HardLore - Patrick Walker of WARNING & 40 Watt Sun’s First Ever Podcast Interview

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

It is my tremendous honor to be joined by Patrick Walker of Warning and 40 Watt Sun for what is not only first ever non-print interview, but also HardLore's first ever 1 on 1 interview with a guest.In this appropriately intimate chat, we discuss his humble upbringing in Harlow, Essex UK.From the Jackson 5 and Tears For Fears to Revelation and Saint Vitus, we discover how Patrick's emotional connection with music flourished, and how he evolved into someone i've always considered to be one of the most personal and deliberate songwriters in the world. We learn the canonical standing of Warning and 40 Watt Sun in Patrick's point of view, the 20 year lasting legacy of "Watching From A Distance" and why now was finally time to return to Warning for "Rituals of Shame."After years of championing Patrick's work both on and off HardLore, it was an honor not only to have this chat, but to share more about someone whose work I admire so much. Thanks for watching._______________HardLore: A Knotfest Series, fueled by Monster Energy.Shot, mixed and edited by ⁠Steven Grise⁠Title sequence by ⁠Nicholas Marzluf⁠• Join the ⁠HARDLORE PATREON⁠ to watch every single weekly episode early and ad-free, alongside exclusive monthly episodes.• Join the ⁠HARDLORE DISCORD• Get 15% off DUNABLE GUITARS with code HARDLORE. Seriously. A guitar. What are you waiting for??? 00:00:00 - Start00:01:12 - Patrick Walker00:02:47 - Finding Music in Harlow, Essex00:04:59 - Doom Metal & Discovering the Guitar00:09:41 - Emotional Connections to Music00:15:22 - WARNING00:18:41 - Revelation Looms Demo00:22:59 - Blessed By The Sabbath00:23:48 - The Strength To Dream00:27:07 - Patrick's Favorite Fret00:30:39 - Re-Approaching Warning00:33:10 - Watching From A Distance00:43:20 - The "Footprints Moment"00:45:42 - Vulnerability in Public-Facing Art00:48:27 - Pardon This Interruption...00:49:48 - Touring In America / Patrick's Love of Food00:56:51 - Patrick on Modern Doom Metal00:58:17 - 40 WATT SUN01:09:33 - Changes In Touring Solo01:12:16 - Rituals of Shame01:23:27 - Patrick on Spirituality01:25:29 - Top 4 Doom Metal Records

Hey, everybody. Thanks so much for joining us this week for this very special, intimate one-on-one conversation with the great Patrick Walker, a warning and 40-watt sun. Now, it's no secret that Warning is one of my favorite bands. Patrick is one of my favorite songwriters, lyricists, vocalists of all time. And not only is this my first hard-lore episode that's a one-on-one interview with a guest, but it is his first video or audio interview ever. It's a very appropriately intimate conversation, and I knew almost nothing about him going in. So sit back, relax, and learn with me in real time

about the life and work of the great Patrick Walker. Hello, welcome. It's Arthor Time. How you doing, Bo? What a day we have on the show this week. This is the first ever episode that I'm doing. all on my own here, all on my lonesome over here, but it's a very special, very appropriately intimate occasion as I'm joined by someone whose music encapsulates

every painful human emotion one can possibly feel. I say that respectfully and would love. One of my favorite songwriters and vocalists of all time from Warning and 40Watt Sun, please welcome Mr. Patrick Walker. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. How are you doing today?

Okay, I'm tired. I've got a lot of you. three days off and I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, good. And thanks for using one of them to be here today. Sure. I know it was a bit of a logistical nightmare to get here, but it is in a way a geographical miracle that it could have happened at all.

You did it. You're a true point. And I really appreciate it. And we're in Detroit, Michigan right now at the beautiful Masonic Temple, Detroit. So thanks for having us, guys. It's a very special place. Patrick's band 40-watt Sun

happened to be playing in Grand Rapids last night. On the eve of Warning's new album, on the post-eve of Beau, it is truly a beautiful thing that we could make this happen. Let's get into it. Because for someone who's at art, I admire so much and have for so long, I know zero about you personally. And I'm so excited to learn. I think that's kind of the same for many of your fans.

So let's go back in time here. Did you grow up in Essex? I did, yeah. Harlow. Could you tell me about discovering music, discovering the guitar, and how you found extreme music in particular? Probably the same as everybody else. You know, I fell in love with pop music at the young age,

and I'm still in love with pop music, you know, as much as anything else. Anything in particular that really drew you in? Like Abba? I don't know. I can't stand Abba. But I think what... I've heard people use the term sophista pop. So a lot of those sophisticated pop bands that were of the 80s, mid to late 80s, I suppose.

So bands like, aha, and tears of fears. And then when I was younger than that, before I really knew what pop music was, I heard the Jackson 5 for the first time and Michael Jackson. And are you taking anything from that creatively at the time? Like, does that, is that informing the way you... Well, almost everything I've ever enjoyed informs what I do in some respect. Yeah, I think it's important to say that because it's sinking in and it's staying with you somewhere. And you always tap into it somewhere, even if subconsciously.

Everything comes from somewhere. Sure. I do remember, I remember being very... I remember looking at the liner notes on off the wall and thriller. When I was really young. And I kept seeing the name Rod Temperton in the credits. And I think that's the first time I learned what songwriting was. Because I loved Rod's songs more than the others. Of course.

And that's like, oh, this isn't all Michael Jackson? For sure. There's other people behind us? Right, yeah, yeah. And in later years, I was able to go and, and I still do. I look for, you know, I look for Rod Temperton albums or albums that he's written songs on. Sure. Were you ever an Elvis guy?

No, not really. I mean, no, that wasn't in my hemisphere when I was growing up. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. We'll talk about that in a second. All right. Okay.

How does Jackson 5 and Tears for Fears lead to Doom Metal? I didn't know what that was until the early 90s. I think that I was in, well, it was a summer of 1989. So it's just before I started high school. Okay. And I went to the Harlow Town Library. and I borrowed two cassette tapes. One was, is it Time Bandits by Hawkwind?

And the other was The Thieving Magpie by Merillion. And the Hawkewind cassette went back. I didn't like that. But then Marillion became my favorite band. And that's when I discovered, I suppose, rock music. Sure. Did you enjoy Motorhead more ever? Not really.

I like some of the records. But I'm not a Motorhead. You're the rare Brit who abstains maybe. You know, I think perhaps a lot of people think they're supposed to like motorheads. I'm not really a motorhead guy. You're a melody man, you know? Well, yeah, I mean, yeah. And then Meridian became obsessed with Merrillian.

Okay. So that really opened the door? Sure, yeah. And then that led to Iron Maiden. I had a friend at high school that was showing me more extreme music and became interested in that. And that led to terrorizer magazine, which took off in the early 90s. And that's when I discovered underground music because there was had a demo as, well, I mean, we'll get onto this. But yeah.

We really will. I started writing off and buying demos from bands. Tell me about some early demos you found. Because finding underground music as a genre and connecting with it as a community are two very different things. Well, I was too young to really understand the community. aspect of it because I was too young to go to the two shows sure I was still 14 years old or something so you're but you don't have do you have an older brother or anything or I have a younger sister okay but she's not putting you on to on napal death you know this was me and a friend at school and

the first cathedral album I heard when I was 14 there you go and and I think that was it yeah and there was that you know an infamous list inside where they said thanks to the following bands for um I don't know what it, for inspiration. Sure. And I'd never heard of any of them, you know. But I had no way of knowing how to hear them. Yeah. And do you remember the list?

Is it like Candlemasse, St. Vitus? Candlemas weren't in it. St. Vitus and the obsessed and Pentagram. And then, you know, and then dream death and revelation and unorthodox. and a lot of the East Coast bands the early Hellhound Records stuff. When do you start playing guitar?

