many dedicated Rock festivals in this country at the moment so we are very excited to be on the bill. Being a smaller festival no one has to worry about time table clashes so everyone will get to see everything which is going to be epic. Limp Bizkit, Hed P.E, Sublime and Suicidal Tendencies were all massive influences for me growing up so this is one of those moments where you know your teenage self would be losing his shit knowing that he grows up to do something like this! It also falls on St. Patrick’s day so I think fans can expect a really epic day of rock music and a really epic headache the next day.
Madness To Creation: One reason why we should go see Written By Wolves in concert.
Michael: We really pride ourselves on our live show, it is high energy, high intensity and we do everything we can to make sure the crowd is as involved as possible. No matter what size the venue is we try and make sure the crowd feel like they could be in an arena somewhere. We generally extend the stage, bring in extra lighting so it looks epic and we don’t generally go anywhere without C02 jets and a t-shirt cannon. The whole idea is to have as good of a time as possible and make sure you come back with all of your friends next time.
Madness To Creation: The music video for “To Tell You The Truth” has amassed almost 750,000 hits on YouTube, take us into the song and music video.
Michael: We are pretty blown away with the reaction to To Tell You The Truth, it was always one of our favourite songs – especially to play live, but we never really saw it as a single. The director of the video, Josh Mabie, is from LA and he got in touch over a year ago saying he would love to work with us and shoot a music video, so we sent him a few unreleased tracks and told him to run with whichever one he felt he wanted to work with. He picked To Tell You The Truth and we then went about putting everything together. He has an incredible team that he works with and he managed to pull in some really amazing actors, all for next to nothing! He shot all of the scene footage in LA and we shot our performance footage in a car park in Auckland and sent it to him where he and his team put it all together. The finished product is something really special and compliments the song so well and I think fans are really connecting with the emotion of the song and the video. Lyrically, the song was always about love and passion and desire and sex and everything that comes with that, but Josh’s treatment opened up so much more meaning as well. It has been a really amazing project to be a part of and we owe Josh many, many beers.
“To Tell You The Truth” by Written By Wolves music video here!
Madness To Creation: What is the rest of 2018 looking like for Written By Wolves?
Michael: 2018 is shaping up to be a pretty amazing year for us, it started with Bay Dreams Festival and opening slots for Four Year Strong and We The Kings and Storm The Gates is coming up in March. We are also currently writing and recording our debut album which will be out this year as well. We are also planning a trip to the US to shoot another video with Josh Mabie (To Tell You The Truth director for those that aren’t paying attention) and to play a few shows as well so we are absolutely fizzing about that, so watch this space as there is plenty coming your way from Written By Wolves this year!
Madness To Creation: Message to the fans?
Michael: Really just a massive thank you for all of the support so far! We are an independent band from New Zealand and the way that people are finding and connecting with our music is really blowing our minds. As I’ve said earlier we have a lot to come this year so get excited and look out for the first release from our album coming soon!
And there you have it, on Saturday, March 17th, the inaugural Storm The Gates Festival will commence at The Trusts Arena in Auckland, New Zealand, which is headlined by Limp Bizkit. Check out the festival poster below!
Tickets and VIP information is located here!
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