When Patty Walters declared music was no longer at the forefront of his life and put As It Is on the shelf for safekeeping in January 2024 - just as You Me At Six were announcing their farewell tour - it felt like the end of an era. For co-vocalist Patty Walters, he'd finally swapped the red pill for the blue one he'd needed for half a decade.

Less than a year later, the band's classic lineup - Patty, co-vocalist and guitarist Ben Biss, drummer Patrick Foley, and bassist Ali Testo - announced they were getting the band back together. It's been six years since this lineup shared a stage, so why was now the right time?

"Last year, we found ourselves in really similar places again, where we were just missing it tremendously. We were talking most days about what made sense, whether it was As It Is or something else," Patty reflects, not afraid to admit that having the boys back in town didn't always mean they'd be donning their As It Is costumes.

Instead of closing the door, they opened the one to the rehearsal room instead. Unlike the As It Is of 2015, they took a beat before committing to the bit.

"Before we even thought about booking any shows or recording anything, it was like, let's get in a room and just try and play songs and see what happens," Ben explains, narrating their recent timeline with a smile. "Those weekends getting back together and reconnecting with our songs, those were such fun times, and it took us a bit of missing it to really wanna do it again.

However, with their ex-manager Leander Gloversmith back in business and their debut album, 'Never Happy, Ever After', turning 10, they couldn't resist turning the tables on themselves. It was time to dive headfirst into the deep end again.

Rather than doing the usual - a couple of anniversary shows here, a classic merch capsule there - they went full board and feasted on the all-you-can-eat buffet: they re-recorded 'Never Happy, Ever After' in its entirety, with different guest vocalists on every track.

Rather than stop at tie-dying 'Dial Tones' in a lovely shade of emo, thanks to Holding Absence's Lucas Woodland, As It Is opened up the 2010s yellow pages and called up a few pals for all their other songs. From flying back home to the States to rope in Patty's sister Rachel and breaking ROAM out of the retirement home to sharing the mic with super-fan NOAHFINNCE and getting starstruck over Hidden In Plain View's vocals, it was the perfect chance to do 'Never Happy' justice.

For 'Never Happy, Ever After X', As It Is took its source material, soaked it in creatine, and shoved it in the gym. These beefed-up versions not only have guests; they add synths, strings, and screams. Ten years ago, they'd have ducked out and hid in the toilets from anything 'experimental'.

This time around, you're in for more twists and turns than riding 'The Smiler'. The Tobi Duncan from Trash Boat-featuring 'Concrete' takes a jackhammer to its pop-punk roots. For Patty, this is a marker of the band's development.

"Making 'Concrete' as heavy as that sounds, with Tobi doing these post-hardcore shouts and screams and yells all over it with the guitars tuned down to Drop C or B or whatever immediately after 'My Oceans Were Lakes', shows we're not scared of that like we used to be," he grins. "It's the joy of being in a band and having a creative outlet: you're not boxed in, and you don't shy away from the limitations, you don't take them too seriously. You can always take it too far and change your mind later; you don't have to rehearse it."

Tobi's appearance comes from one of three buckets As It Is threw balls into for guest options: bands they came up with, bands that influenced them, and bands now inspired by them. For the latter, they've teamed up with the likes of Rae Brazil of ARTIO for 'Turn Back To Me', Joe Cabrera of Beauty School for 'Drowning Deep in Doubt', and NOAHFINNCE for 'Can't Save Myself'.

'Can't Save Myself X', the third single from 'Never Happy, Ever After X', rows its pop-punk boat across a synth-pop river. NOAHFINNCE's melodies playfully dance with Patty's, bringing a much-needed new lease of life to the song, according to Ben.

NOAHFINNCE is no stranger to the band, having attended countless shows over the years and covered their songs. While 'Can't Save Myself' was his choice - begging them after just five minutes of being asked - Patty and Ben feel it's the perfect one. It feels fitting that a breaking artist features on the song that helped break As It Is, in their view.

Despite Ben watching back early videos of 'Can't Save Myself' live and thinking, "We were awful, why did anyone like this?" for Patty, it's their butterfly effect.

'Never Happy, Ever After X' isn't the end of the celebrations either. Before jetting off to the States for the return of Warped Tour, As It Is will play two homecoming shows at this year's Slam Dunk. If anything, that's the real full-circle moment of this reunion.

And what exactly are As It Is planning to do after a summer of anniversary shows? If you're looking for details, you won't find any here. But like Patty says, "There will be more shows. We're having fun, we like each other, we like hanging out." Or, as Ben puts it, "We'll fuck around and find out. We haven't put in this much work on all of this to immediately break up again."