I think I was 15. You're like, I got to get my cathedral troughs. I wasn't playing that stuff when I first picked up the guitar. I was, I was, I don't think I could, I learned to play the guitar really until I was, you know, in my mid-20s. Really? Learn and play are two different things, you know?

Yeah, I was, I mean, I was playing it, but not very well. Were you writing music at all, though, while not playing it well? Well, I mean, yeah, from, yeah, a little bit. Because songwriting takes time to flourish, and yours is all out there for people to hear all. Yeah, for sure. But I mean, I really don't think I was, I even thought about songwriting as a thing until I was in my late 20s. Fascinating. Even the early warning stuff and the first album, I wasn't conscious that I was writing songs.

I don't remember thinking that that was something I was doing. But I wanted to be playing music like my heroes. That was it? You know, yeah. Black Sabbath had to have made a big impact in your life creatively. It did, yeah, for sure. 1990, I got Black Sabbath's greatest hits from W.H. Smith's in Birmingham City Center on cassette. It was moody, heavy rock music to me.

It was nothing more than that. I had no frame of reference for it. Until you look in these liner notes and you see every band, like thanking them. Yeah. Hey, thanks for creating this thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, what is warning in 40 watts on tune to respectively? Well, that's easy for warning. Okay. Because it's standard tuning, but it's, when we made watching from a distance, we were in C. And now I'm 20 years older, we go down to B. Because I can't sing anymore. But 40 watts sun changes. You're just playing around up there. After every song's a different choice.

Okay, okay. All right. Well, we'll get there. Yeah, sure. People have such a a strong emotional connection to your music and your lyrics. Is there a band that did that for you specifically where there was an emotional connection as much as it was a musical connection? I first heard Revelation and it was the first time I realized that heavy music it incorporated a lot of the qualities that I loved in other music. music. So, you know, I was a huge, and still I'm a huge Tim Buckley fan. And it's a very emotive singer, songwriter music. And is it a conscious thing in your mind at the time of like, okay, this is, I didn't know this was an option musically that somebody could mix these two things?

No, they weren't mixing it. Or just conveying what? They were conveying something else. They were tapping into something that I hadn't found in any other heavy music. Okay. And it was something considered and deeply personal and painfully confessional. Is it conscious that you wanted to do the same thing? I held on to it. I mean, they were also playing heavy music, but it felt more progressive than everything else. Sure, I held on to it, but I was 16 years old, so I was... You're plastic at that time, being molded by everything.

Yeah, but it was... I mean, it's still, in terms of heavy music, there, it's still the band over anything else that I cite as informing the trajectory of my career. I don't think many other bands, if any other bands, in your genre, the greater world of doom, umbrella of doom, really come close to conveying that emotion that you're talking about that you connected to in Revelation. And I think a big part of that connection comes from your voice. It's the big X factor. How and when do you start singing? Well, I was always singing.

Jackson Five and Tears for Fears, you know? Yeah, right. But not very well. And, you know, even on the early, you know, the early warning records, I was, it took me a long time to find my voice. And I think I found it when I made watching from a distance. But I think that four-year hi-a-euvre, helped because I during that time, I did a lot of other stuff. I heard you wanted to be an actor?

No, this is, this, I knew you'd ask me this. Everyone asked me, are you a trained actor? This is not true. Are you an untrained actor? No, no, no, no. Okay. And it makes me feel uncomfortable because it, you know, it. Where does this come from?

Well, it suggests that my singing's, I don't know, performative or something, and it isn't. I mean, maybe it is. I mean, all singing is performative, isn't it? All art is, really. Sure. But when it's performing for yourself. But you understand how I might feel. If you were a performative, inauthentic guy, your songs will be short.

I'd love to make short songs. Wouldn't it be great? Yeah, I'd love to. I was watching a Tom Petty show on TV at Andrew's house. And I'd much rather be doing this. and having people, you know, in the audience be having a good time and... It's just not who you are. And feeling good about it.

But it's not, it's not, I don't have a choice. It's just, it's what I do. Yeah, I understand. And I know you don't, you'd mention not wanting people to take your music as a projection of pain, you called it. I don't want to, um, I get a lot of adjectives attached to my, to my music. Of course. I mean, depressive is the first one that this brings to mind. Which that I don't agree with it.

Sure. And that's the thing I wanted to communicate with you is that it is, it is, you can hear emotion and pain in what you're saying without understanding the full context of it, but it's a connection of mutual pain with the audience that brings comfort in a way that is, it is reverse depressive. It's a reductive way of talking about what I'm trying to. to convey. Sure.

And it's, you know, I know what, yeah. It's like I'm not, I know what depression's like, you know. And, and, you know, if you depress, the last thing you want to do is get out of bed and, or get off the sofa and, and pick up a guitar and make a song, never mind have a shower, you know. So, but I, I don't want, to me, to me, for, if music's going to be, it's depressive, it's confrontational,

or it's intimidating. I don't want that. I want, there's a way of articulating difficult or painful things without being like that. I'd rather my music was, felt like somebody coming and standing beside you and putting an eye around the shoulder. That's what I mean by the connection, is it's like, oh, I'm not alone in this feeling or this thought,

even though I don't specifically know what he's personally talking about. It's somehow, applies to this very specific thing going on in my life. And then people end up grateful for it. And that ends up in a deeper connection with it, which I can tell you firsthand has happened, especially with something we're going to talk about in a second. Let's talk about the early days in formation of warning.

How did the band get together? Was it just you and Stewart? Initially, yeah. I'd seen Stuart around because when I left school when I was 16, my mother made me get a job. What was the job? Oh, God, I was working at a plastics factory in Hala. It was horrible.

It was good fumes. And there was one day I was working at this bench and there was a guy obviously me wearing a cathedral autumn twilight t-shirt with long hair and I don't think we even spoke. I was painfully shy. And then I bumped into him again at college, maybe three months later and that was it really. got talking and there was a music venue in harlowe that i discovered when i was 16 and it's not there anymore it was called the square and it was quite a um a nationally renowned music venue and a lot of quite notable touring bands passed through there and that was invaluable not just to me but i

think to anyone that was uh you know in alternative communities in in harlowe in the 90s It felt like a safe place to go to. You can't have a scene without a place to go. Well, I guess you can't. But it was through the square and through Stuart that I met. John, who was the first base player. We played with him. And then Marcus, Wayne, who I still play with now.

We're all very young. Because one of your first real band? Yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah. So it's just an extension of you at this point. Sure, yeah. I mean, Stuart and I used to rehearse, his mother was a, I think she was a caretaker for a,

there was a local church and she had the keys, so she used to let us go and rehearsing the church. I used to walk across town with a practice amp in one hand and my guitar and the other. What was your guitar? What was your first guitar? I can't even remember what make it was, but it was, it wasn't very good. It was the best I could afford. Okay, understood.

I find it hard to imagine that hunger I must have had to rehearse and play music because it was some trek across town carrying that stuff. And what's the goal at the time, just play music with a friend? Probably, you know, it was probably to get, there was a fanzine in the, started in the early 90s from Belgium called Reflections of Doom. I think they ran up to about 20 issues or 25 issues. Very cool. And to me, the ultimate goal is to get an interview in Reflections of Doom phone scenes.

Or a demo review or something. Reflections of Doom, if you're watching. Please reach out. He's ready. What I would say, I've asked around, if there's anyone watching that still has the back issues, I would love to, because I had them all. And I no longer have them, because I've moved house so often. But if anyone's watching that has all of the old back issues of that zine,

I'd love to borrow them or get copies of them all. Yeah. We'll see what we can do. All right. We'll see what we can do. Okay. The Revelation Looms demo. Oh, yeah, yeah.

It's much more classically early doom, you know, Black Sabbath right off the bat sonically. But there's like sludge elements. There's what some might call a breakdown right off the bat, a minute in. And a shocking amount of blues scale for what I know of you now. But your voice is there from the beginning, albeit maybe a little more Aussie-esque. Yeah, a bit high-pitched. Yeah. How was, do you recall anything from putting that together?

I do, yeah. It was, we recorded it one week. It was recorded in February, 1996, I think. I was 17 years old. It was recorded a week after our debut show, which was with Morn. Morn were a London-based the metal band that put out there one great demo and the first album

was on RISE above, well the first and only album came out on Rise Above Records. It was with Morn and Orange Goblin and it was their second show and I think, and I might be wrong but I think their first show as Orange Goblin was the night before at the Bullen Gate in Kentish Town. Very cool. The following week we recorded Revelation Looms and I think the week after that was my 18th birthday. Really?

Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, yeah. You're coming into your own here literally and figuratively here. The songs are six to nine minutes already. Yeah. Which are shorter for you these days, maybe, but long for everybody else. Is an LP in your foresight at all, even at that time?

No, it didn't occur to me. I didn't have any kind of ambition. Okay. I mean, I really did. I'm not being facetious. I wanted just to make a demo and to be part of this tiny scene that I was discovering. It's still small in a way, you know, compared to how. I don't know. I mean, it was so small. Everyone knew each other. Sure. I think it was the, it would have been maybe September in 1994 when I wrote to the German band mirror of deception because their second demo, words on Unspoken was reviewed in Terrorizer and I wrote to them and Yocan the the band leader wrote back to me with about four pages of addresses of other

bands and said right to these bands and it was pretty much everyone in the scene at the time wow and and I did I wrote to everybody and and everyone knew one another and the UK scene was like maybe six bands right it was I mean it was it was tight-knit and it felt special so the the kind of five six songs Doom LP, the idea of that. Now kind of a normalized thing, you know, the like 50-minute five-song experience. Was there a band in particular that stuck to,

like Epicus is six songs, nightfalls like six songs. Is there a band in particular that made you feel comfortable as being like, yeah, that's an LP? I didn't really see how it wasn't. Yeah. You know, First St. Vitus albums, five songs. Five songs, yeah. You know, there were long songs.

And they went through a lot. Each song was, I don't know, a majority. Yeah, right. I didn't see that it wasn't. Okay. It was, I think it was in 1998. A warning were playing a show with the UK band Solstice at the Royal Standard in Waltham Stone, London. And Richard from Solstice, I think he'd just started a label.

And he put out, it put out a, or was in the process of putting out a compilation. album. He called it an international doom collection, I think, was the title he gave it, called Out the Mountains of Madness. And you'd never forgot. And that was our first appearance on CD. Right. But at that show, he said, you're going to make an album for me. And, you know, I mean, to be fair, he was true to his word and paid for us to go and make a record. Amazing. And then when we'd made it, he paid for me to go back and re-record the vocals. No, no. Well, we're almost there,

but we've got to talk about the blessed by the Sabbath. Oh, yeah, okay. Which is more aggressive, angrier. I think it's a little more menacing than the initial demo. I think you're giving it too much credit, to be honest. No, it's good. It's so good. What's going on in your life at this time?

Oh, just a painfully idealistic, a teenager, not knowing really how to articulate my thoughts and feelings. And, you know, I mean, it's, they're barely concealed love songs on that, on that, on that, on that demo. Barely conceal. I mean, you're, you ain't concealing them anymore. No, right. Yeah, it's just, unfortunately, they all involve the living dead or something like that. Yeah, understood. Yeah. Well, the strength of dream. Right. 1999, Warning's debut LP. And I think this is where you start to come into your own and find your identity.

Yeah. But it still has this like menacing edge to it more than being as melancholic as what will follow. Sure. Do you feel this is like the last aggressive piece of music you ever wrote, I feel like. Well, I think it's the last record. Probably up until the new album that I ever made that's got any palm muting. Yeah. Yeah.

But I know what you mean by aggressive, yeah. It feels like it's still unequivocally a heavy metal album. Yeah. You're still going, nah, nah, yeah. Yeah. And I'm still informed by, you know, all of the bands that... Minor scale. Yeah, you can hear my influences in it.

That would see, I feel like influences see. influences ceased with watching from a distance. But on Strength of Dream, the lyrics are much more like Shakespearean fiction. Okay. More than this personal expression of emotion that you've come to. Again, you'll give it far too much credit. No, it's good. It's good.

Listen to it. The riffs are unbelievable. Was the title inspired by an Elvis lyric? No, no. It was inspired by a book by the British writer Colin Wilson. And what's the Elvis song? I don't know this. If I can dream.

No, I don't. As long as a man has the strength to dream, he can redeem his soul and fly. It's a banger. I'll show you too. Great song. So I saw that connection. I was like, guy loves Elvis, he's cool, man.

How immersed in the technical aspects of guitar are you in the song? I'm not. And I still know nothing about it, really. You're not a pedal tone. I know nothing about it. I'm not a gear guy. I know nothing about it. And I'm very open about that. Okay. I'm a, I'm a song man. Okay. You're plug and play or do you got you got guys who do this stuff for you? Well, I learn. I mean, I like to surround myself with people that know better than me and can play better than me.

Yeah, I don't know what I'm doing most of the time. I'm okay with that, you know. I've long since accepted that I'm not a gear. Okay. I'm not a gear man. Mids, you know. Who knows what they're doing. Down. I like them down. Yeah, yeah. Is there a, is there, to you, an important piece of gear that you own? A favorite guitar, perhaps?

That I own now? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, I, I, um, last summer, I bought a Yamaha R SG. And it's by far away the best guitar I've ever played. It's buttery smooth. Oh, it's wonderful. Okay.

You got it with you for this tour you're on now? No, no, I'm, well, I'm touring. solo. So I've got two acoustic guitars with me. Are you doing the restless acoustic on the store? No, well, I have to, it's too much of a radical, I've got both guitars in different tunings.

Okay. But restless, I have to, that's in sort of D-flat standard. D-flat standard. Right. Here's a crazy question. Sure. What's your favorite, fret? Probably the fourth. Fourth? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I've never gotten four.

I would have said seven on the A for you. Why? I feel like the payoffs are always seven, three, five, you know. You know where you're going emotionally, and it starts seven. If you came your guitar now, I'd go straight for the fourth. Fourth, yeah. Wow. This is breaking news.

That's a good question. This is unbelievable. Okay, so do you do any kind of? kind of vocally, I, like, I lose my voice one show. Yeah. How strong is your vocal stamina at this point? At the moment, since I had pneumonia last month, not strong. Okay.

I hate to say it, I'm getting old. You're getting better, fine wine, you know? Yeah, I mean, I'm still learning how to use my voice. Sure. There's some, but I don't warm up if you're going to ask it, no. Really? No. You would cool down?

I do nothing. Just a nice cup of tea maybe? Yeah. Wow. No warm up. Have you ever experimented with anything like that? I do, but I got bored. It is boring.

Yeah, it really is boring. I do the Jacobs Vocal Academy 5-minute warm-up. It's my top plate on Spotify all time. Check it out. Banger. Do you tour much on Strength the Dream at the time? Late 90s, we did two tours with Solstice. I can't remember if either of them came out.

were before the record, sorry, after the record was released, but we were certainly playing the songs from it. I guess the Strength to Dream tour was in 2001. Okay, wow. And it was, well, yeah, I mean, it was sometime after that album came out, but it was our first time going to the European mainland. And we did a 10-date tour with the Austrian band Jack Frost. Yes, of course.

It promptly broke up, right? Well, we did, yeah. It was difficult because, you know, it was a different time. We didn't have mobile phones or satellite navigation, and your tour italy as were very badly printed. Sure. Street maps and... And do you like touring at the time?

No, I hated it. Yeah. I dreaded it. You like touring now? Well, I think I got into touring. I began to learn to enjoy it, probably in my... in my mid-30s. Okay.

I'm starting to feel that way too. You know, as a 20-year-old, I'm passing by the Church of Bones and just being like, who cares, man, I'm starving. Yeah. And I'm now, and I don't know whether it's, because I'm currently, this is the fourth tour I've done in 13 months. That's a lot. Yeah.

