It was a long road (literally) for the Perth, Australia-based deathcore band Make The Suffer to gain any remnant of success. Coming from one of the most isolated capital cities in the world located on the West coast of their giant home country, it make it hard for Make Them Suffer to find and play meaningful shows in their early years when the band formed in 2008. As much as they didn’t feel like they were progressing fast enough, it didn’t stop them and their optimism has reached the skies above nearly a decade in existence.
The presence of a great community in Perth’s music scene at the time also contributed to their perseverance. They’ve been able to see how the scene has changed over the years, swimming the waters as a band that is a bit unique in comparison to their genre peers.
“We were a deathcore band with keys,” says explains vocalist Sean Harmanis. “That was our point of difference. Music evolves. The local scene evolves. People get smarter and wiser. That’s not so different anymore. I guess that’s part of what pushed us to seek a point of difference that beyond that.”
In continually seeking that point of difference, Make Them Suffer come into 2017 finishing their latest album, Worlds Apart, due out July 28th through Rise Records. It’s a band that has a clearer direction in regards to songwriting, with a couple of recent personnel changes not necessarily disrupting anything, but more so keeping a balance to where they can continue to progress as a band.
“It was important for ourselves,” explains Harmanis on keeping a sense of variety with the music. “For us, it was so important to do something that really pushed our limits and allowed us to experiment. Do the music that, first and foremost, we wanted to do. This album is a creation of a unified effort of all of our influences and what we listen to during the day-to-day.”
Its been since their last album Old Souls that there has been a few of member changes. Louisa Burton (keyboardist and clean vocalist), Chris Arias-Real (bass), and Lachlan Monty (guitar) parted ways to go do their own endeavors. Booka Nile and Jaya Jeffrey would replace Burton and Arias-Real in their respective roles in the band.
“We went from a band that was touring two to three months of the year to a band touring six months of the year,” says Harmanis about the lineup changes. “That lifestyle is straight up not for everyone. People do these tours and think that’s their dream. They do a couple of them and they realize that this isn’t really for them.”
All the line up changes did run smoothly for Make Them Suffer as the new members Booka Nile and Jaya Jeffrey have been friends of the band for a long time in the tightknit Perth community, so there’s no hard feelings from anyone. It was just the way life goes sometimes that a few of the members needed to move onto something they are more comfortable with.
Make Them Suffer is about to embark on their third North American tour, first as a headline with special guests, fellow deathcore bands Enterprise Earth and Spite. They’ve went from playing 30 minute sets in the two previous tours as openers leaning more towards the metalcore spectrum to now having their name at the top of the bill and able to have more freedom with their set list.
“This tour, yes, it’s our album tour,” describes Harmanis. “We are going to play a number of tracks off the new album, but we’re also playing a lot of older stuff, a lot of our heavier older stuff. Playing more of the crushing heavy metal songs that would really work with that tour package with Enterprise Earth and Spite. “
When it comes to a bit of an ethos of the band when it comes to the music Make Them Suffer creates, Harmanis has a few words about that: “When you’re playing in a genre that is so saturated by people doing all the same things, I think the most important thing you can do is try and bridge that and come up with something that is original. You can put out the best metalcore song in the world, but I just think that it’s not going to get noticed. There’s no integrity in that. You might as well put out something that’s going to be excited and new and something that is different and is drawing from all of these influences that people have never experienced in their spectrum before.”
Make Them Suffer’s new album “Worlds Apart” is due out July 28th via Rise Records. Their North American headline tour with Enterprise Earth and Spite starts July 26th in New York City. For more information on Make Them Suffer and full tour dates visit facebook.com/makethemsufferau.
Listen to the full interview with Sean Harmanis of Make Them Suffer on my Fresh is the Word Podcast below: