{"id":290,"date":"2026-08-30T20:24:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T19:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigmouthrocknews.com\/?p=290"},"modified":"2026-08-30T20:24:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T19:24:18","slug":"the-amity-affliction-embracing-darkness-in-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigmouthrocknews.com\/?p=290","title":{"rendered":"The Amity Affliction: Embracing Darkness in Music"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Amity Affliction frontman speaks to Bigmouth about the emotional release of the band\u2019s live shows, the deeply personal power of \u201cDrag the Lake,\u201d the difficult reception to Misery<\/em>, life inside the social-media outrage machine and why the band are already writing again.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Amity Affliction have never shied away from darkness. Across more than two decades, the Australian metalcore band have built a powerful connection with listeners by confronting grief, addiction and mental illness with an honesty that offers recognition rather than easy answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That connection remains at the heart of their ninth album, House of Cards<\/em>. Ahead of the band\u2019s return to the UK, vocalist and lyricist Joel Birch joined the Bigmouth Rock Show to discuss the new record, the emotional weight carried by the band\u2019s music and what comes next for The Amity Affliction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a candid conversation, Birch also reflected on the album that nearly derailed their career, explained how online outrage can capture both creators and their audiences, praised two of modern metal\u2019s biggest frontmen and revealed that new Amity material is already taking shape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an emotional release happening in the crowd\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

BIGMOUTH: You\u2019re returning to the UK for your first headline shows here in a couple of years. What can fans expect?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOEL BIRCH:<\/strong> We have a set that goes back to 2012, so it covers 14 years of songs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone asked me about the shows the other day and I felt so cringe answering it, but it does seem like there\u2019s an emotional release happening in the crowd when we play. A lot of people cry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think that\u2019s kind of cool because it\u2019s something I can connect to while we\u2019re onstage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe I\u2019ll cry too. I did in America. It\u2019s never off the cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Why sad songs can make people feel less alone<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

BIGMOUTH: I discovered \u201cDrag the Lake\u201d during a very dark period in my own life. It didn\u2019t magically fix anything, but it made me feel accepted and validated in what I was experiencing. Why do you think such a dark song can make people feel better?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOEL:<\/strong> From what I understand, plenty of psychologists have looked at that phenomenon: when you\u2019re sad, sad songs can lift you up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe that comes from the empathy baked into being a human being. When you can feel yourself in somebody else\u2019s experience, that\u2019s pretty powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I obviously don\u2019t listen back to Amity to get that feeling, but I listen to other music for it. For me, one of the greatest and most special things about being in the band is being able to take part in that kind of giving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In your case, the song gave you the experience of feeling seen in your hurt. You can hear that somebody else has gone through what you\u2019re going through. It might not be the exact same thing, but you can relate to the underlying feeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That can be upsetting because you\u2019re confronted by the reality of it, but the music also gives you a release from that feeling. It\u2019s very special.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The song Joel Birch could only perform once<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

BIGMOUTH: Is there a song that gives you that same feeling?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOEL:<\/strong> I listen to Balance and Composure, Citizen, Poison the Well and my late friend\u2019s band. His name was Shane Collins and the band was called The Gift Horse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s sad that he\u2019s dead, but I feel blessed that he had a band and I can still hear him whenever I want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last song on Misery<\/em> is called \u201cThe Gift Horse,\u201d and it contains lyrics from one of his songs: \u201cThere\u2019s a message at the bottom of the bottle and it\u2019s calling out to me, singing, \u2018I can set you free.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was amazing. I wrote that song for him and we played it once. I wept the whole time and we never played it again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BIGMOUTH: Was it simply too much to perform live?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOEL:<\/strong> Emotionally, it was too much. I wanted to play it because his partner, Tara, was going to be there, but she didn\u2019t make it in time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We played it anyway and it was a lot. It was probably too much for the other guys as well. They were looking at me like, \u201cFuck.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

House of Cards<\/em> and the weight of a new chapter<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

BIGMOUTH: House of Cards<\/em> is an intensely personal record, exploring family, childhood trauma and complicated grief. Now that it has had time to breathe, how do you feel about it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOEL:<\/strong> We finished it in September last year, so for us it sat there for a long time. I still like it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think we did really well, especially given that it\u2019s the first album without Ahren. We did about as well as we could have done and we\u2019re really happy with it. There was obviously a lot riding on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t read much of the feedback. I never really do. I saw a little of the same old stuff, but people were shitting on the album before this one and the album before that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They pick a new reason each time, but it doesn\u2019t really matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMisery<\/em> nearly fucked our whole career\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

BIGMOUTH: Do musicians now feel that listeners approach new releases expecting them to be bad?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOEL:<\/strong> Yes. Being in a band is strange because we\u2019re trying to write what we want while also working out whether what we want to write is what people want to hear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The industry is so fickle that there\u2019s an extreme fear of putting something out that can tank your career. We nearly did that with Misery<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The craziest thing is that Misery<\/em> nearly fucked our whole career, but eight years later, those songs are among our most streamed. It makes no sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve spoken to Dan about it recently. I came to the conclusion that if we had released it as part of a double album\u2014half Misery<\/em> and half something more recognisably Amity\u2014it could have done really well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, it came out on its own and was a brutal step away from the norm. It caught people by surprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what do you do? It\u2019s music. If you keep doing the same thing, people hate you for that too. It\u2019s a fine line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why following trends is rarely as calculated as fans imagine<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