And when Jesse from Bellwitch asked me to do it, I said, I can't do it, Jesse. I need to rest. And I lost their tour support. Yeah. Well, it was before I got new money, I think. It was right before Roadburn. Yeah. And I'm struggling right now.

We've played four shows, and I need to rest. Three days off. But, you know, I enjoy it. I love meeting people. I do like singing. I would hope so. You do it a lot. You do it well.

What happens in your life between 2001 and 2006, that reshapes the way that you approach warning. Watching from a distance is on the horizon and it is a completely different thing. Well, here's the thing. We got back together in January 2005 and we were casually rehearsing and just playing around.

We had no plans. And then Yoccan, the guy that I mentioned from Mirro of Deception, He used to have a, there was an annual doom metal festival in Coupingham in Germany called Doom Shall Rise. I think he'd heard that we were playing again and said, would you come and play Doom Shall Rise in April, like three months away? And so we said, yeah, okay, sure, let's do that. And we went and played this show, and it went really well. And then we did nothing for the rest of the year.

And in January of 2006, we went on tour in Scandinavia with Reverend Bazaar. And again, that went very well. But although I was still struggling with the touring, and I didn't have a good time. But we got back at the end of January. And Richard from the Meskotonic Foundation that put out the first album. You're not related to. I'm not related to him at all. That's another myth, yeah.

He said, have you got an album's worth of songs? Or have you got an album written? And I said, no. He said, well, you better get working because I've booked the studio for you in April. And this was the end of January. And I thought, shit. And watching from a distance pretty much came together in that tiny window. And, you know, that's something that I've carried with me today is that, you know,

more than some kind of personal traumatic event or anything, or inspiration or waiting for the muse or something, more than anything else to make good work, you need a deadline. And I know as well as anyone that without a deadline, I never finish anything. And a song will take me years rather than weeks. I'm mid-suffering with the same.

same idea right now. So January to April, 2005. 2006. Watching from a distance, your landmark sophomore LP, a genre-defining classic, and one of my favorite albums ever written, currently celebrating 20 years this year. How do you reflect on the unbelievable legacy of this record? Like I've said before, the most you can hope for when you make a record is the, that it's well received. If people are still listening to it in five years' time, that's a bonus.

One year's time nowadays, yeah. Right, the fact that there's a whole new generation of people that are now listening to this record, that the one born when I made it, is a privilege. And I'd find it very easy to say unkind things about that record. That's crazy.

But we'll get into it. Sure, right. But again, I was 27 when I started making that really. I'm grateful for it. Me too. Yeah. So thanks. From the first note, you can tell things are different, much more polished production. Any of the grit that your voice once had is gone. How does the approach change writing-wise? Is it natural? Is it all organic or is there an intention to do things more melancholic? Well, like I said, I think that four-year in interim, where I was able to reflect on the first record helped.

And I knew what was wrong with it. Which, I think everyone knows what's wrong with it. I don't remember reflecting much on it because it came together very quickly. I don't know. I think that my musical palette had expanded so much more by that point and I was drawing from other things. were those other things? I would like to hear them.

Well, I don't know. I mean, you're not necessarily going to hear them, but a lot of songwriter music. Sure. Or, you know, I remember, you know, one of my favorite albums is Happy Sout by Tim Buckley, which has a very, it feels like it has an emotional arc to it and a sense of passage running through the album from beginning to end. And I think it was being in four parts. And I wanted to take that or translate that. I approached to making a record and apply it to heavy music. You really did.

Yeah. The iconic massive drum sound. Is that one of your nitpicks? No, that doesn't bother me as much as it does some people. I love it. I just think it's so unique and the snare is the loudest, the loudest thing you've ever heard. I remember, it was, you know, I was still learning how to make a record when I made that.

But I was interested because when I made the first album, I was oblivious to everything that was going on in the control room. You know, when we made that record, I was, as in watching from distance, I was on the ball, I think, and I knew where, Every kick drum was supposed to go. And after, you know, tracking things, I'd be in the control room and fixing things and paying attention to detail. But I do remember my drummer Stewart, he kept saying, I want my drums to sound like they're being played in a cathedral. It sounds like he's playing in a cathedral with Hulk hands and wooden batons.

And I didn't fight that. That wasn't... I think it sounds cool. Yeah, okay, I don't care. And to the extent where, when new warning was announced, I was like, these drums better be... We played a show. When we did the tour in 2017, we did a US leg of the tour.

And the second show was in Portland, and the sound guy came up, and he said, I've got to say, this is a huge privilege for me. I've been studying your album. Because we were touring, you know, watching from a distance. He said, I've been studying your album for weeks, and I think, I think I know how to get that snare sound live. And I said, I was going to say to you, if you can do anything, don't copy that snare sound live.

Everything else you can keep. And did the light fade from his eyes? He did. Everybody wants to do that. It's explosive. The title track opens this record. Yeah. And it feels like you're saying the emotional.

emotional grass is kind of always greener. And it's the first time in Warring's discography where there isn't a hint of malice or dissonance musically or lyrically. Is this the first composition for it? I think it was the first thing we made together, yeah. And do you finish this? I mean, starting the journey of writing this song

is unimaginable. Knowing when it's done sounds more insane. I had the first thing I had, I know this, the first thing I had was the lyric, which was sometimes when I watch you, you seem like the same person that I once knew. And that informs the whole record, kind of. Well, the song was built around that lyric.

So I started with that and worked outwards. The riff in the verse was written to the lyric. I just figured out how I was going to phrase it and sing it. And I kind of worked outwards. When you're dealing with these massive compositions, how do you know when they're done? Do you just have to accept that they're done so that you don't tinker on it?

Yeah, it was originally longer. There was, the play out riff was in two parts, I seem to recall. And even, you know, I at the time said, this is too much. We abbreviated that. Which is interesting, because I want to know, is restraint something you even think about when writing?

No, but I think economy is something I've learned. It's a practice I've learned in songwriting. And I think when I made the last 40-foot-sun record, a little weight, I think that was a good exercise in economy. I think primarily because, you know, it's the first record I've made that was a single vinyl. Right. Finally. Yeah. A $20 record.

I wanted to do that. I wanted to make a, you know, a... Perfect Light has some shorter songs on it, too, which... It does, but economy doesn't necessarily mean shorter. It just means that nothing's wasted. Okay. And, you know, and I think that it's all, the material on that record, and I'm, I don't mean to jump ahead.

No, don't worry about it. I think it's all song. There's no, there's no fat. Yeah. You know, it's all song. And there's things I've noticed about it that I will bring up later. Back to Washington for a distance. Even the artwork feels cold and painful.

And I've always looked at it as if this poor guy carrying this wheat or some shit up the hill, You're the guy, I'm the wheat. You're carrying me up this hill musically. You pulled that from Tales of Terror, this image? It was, I used to write with somebody, and they used to send me a lot of artwork and illustrations and things. I mean, this was when I was a teenager. Just like, hey, check out this artwork, or hey, do you want to use this for your name?

It was just so crap in the post and comics and pictures and cuttings and things from magazines and that. But I had this artwork and I kept it. And it seemed like the, I mean, I had no idea. I didn't think of album art until the last minute. And I thought, okay, let's use this. And I didn't know where it came from. And then it was years later, I discovered it was Matt Mejuran,

who he made the first, well, he took that iconic photograph on the first Tracy Chapman album cover. Oh, really? The portrait photo? Yeah, right, the sepia thing. And he did, like, a couple of Tom Waits albums, Alice, I think he did Me All variations. And he did the Metallica,

I think he did Metallica's Unforgiven video as well. Oh, wow. But yeah, I panicked. It was a few years too late, but I had a panic. And I wrote to him, and he was very gracious. And he said, you know, he said, yeah, well, don't worry about it, but if you want to send me enough money

to take my wife out for a meal, then that would be cool. What a guy. Yeah, right. That's awesome. And yeah, I noticed you're still using it to this day. I've got no choice now. Exactly. But like, some people have no choice and then they get it taken from them because they can't

legally can't use it. So that's very cool. I think I've only ever heard you sing a harmony recorded maybe once. Do you hear the harmonies when you're writing and choose not to sing them? generally every song is one single track in the center. I think all the, I think, um, there's harmonies all the way through the third and fourth, 40, or son records.

