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Interview with Angel Ibarra (Aiden), by Cherry Pullinger - June 5th 2009

So, you guys are back with your new album ‘Knives,’ which you’ve described as a more back to basics, punk rock album – why did you decide to take this direction after Conviction?
With Conviction, we realised it wasn’t our style, it’s not what Aiden is. We’re still proud of it, we love it but Knives is more angry. Knives is angst and more punk which is what Aiden is.

Some of the tracks deal with dark subjects – why did you decide to approach these on Knives?
Alot of the songs are about personal struggles. The lyrics are about some dark stuff that is directly from WiL. The record is the most honest record he’s ever written, it’s a big fuck you to everyone else and everything he’s been through.

Alot of personal stuff went on for WiL before we made the record, which put him in a dark place and he used that as his main inspiration for the writing process.

What are your favourite tracks from the album?
My favourite tracks on the album are probably Crusifiction and musically, probably, King on Holiday.

You’re building up quite a catalogue of music now – your last album Conviction seems to stand out from the rest musically, would you agree? Why?
We created Conviction while the band was in a happy place and enjoying a bit of success, so we tried something new and now we realise Conviction isn’t what Aiden is. Conviction was too happy, too ‘pop-py’ and the real Aiden are dark.

Are old favourites such as ‘Die Romantic,’ and ‘The Last Sunrise,’ still getting the crowds worked up?
We still play tracks from ‘Our Gangs Dark Oath,’ and ‘Nightmare Anatomy,’ we played them recently in the UK and the crowd went mental. We still really enjoy playing them.

The UK tour back in June was just a small selection of hand picked dates, why those particular cities and venues?
We wanted to play a really small tour, so the Ticket To Hell tour was in a few small cities that we don’t usually play. It was a small, cheap tour where tickets were like 6 bucks, it was more intimate and definiately more punk rock.

You’re currently playing as a four piece, are you playing better now after the depature of Jake Wambold?
It’s way better playing as a four piece. WiL plays a bit of guitar now as well as vocals and I use two amps now to get a bigger, fuller sound.

Do you see yourselve ever being a five piece again?
We will never go back to being a five piece band.

It has been well documented that Aiden have faced some recent struggles. Will the band beable to pull through these struggles? What would you say to worrying fans?
We are definitely getting through our struggles and it’s making us much stronger. We’ve had a lot of legal issues with Jake Wambold but they’ve all been settled now, that’s all done. There are other issues, mainly money, because we’re not making enough to scrape by, but as long as I can keep playing music with my friends and enough to stop us going hungry, then I don’t really care. It would be good if we had a million dollars in our pockets but that won’t ever happen.

What’s up next for Aiden?
This summer we’re going to be playing the Warped Tour which is some really great exposure. We’re going to try and round off the year back in the UK in November, and after that, I’m not sure, maybe we’ll start on a new record.

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