About To Break: wars

It’s time for the debut album from Rugby-based hardcore newcomers, wars. Vocalist Rob Vicars talks through how the band got together, and what to expect from ‘We Are Islands, After All’.Hey Rob, when did you first know you wanted to make music? It almost feels inherent; I think after a certain amount of time you can’t imagine ever not having wanted to make music. But I’d say the school environment probably nurtured that obsession more than anything, as it was such an important part of the subculture; it was a passion that really set you apart in some ways, something that, perhaps more so than today, defined you. And how did you get together with the other guys from wars? Did you all know what you wanted the band to be right from the beginning? Yeah actually, there was a real sense of purpose when we started wars. Having played in different bands prior to coming together to start this, we had the time to think about what we wanted it to be, what we wanted to create and what we wanted to say. Fortunately playing in bands puts you in touch with lots of other people playing bands, but some of us have grown up together as well. When was your first break? What made you think, ‘We can do this’? I don’t think you can ever really not think that. If you don’t have a bit of constant, uncompromising belief, at least in your music itself, that you can take this as far as you want it to go, then you’ll never get there. The reaction to our first EP was really amazing though and being so proud of what we’d made as well really pushed us on to do the album. Has it been a tough road to your debut album? In some ways entirely; it’s one of those processes we’ve never been through before as individuals, so there was a big learning curve going from recording smaller releases to a full-blown chunky ten track. Financially too it was tricky, as one EP straight into an album is a big jump, and we’re a young band trying to get out on the road, hold down jobs so we can live, and are tackling all the money strains that come with those things as well. But our want and need to do it was always pretty clear; the EP really felt like the prologue to this body of work, so I’m still indescribably excited that we actually threw ourselves into this and managed to get it done.