But they're not super, they're not like exploding in the mix or anything. No, for sure, no. But watching from a distance doesn't have a single. No, no, right, no, it doesn't. And I actually had harmonies, um, written for every song on the new record. And when we came to tracking them, I realized that they wouldn't work. Because, you know, I think because of the nature of the music and because it's obviously heavier,

I think my singing is naturally just a little bit more, I don't know, maybe demented. And harmonies don't fit comfortably with that vocal style. And I ended up recording none of them. You really didn't. Which, poetically very warning in a way. Sure. Let's talk about bridges, not the song, the songwriting term. Your understanding of payoff in song structure to me is like unrivaled.

And there's a moment in every song. That's like a wait for it. It's coming. Like you could feel tension building to something. Do you ever start with the bridge and write around it, knowing what you're trying to get to? Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, sometimes maybe. Footprints is a good...

I mean, I've heard people call it the footprints moment. And by that, I mean that what you're referring to is probably a hallmark of my songmaking. I would call it your definitive songmaking. Yeah. I had the first half of footprints. I had the last part, and I knew they all belonged in the same song. But they were both in different keys. And the hardest thing making that song was getting from A to B.

Sometimes that takes years, but you had three months. Right. Yeah. So, I mean, I've openly called this the greatest bridge in the history of music. Okay. Do you feel when you finish this and listen to it back and know what you've got that you'd written the definitive warning song, or is this just another song to you? I mean, I knew it was good. but I didn't think anyone would hear it

because again it was you know we were making it for a tiny essentially a bedroom label right it was there was no I mean you know the internet was still infancy in infancy it was there was people into this music all knew each other and hung out on

on the same message forums and stuff you know it was it was I didn't think anybody would hear it so it was just hey damn this is good shame nobody will hear Probably, yeah. And, I mean, it still gives me goosebumps to this day. And I'm not going to sit here and ask you what songs are about. Because, in a sense, like, it's in there in a way, but also I don't want to know.

Because I have my own connection to all of them. But this analogy of this defenseless knight laying down his weaponry and giving in. And what I've always imagined is this beautiful, pained love song of sorts. Is there any concern ever in your mind of like putting this part of yourself out there? And are there songs in the warning or 40 watts on repertoire that are difficult to perform live because of that? I don't think I could perform landing lights from the new record live. I don't know. It depends where I am.

Sometimes something I haven't thought about or felt for years will, it'll be it'll be. tap you on the shoulder while you're performing a song. It's hard to say. My immediate answer was landing lights from a new song. I don't think I could do that one. Great song. Great record. What are going to talk about in a second?

I've never shown footprints to a person. I've put a lot of people on it in the fricker. Any time I sit them down and just say, wait for it, just sit, just sit and listen. They walk away a big fan. So it's really, you're right. And that it is just a matter of hearing it to know it's good and that the concern is just will people hear it. Sure. Was the response to watching from a distance as a whole kind of a slow burn thing? It came out. This is why I think that, you know, it's as well as a blessing, it's a burden.

Because everything I do is always and will continue to be held up against that record. And I think the reason is it came out to no fanfare. There was no press cycle. There was no money behind it. There was no label push. There was no marketing. There was nothing. It just came out and it was quietly.

And, you know, I think there was maybe there was a thousand copies. But it sort of very slowly snowballed over the years that followed. in such a way that the only way anyone ever heard that record was through word of mouth or through, I think people are always going to feel like they've discovered that record for themselves. Yeah. And for that reason alone, it carries the importance of that record to people, carries Allied Wade. And you can't replicate that. You could make, you know, I could make another Sergeant Pepper or something.

You know what I mean? You could make watching from a distance too. And you can't compete with that, the experience of people's discovery of a record like that, because people will always feel like they discovered it for themselves rather than had it forced upon. I absolutely feel that way, so you nailed it. Pardon this interruption. This incredible conversation with the great Patrick Walker is brought to you most appropriately by doneable guitars. That's right.

My favorite guitars in the world, no matter the occasion, whether you like to tune low and play slow or do a little something like this. Donable has the guitar for you. This is a DE. That's made in a factory beautifully and ready to go. You can also build out the custom guitar of your dreams, like this R2V2 here. They've got a variety of different tones, and the 25 and a half scale length allows for better. tuning stability. They've got baritones, bass sixes, seven strings. It is a low tuning paradise. And right now, thanks to this episode, you can get 15% off a guitar right now at dunablegatars.com.

As the world burns and everything gets more expensive and more ridiculous, Dunable and Hardlore present this beautiful deal. So don't dawdle, don't delay. And visit Dunablegatural.com using code hard lore back to the episode. Touring in America for the first time, how was that experience for you versus Europe, mainland Europe or the UK? I was 2011, I think. What happened is the first 40-watt sign record came out in Europe and Metal Blade picked it up and licensed it for North America. And then that's how a guy that I'm still friends with now called Edgar in Chicago, it was a tour manager got in touch and said do you want to come and tour the States and we said I don't think we can afford it and he went I've got it covered don't worry wow all you're

all you're going to do is is agree to it and I'll fix everything and and that's how we flew out to the States and did that tour you have a good time I did because we were looked hard everything was taken care of yeah that's cool it was yeah it felt effortless yeah are you a food guy I am I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm into cooking. Oh, you're into cooking? Oh, yeah. So are you a guy who eats out often?

I eat out often when I'm in the U.S. Okay, talk to me. What are you into? This is a big recurring theme on this show. Because food is one of the ones, no matter what genre you play, it's one of the thing that binds us all as touring musicians. Right.

I always say there's nothing I don't eat. What are you excited to eat, though? Oh, my gosh. I don't know. If there's one thing, this is the question we ask every man. Sure. If you're driving down the highway on tour and you see a sign for something coming up, what is that, what is on that sign that makes you go, driver, please stop, I need this.

Oh, I mean, maybe like Vietnamese food or something. Oh, man. Next time you're in the L.A. area, I'm going to take you a spot. Or seafood, yeah. Oh, yeah, right. Very good. Vietnamese in particular? I'm going to blow your mind.

Okay. I'm there. Can I ask you about British cuisine for a bit? Well, yeah, I mean... How into it or what there is of it, yeah. So that's how you feel? Yeah, I mean, there's good food there, but it's... You don't have the choice you have here.

I'm going to play a little game with you if that's okay. I'm going to say a British dish if you could tell me the first thing that comes to mind. Okay. Fish and chips. Greece. Chicken teak masala. Horrible. It's a horrible English variation on Indian food.

Sunday roast. Classic. Scotch eggs. Wonderful if they're done right. Okay. Toad in the hole. Beautiful. Spotted dick.

I'd see a doctor, ASAP, for sure. Beef Wellington. No, it's too stodgy. Pie and mash. That's, yeah, I mean, if you go from a pie match shop. Okay. Do you do the thing where you flip it upside down? I've seen this technique.

Yeah, I mean, the Bosch guy. You know the Bosch guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know the Bosch guy? Are you online? Are you a guy who's online much? No, I don't have any social media. But the Bosch guy made it to you.

Well, my drummer Andy showed me a guy the other day who has a YouTube channel and he reviews tin fish. Oh. Have you come across this guy? Okay. Yeah, he, um. You like it? That's his thing. What, Tindfish or the channel? No, no, the channel.