BIGMOUTH: Some listeners interpreted Misery<\/em> as the band chasing a trend. Was that fair?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOEL:<\/strong> It came across to some people as a cash grab, but it reflected what Dan and Ahren were listening to at the time. They weren\u2019t listening to heavy music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I write the lyrics and have nothing to do with the music, and at the time I was very against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s a band. It isn\u2019t the Joel show, so everything is a discussion. In that discussion, they said, \u201cToo bad\u2014this is what we\u2019re writing.\u201d That was how it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re touring, listening to things and subconsciously seeing who is going up and who is going down. We can\u2019t help it because we exist within that world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think many people consciously decide to release a cookie-cutter metalcore album because that\u2019s what is popular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Albums can take two years. Sometimes you finish recording and another band releases something similar before anybody even knows you\u2019re done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s devastating because when your song finally comes out, people think you ripped them off. Sometimes these things just happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Four<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Social media, outrage and \u201caudience capture\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

BIGMOUTH: You\u2019ve had people accuse the House of Cards<\/em> artwork of being AI-generated, despite naming the artist. Why do those comments become so persistent?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOEL:<\/strong> People just say, \u201cThat\u2019s AI slop.\u201d I tell them it isn\u2019t, but whatever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I look at some accounts\u2014with a profile photo, 100 followers, ten posts and 5,000 accounts they\u2019re following\u2014and wonder whether they\u2019re even real people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been listening to a podcast called Suspicious Minds: AI and the Apocalypse<\/em>. They spoke to somebody who works on the systems that keep people engaged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He explained that negative feedback loops are what get people addicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you opened Instagram and constantly saw exactly what you wanted, you would become less inclined to keep opening it. Because you don\u2019t know what you\u2019ll get, it becomes like a slot machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why the platforms feed rage. The human brain is hardwired to focus on negative things more than positive ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BIGMOUTH: That creates a difficult incentive for creators because negative stories often perform better.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOEL:<\/strong> That\u2019s audience capture. Since journalism has been outsourced to the individual, you can follow that arc with a lot of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You start by posting that a band is touring or that somebody has died. Then you see the engagement and, because your income depends on engagement, you begin posting only what drives it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if the platform increased that engagement in a less-than-legitimate way, you become captured by it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your audience then changes as the algorithm captures you. It becomes more rabid, and you have to feed it increasingly insane material to keep people engaged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joel Birch on Chris Motionless and Ronnie Radke<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

BIGMOUTH: Chris Motionless has always been incredibly supportive whenever I\u2019ve covered his band. Is he really one of the nicest people in metal?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOEL:<\/strong> He\u2019s so lovely. He is easily one of the nicest people in the whole scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BIGMOUTH: What do you make of Ronnie Radke as a performer?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOEL:<\/strong> I don\u2019t know Ronnie as a person. Being in the music world, I dismiss a lot of what I read because I see people saying things about me that are the exact opposite of who I am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I watch Falling in Reverse whenever we\u2019re on a festival with them. He\u2019s one of the best frontmen in the game. He is very, very entertaining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I watched them and immediately understood it. If that were the kind of music I liked, I\u2019d think, \u201cYes, you\u2019re fucking amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jonny Reeves and new Amity music<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

BIGMOUTH: Jonny Reeves sounds incredible on House of Cards<\/em>. What has he brought to the band?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOEL:<\/strong> He\u2019s incredible\u2014and a great person, which is always a bonus. I don\u2019t think we showed everything he can do on the album.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BIGMOUTH: Does that mean another album is already on the horizon?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOEL:<\/strong> We\u2019re already writing. We\u2019re looking at the time we have next year and identifying where the studio gap is. It doesn\u2019t really stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re hoping to release a song or a couple of songs within the next six months, just for fun, and see how we go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re excited to get Jonny singing on more songs. The more Jonny, the better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Amity Affliction\u2019s ninth album, House of Cards<\/strong>, is out now. Watch the complete Joel Birch interview on the Bigmouth Rock News YouTube channel or listen to the Bigmouth Rock Show on Spotify.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Amity Affliction frontman speaks to Bigmouth about the emotional release of the band\u2019s live shows, … The Amity Affliction: Embracing Darkness in Music<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":282608477,"featured_media":291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"Discover the emotional journey of The Amity Affliction in an exclusive interview with frontman Joel Birch about their new album, House of Cards.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"The Amity Affliction: Joel Birch on Music and Emotional Healing","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1395],"tags":[1468,1469,1470],"class_list":["post-290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-amity-affliction","tag-joel-birch","tag-post-hardcore"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phkrH9-4G","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bigmouthrocknews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/amityarticle.png?fit=501%2C398&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigmouthrocknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigmouthrocknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigmouthrocknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigmouthrocknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/282608477"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigmouthrocknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=290"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bigmouthrocknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":298,"href":"https:\/\/bigmouthrocknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions\/298"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigmouthrocknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigmouthrocknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigmouthrocknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigmouthrocknews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}