Try not to freak out, but your new favourite band are releasing their debut album this September. Following a handful of EPs, four in their native Norway, two in the UK, Sløtface are finally about to make the step up into the big leagues. And if ‘Magazine’, all big hooks, lipstick on the mirror and pointed finger assertions, or the superhero confidence of ‘Nancy Drew’ are anything to go by, it’s going to be brilliant.
“It’s time for it to come out now,” explains bassist Lasse Lokøy. “I feel like we dared to do a bit more than we’ve done before on this record. We have our first song that’s over five minutes, which feels like a big thing for us.”
“We moved back in with our parents for six months to write the album because we couldn’t afford to pay rent and just write every day,” continues vocalist Haley Shea. With the four-piece writing everything together, there’s a lot of back and forth over every movement. They spent a long time writing because they wanted thirty songs to play with. They ended up with 25, “which is a lot for us.” Hacking it down to ten brand new cuts saw the band get rid of songs they loved a lot, but just didn’t fit with the rest of the record.
A big part of ‘Try Not To Freak Out’ is about dealing with anxiety. The record’s title is the band “telling ourselves not to freak out,” to not worry. “It’s a lot about the anxiety of such a big project and that thing a lot of people feel in their twenties where you don’t completely know what’s going on. You don’t have a plan, and you’re a little bit lost. Being back home makes me question ‘Am I doing things I thought I wanted to be doing? Is this how I wanted my life to go?’ A lot of those feelings came out on the record.” There’s also a tongue in cheek grin alongside it. “As if people would freak out because we’re releasing a record, it’s super cocky,” grins Haley. “We found it funny though,” adds drummer Halvard Skeie Wiencke.