That is weird. Okay. Are you on YouTube much? What's much? Maybe. I mean... I just want... I'm so fascinated of how you spend your free time, you know? Okay. Do you think your colleagues and family and friends would describe you as a fun guy? Okay. I... I'd like to think so. Okay. What is your idea of fun?

making food. Okay. And eating out with my girlfriend and sitting at a bar. Okay. I love bars. See. You split the G and all that, the Guinness thing? Well, I like drinking in American bars, not British ones.

Oh, you just like to be at the bar. Well, I like that too. Okay. I mean, that's just a cultural staple, you know? Are you familiar with Straight Edge? I am. Okay. Because there's not, most straight-edged.

Brits that I know aren't straight-edge for very long because it's just so ingrained in the culture. I've got two more here. That's fine. You're just... Chip Butty. I mean, we've all done it, but it's... It's one of the most repugnant things I've ever seen. It's fucking crazy.

Yeah, I can't say anything kind about that. Yeah. It's one of the fattest things a man can do. The full English. No, I mean, I can't... I mean, I don't like greasy food or, you know, is anything cooked in? You're not a black pudding. I do like black pudding.

So that's the exception in the full English and the black pudding. Blood sausage. You're a man, you really are as a tortured guy. Okay, well, that was British cuisine word association with Patrick Walker. What's your favorite thing to cook if cooking is your great secret passion? I'm very good at making Indian food. And yet you don't like chicken chicken soup, huh? Well, I don't think it's Indian food.

Oh, because it's British Indian food? Yeah, it's a British thing. So what are you into? Like a nice curry or? Yeah, I mean, I like South Indian cuisine. Oh, apologies. Of course, yeah. Now I know. Do you, I mean, we've talked about this a bit, but at this point, I mean, maybe especially with warning, do you enjoy playing live or is it more about the creation of the record for you?

I find it, are you in general or with warning? In general, it's fine. It's different. I mean, it's, um, playing with warning is challenging. It involves more stamina, which is one of the reasons why people keep asking, are you going to be touring the new album? And I won't be because I can't do it night after night. Wow.

So just a handful of select dates, maybe? Sure, yeah, just one off or weekends or something. I couldn't do that every night. I'm not a spring chicken anymore. I got you. I mean, even if you were, like, big-time metal bands aren't doing five days in a row ever anymore, you know? Which, and economically, one day on, one day off, one day off is impossible.

Yeah. But with what I'm doing now. Yeah. I mean, I find the touring itself is quite challenging for me, particularly at the moment. Physically? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And sometimes mentally, I think. Yeah. When I'm performing by myself, you know, I can sing at a whisper. and I'm in complete control over what I do when you're playing with a band and particularly a loud band with the big hole can drums right there yeah yeah

do you ever use in-air monitors at all I don't man how much doom are you listening to these days I mean I don't follow it anymore there's nothing almost nothing I should say that's coming out that interests me I don't even really know what it is anymore

because it's changed its meaning so much And I think all the qualities in the music that I fell in love with when I was 16, almost non-existent now, it's become something else. Goals and goblins and... Sure, and reductive slogans like, you know, worship the riff and things get thrown around. And it was never about that to me. It's about the songmaking and not something that's formulaic or, you know.

But there's a band from Indiana. called Apostle of Solitude, who are great. A German band called Navas who have been friends with since I was 16, just put out a new album. But I don't follow it. But, you know, I still love everything that I ever loved. Yeah, right, of course. But my tastes have expanded and not changed over the years.

Do you receive correspondence from kind of contemporary doom bands about how watching from a distance is, influence them? Like, is Paul Bearer on your radar? Yeah, I know those guys. They love you. You know, and you can tell. Warnings break up after this record.

How does that happen? And why does that happen? The last 18 months that Warning was playing, we had a new drummer called Christian Leach, who was the guitar player from the London band The River. Chris came in as a replacement drummer. And as soon as he stepped in,

I noticed this whole change in dynamic. And he was bringing something that I hadn't heard in the songs before. Because Stuart is caveman. I was about to say that. It's quite primitive caveman he drumming. And in the stuff like the... Go, go, go, go, go, go. That's very Stuart Springfield.

Okay. Because there's a lot of that, on rituals of shame. So is it like an ode to Stewart in a way? There's a literal, go, go, go, go, go, go, okay. Okay, I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't say that.

It just feels, it feels like warning, so it's like a little slice, it's a little piece of home when you hear something familiar. Yeah, it's possible. So that's unintentional, perhaps? Well, I mean, I didn't write the drama, so, but I don't think it was intentional. Okay, yeah.

So Stuart leaves the band. And Chris joins, and I hear this new dynamic in the drumming and I suddenly I thought so much more I can do now I it raised the bar for me okay somehow I already had one song written called Take Me In it was originally a bonus track on the first 40-off song record and we tried rehearsing with with warning I just thought I need a new band here wow and I and plus you know I I knew what I wanted to do next. I knew where I wanted to go.

And you knew already that it had to be a different band? Well, I didn't want to be in the same band that I was in when I was 16. I needed to cut. I was still, you know, connected by that same thread that made Revelation Looms. I didn't want to make this 40-worts sign album as that band. But I also wanted to build a new band around me. So I just terminated it very quickly and we found Will Spong, the bass player, and the three of us started rehearsing it. And it was like suddenly I could see the sky and the stars and there was, you know, ever since then I've done my best to surround myself by people that are better than me.

Like, because, and I mean much better than me because it just, it raises the bar and, and, and, and, and, and, and, subconsciously or otherwise, it influences your songwriting. Do you take any time off between Warning and 40 Watts? No, no, no. We're straight into it. Wow. Yeah, we did the last show in Oslo in January 2009, and then I was rehearsing straight away with Chris and Will.

And that would become what would be the first... Inside room. Yeah. Yeah. And it's sonically the closest to warning of all of them, you know? Well, I think I really, I think it's important to stress this. People keep saying to me, that warning of finally written the follow-up or the successor

to watching from a distance. But the logical and the natural and the emotional successor to watching from a distance is the inside room. That would have been the next record I made regardless. I just wanted a new band around me. I mean, we'll come onto it later. But the new record is the natural successor to little weight, the last 40 watts on record. It's just part of the same continuum.

So you look at this as all canonically you, you know? Yeah, it's all the same thing. It's just, it's a band name. Okay. It's the record I would have made. I get that. Yeah. I think since we're on 40 watts on, we can keep going.

Inside Room is not currently streaming anywhere. No, it's not. You got plans. Is Relapse going to step in? I don't know. I hope so. All right, me too. This is an interesting tidbit because when you were on Metal Blade for a while,

I was on Metal Blade, and I was making a record called Disharmonie in 2015, and we used that label connection to be like, can you get this to Patrick and see if he'll sing on it? And your answer was very kind. It was like, I don't do this. I've done this once. I don't do it unless I'm writing it.

Normally everything sucks. This probably sucks. least, looking forward to hearing. Good luck, guys. So that was nice. Yeah, that's quite brutal. I don't think I said that. No, it wasn't brutal. It was not brutal. It was very much like this music is very personal to me and this is, I wouldn't feel comfortable seeing somebody else's lyrics. And this doesn't suck. I think you did say it doesn't suck, which is nice. Yeah, I remember Mike reaching out and getting in touch with me. Yeah. But I don't, you know, I'm not really a collaborator. No, that's good. I can tell. Yeah.

I'm a, you know, that's, I mean, we'll come on to this in a moment, but it's, you know, I very quickly got fed up with being in a democratic band. I'm a dictator? I'm a songmaker. I'm definitely not that, but I'm going to have the final saying. I got you. I understood. Oh, that's fair.

Yeah. Wider than the sky. And you tell me if this makes sense. I think this is to 40-watt sun stylistically. what watching from a distance is to warning. And that even though it was the natural next progress, like inside room is what would have come naturally, this is where what I would call the 40-watt sun sound is refined.

And it's so interesting that this is a band now. It's not a heavy record, which makes the barrier for entry musically extremely low. And it's inaccessible only in the, song length because that's just who you are. And to compromise on that would be anti-art. And you refuse and I really respect that. Yeah, I think it's got some of the best songs I've written on it. Amen. Stages. Stages has two bridges. You know, it's great. My memory of that, I mean, the inside room we recorded in just over 24 hours.

wider than the sky, I think we recorded in four days. And we're in this studio on a farm somewhere very remote in the middle of Wales. And I've got good memories of making it. It was a nightmare to mix it. Really? Yeah, it took a long time. There's a lot going on.

There's a lot more going on than ever. Well, there is. I mean, people said it's a lot more stripped down than the inside room. But there's more guitar on it. Yeah, there's more guitar. It's more percussive in a way. It is. And besides that, we were in the middle of, we were trying to get out of our deal with the record label.

Because we sent them the album and they, or perhaps it was the album demos, I can't remember. Well, we don't like this. It's not the kind of thing we put out. But we will put it out if we have to. And that's not the kind of. Fuck you. Yeah. And so I. I bargained the band out of the deal. I gave them, I think I gave them the CD rights for warning for 10 years. I paid them a lump of money and gave them the CD rights to warning.

Perlittle, man. And that was self-released and licensed to Svart Records. Okay, very cool. So Svart steps in heroically in a way. Yeah, I can't remember how that connection came about, to be honest. But ever since that point, up until the last 40-Whorst Un record, I was licensing my music to them. And that includes the warning back catalog and the next two 40-WCaths.

Other than that, you've been entirely independent for some time. I've been an independent, self-supporting musician since then. How do you find that? Music is a wacky world right now. It's not easy. No. But, I mean, what's the alternative? It's getting a proper job or something.

Working at the plastic factory, you know? Yeah. There's enough plastic in this world. Yeah. Well, you know, there's not a lot like I can, I can't really do anything else. Yeah. I never went to, you know, I don't have any higher education. Yeah.

So, that's why I'm doing this. Right, yeah. This is, I'm learning right now. This is my education. So wider than the sky comes out and is discernibly different than anything you've done ever. Do you recall any kind of emotion? kind of emotional response of like, hey, this isn't, wow, this is different, but I can tell you, from my perspective, it was like, I don't think it is. I'm in. I never thought of it like that. It just seemed like the logical and natural successor to the first record. Sure. But it was, it's, you know, it's less guitary, isn't it? And it's, it doesn't have that wall of noise guitar sound. Yeah. But I mean, the songs are still quintessentially me, I think. Yeah, I agree.

And, you know, the, the, I guess all the same themes are there and, and, um, and, um, and hallmarks. Yeah. You know, is it, and you tell me if I'm crazy here. Are you a Morrissey guy at all? I'm a, I'm a great Smith's fan. Yeah. There's something, there's a thing that I think unites the two of you,

creatively in that your seldom use of repetition. makes it so that if you repeat something, it's like, hey, and you say more by doing less a lot of the thong? Yeah. Especially on little weight, because a lot of the bridges are musical rather than vocal. Perfect Light. Some of the shortest songs you've ever written, does this become conscious?

No, it just happens. Okay. I think, to my mind, most of the songs are the songs are still, you know, longer than average. Colors is like... Four months on. Yeah, colors and I think closure. But there was no...

I didn't need to say anything else in the songs. It's just that they didn't need to be longer than that. The bridge riff of colors, is that one that the song was written around? Because that thing is nuts. The... The... The... The...

The... Oh, that thing. That... No, but I... I did have the, I just had that transition from the verse into that instrumental play out. I loved it. It felt like a little burst of light at the end. Does touring for you change much between wider than the sky, perfect light?

Are you primarily touring solo acoustic? So with wider than the sky, we were, we did, I think we did a small tour as a three piece. And we were supposed to have gone on tour with Converge in 2016, or 2016. 2017 and and we pulled out. You like Converge? I've never listened to them. Oh man, yeah, yeah. Great friends of the show. I mean, we played we played festivals together. Yeah, I'm sure you've played roadburn. We shed a dressing room with him at Roadburn. Yeah, we didn't do much touring around that record and then and then the band fell apart in 2017 or 2016, I beg your pardon. So right when And why this guy comes out.

Oh yeah. Wow. Yeah. Like within a month or two of that coming out. And ever since then, I've been doing it by myself essentially. Wow. Or maybe not by myself, but without a fixed band. Sure.

Okay. But you've got a gaggle of goons you can pull from to the TV? Yeah, sure, yeah. Okay. And sometimes I meet people and you just, you know, you put them in the memory bank because I'd love to You can put me in there. I love to. Yeah, I will do here.

Put me in there. The future, now both bands are coexisting for the first time. There wasn't really any crossovers. We started, we had 18 months of warning shows of rehearsal and touring from 2017 to 2018. So does, oh, that's, that brings up a good point, is that that's when the live, watching from a distance stuff all happened. Yeah, it is.

Does that come out of the sort of sudden implosion of 40 watts on? No, no, it was already on the cards. And we'd announced the, I think that had been announced. I think the Roadburn show had been announced already. I can't remember the exact chronology of everything. That's okay. But the, yeah, I mean, you know, there was no crossover. So, you know, there was no coexisting, so to speak.

Okay. But now, I mean, right now, the band, are coexisting for the first time. Well, I guess so, but all they are, but I'm touring by myself. Yeah, true. And... The man is coexisting for the first time. Yeah, and I made the last warning record, the last 40-Ilestone record,

I've played, I've made both records with the same drama. Right. So it's the same process, just a different result and... Sure, it's the same thing, yeah. Okay. Well, what made now, 20 years later, time for the first new warning record since Washington, from a distance. You know, I, 2014 had been an enormous year for me. And as it got to the end of the year, the last couple of months, I just, I began to get that, that familiar itch that I get when I want to start making a new record. Because I don't, I don't write songs if I'm not making a record. It's, you know, I, I'm all, I'm, if I'm making music, I'm, I'm making a record. You're an album guy. You think in albums now.

Yeah, what I mean is I don't, you know, I wouldn't go home now and work on a song really. I mean, I might write down ideas in a notebook, but I'm not, I don't, an album is generally very reflective of the time that I made it. Do you know what I mean? I'd really do. And I just, I knew I wanted to make a new record, and I knew that I wanted to make a heavy record. Why now? Why heavy? What triggers that inspiration?

I don't know. I think because what I wanted to express or try to articulate, what I wanted to do in the context of heavy music. I don't want to overthink it because I don't want to sound, you know, overdramatic or, you know. You're an emotional, dramatic guy. We've all heard me. That's okay. I don't know. I knew I wanted to make a heavy record. Okay. The why is not important. The what is what matters, you know? Well, maybe the why is important, but I don't know if I want to go there.

Sure. But the, and, I mean, the big question for me, for me was do I work towards this with it being the next 40-watt sun record? Do I put it out as a warning record? If I put it out as a warning record, can I do this by myself? I need, I don't have the, I need the leverage of a, of a good label behind me. You know, not just like moral sport, like financial support. Yeah. It'll be, it'll be a different thing and probably bigger than I can do by myself.

And so when I decided to make it a new warning record, that's when I approached Relapse. Great place to be. Yeah, it really is. They've been, they've taken care of you? They've been wonderful, yeah. And they got the back catalog too? Yeah, that was.

that was in the initial offer that they gave me. Very good. Yeah. Well, it'll be out upon time of release of this. Okay. So rituals of shame. The timing, and this is going to get a little heavy, timing of this could not be more poetic.

And I don't know what you went through before that went into making this record. But Stations, the first single from this record, released April 7th. This young man passed away on April 1st. So I'm in Chicago for his funeral, as I'm listening to this for the first time, your first song in 20 years. Before hitting play, like I already felt it, you know?

And then this song makes me feel like I'm like communicating through you in a way. You know, the, you're talking about vast emptiness. Endless miles. Endless miles. whatever you leave me, you leave me alive. Oh, good Lord. Yeah, I know. I remember I had the second half of the song written,

not the lyrics, but I had the song, the music. And I was just leaving my house to go and catch a train. And I was about five paces outside the front door. and and and and and and the verse popped into my head it just fell out the sky and isn't it the verse and i went i happened it's strange and i went back and i and i missed my train and i recorded it and um and that's how that happened the words i had i had a whole bunch of words that i sometimes i write words to to um uh to fit a song and with that i certainly the last half, I guess what you'd call the bridge or the footprints went.

Yeah. That would be the, I had those lyrics written and they were phrased to, they were phrased around the song, which doesn't, it rarely happens for me. I did it on, on, the last song on the first album, the this alone was the most written as a solid block of, versified prose almost and a wall of text turned to song continues the pattern of opening with the title track

is this another situation where this is the first composition done for the record and it becomes a title track because I don't I don't remember writing songs like that I went back and forth between all of them and you know

I'd have parts of things written but then didn't know how to complete them. And so I was always moving back. I don't think I ever sat down and I wrote a song from start to finish. Ever. Maybe I probably have done, but I can't think of an example of it. It really, I mean, does it ever, you mentioned on your way to the train, for me, it's like, I think I've written my best work in the movie theater, trying not to, trying to think about the movie, but being distracted by a riff or driving or in the shower, rather than when I'm I sit down with intention to write something.

Yeah, I think most of my, maybe not most of them, but so many of my ideas come on about walking. Or, you know, you don't, like I said in the film, you don't stop working just because you don't have a guitar in your hands. There's the mind's always working. Always. Against your will sometimes. Yeah, it's a, I mean, it's a, I mean, it's a,

painful, but that's where so much stuff comes from. Sure. You mentioned sitting on songs for months or years. Yes. Is there a song on this record or little weight or something that comes to mind of like a multi-year science project type of time? This record was literally written in you know, I mean the music was written in three months. So you gave yourself the same exact deadline that watching from a distance had? Well it was the same pattern that I did the last 40-14 record.

So I started working at the start of January. Yeah. And the first thing I did was book the studio for rehearsals and demoing, and then booked it again for recording. So I had to work to those two deadlines. I guess I think it was like the 14th of January through to the end of March. I went on tour in Europe for a month in April, got back the second week in May,

and then I had four weeks. just to pull everything together before going into the studio with my drummer. Okay. And that's where I've taught him the songs. We worked on the arrangements. Is grief ever a central theme of what you're writing? Only in bridges. Only in bridges.

So that ah, that painful. Yeah. But that's a lot of rubbish gets, you know, talked about with regards to my songs. And I've read or heard people refer to things as being, like, you know, watching from a distance is about the five stages of grief or some crap about that. And it's rubbish, you know, it's, it's love and grief. It's always love. It's always love.

It's always love. Or better or worse, it's always love, you know. Is it currently for better? Oh, well, I mean, yeah, I mean, there's, for sure. And you said, you talked about your girlfriend earlier, is she, was she familiar with your work before you started dating? I think she was aware of it, but not familiar with it. Did she become familiar with it? And she didn't be like, well, she had no choice because we toured together for, oh, around the States for six weeks.

Okay. And we toured Europe for a month. So she had to hear it every night. Okay. Good Lord, Patrick. Yeah. I was struck, and I don't know if you can tell on camera, what a big guy you are. Are people often surprised? I mean, you're strapping flat, you know?

I mean, I'm 6'6. Damn. But I'm, you know, I'm not in good shape. No, that's not true. In the doom world, you're Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know? I know, but I mean, that's not a good benchmark, is it? Even Britishly, you're doing great. I can tell you abstain from the biscuits.

Do you feel after rituals of shame that you've gotten this itch to make heavy music out of your system? Or is it open the floodgates for more? Yeah, I had three other songs that were incomplete, but they were my reserves for when I went to the studio in June last year with Andrew to show him the songs and to demo. the album. I had three more songs in reserve in case something didn't work out. I'd like to use them. I'd like for you to use it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So where do you go from here now? Is it just do these anniversary shows and back to 40 watt sun, back to acoustic solo as often as possible?

Yeah, I'd love to tour. Touring, as you know, is expensive and I don't have another job. So I've got to... You've got to do it. I've got to do it. And if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I, if I can tour by myself, then I'm always going to do that. That's the dream. Well, you know, I don't have to pay anyone else. Yeah. And not to sound, you know, mercenary or anything. But, you know, there's always got to be a financial interest in what I do

because I don't have anything coming in from elsewhere. Sure. But I'd love to tour with a band again. Do you talk to Stewart at all? No, I haven't spoken to him in 16 years or something like that. So there's been no correspondence about this new album with him? Oh, God, no. Okay.

I don't know what he's doing. Okay, understood. Well, I think we're winding down over here after this lovely, lovely chat. Are you a spiritual or supernatural guy at all? I think the easiest answer is that I'm a very hardened atheist. Yeah, yeah, same. Yeah. Except for the, I love a ghost, you know.

I may God of me. Yeah, that's why. I mean, I mean, it's a, yeah, sure I do. But I love the, I was brought up going to church. And I still have a huge emotional connection and, and love the cultural heritage of the church. So I love the, I mean, look at this. For sure. Good stuff.

I love sacred music. I love the artwork. I love visiting churches. I love the scriptures and the parables and the passion story. Yeah. A story at the end of the day. Sure, yeah. But it's like it's, but I respond to it as I, as you do like a Shakespearean tragedy

or a great Greek drama or something. It's no different. It's the greatest sci-fi story. It's a space opera on Earth. Have you ever seen a ghost? Britain, scary place, man. I don't know. I don't know.

Have you ever seen what you would interpret as a ghost? No, I mean, I don't even know what a ghost is. But I've had some uncanny experiences. Tell me about one. I can't. No. Because... Who sound like a kook or what?

Well, no, I mean, I think that... the experience would be... You want it to happen again. You don't want to... I don't want to chase a way. You know, I'd sound like an idiot, you know. I mean, listen, there's Ben idiots on this show, and you're not one of them.

Let's... Okay. So we're going to do this very different today as Patrick is a Doom legend. Can I... Can you tell me to end this episode your four favorite doom metal records of all time? Yeah, I'm sure I can.

Never come silence by Revelation. is one of my favorite records of all time and one of the most important pieces of art that I ever heard or experienced the first pennants album The Road Less Travelled The Second Trouble album

The Skull And I don't know A fourth The first unorthodox album, Asylum You hear it here That's it. That's law Today in this episode This is a fun anecdote from my

who was supposed to be here today at one point. He played for a band called Nails at one point who played with you at Roskilde or something. And you were walking up to the stage, I believe, and I think maybe you just had an unexpressive emotion on your face. And he was with a fellow named Jamie Gets. I don't know if you know Jamie Gets. From Philadelphia?

Yes. I don't know Jamie. And Jamie said, why so glum? And my brother said something along the lines of, haven't you heard his music? And you didn't crack a smile. crack a smile. Oh, my gosh.

It was a physical fuck you and move on. But Patrick, can't thank you enough for being here today. Well, thank you for having me. Oh my God, anytime, every time. Rituals of Shame is out June 19th, 19th, which is a few days ago based on when this is out. 40 watts sun is on tour all the time. Sometimes in Grand Rapids when I'm two hours away.

It's unbelievable. You can catch Patrick, hopefully somewhere near you. I hope I can catch... Are all the Watching From a Distance anniversary shows announced? Before I started working on the record, I was planning on doing some anniversary shows. But they, like none of them ever materialized. So all of the shows are essentially a mix of older new songs.

Which is great. Because now I really think if you've connected with warning in any way, you're going to connect to this record. I certainly have. Patrick Walker. One of my guys, one of my top lads. Love his work so much.

You all do too. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Resolution Sam out now. Relapse records. Have a great day. Bye.