Challenging the fabric of the insatiable existential journey that is the modern world, InRetrospect animates core beliefs with a relentless barrage of harmonious noise. Illustrating soundscapes that display themes of mental deterioration, emotional hardship, and pain in their truest and most extreme form, the band delivers a message for change through thought-provoking and ground-shaking experiences. Having shared the stage with the likes of Death Blooms, Blood Youth, Monasteries, and Gassed Up, the band is preparing for the next step in their musical evolution. Gaining support from the BBC, Primordial Radio, and Heavy Mag, InRetrospect has firmly cemented itself as a band to look out for. We had the opportunity to catch up with InRetrospect guitarist Jerome McCalmon to discuss what we can look forward to.
Thank you for agreeing to catch up with Occhi Magazine. Congratulations on your success to date. For readers who are unfamiliar with you, how did the band form?
Thank you for taking the time to speak with us. We first came together in late 2018 – early 2019. James and I had recently parted ways with our former band but still had the passion and drive to want to perform and write music together. I was a bassist in the previous band, but I am more naturally a guitarist, and James pushed me to try it out and we have been writing music together ever since. This led us to reaching out to other musicians locally to us at the time. We played alongside some great musicians but due to personal reasons, they went their own ways, and we love and respect them for their decisions. But this brought our line up together perfectly! We had previously shared the stage with Tobias Clark, our bassist, before and he was very open to our ideas and helped us with our sound greatly. Nathan Biddles our frontman and Geromme Melosantos, the man behind the beats, were in a band that supported our first ever show as InRetrospect, and they both had some phenomenal qualities. When we asked them about the project, we had planned moving forward, they were 100% down for the journey, making our family complete.
Each album radiates a signature style and sound. Who are your biggest musical influences?
Some of my biggest influences come from Slipknot, Killswitch Engage, Trivium, Parkway Drive, Betraying the Martyrs, and Periphery. These are just some of the many bands, but these bands have really stood out to me and influenced me and the way I like to approach making music. I’m a little older than most of the band but some other killer bands I love listening to over the past few years have been Spiritbox, Heart of a Coward, Hacktivist, Dayseeker, Thornhill, Sleep Token, and Crystal Lake.
Do you have a particular selection process for choosing material or developing tracks?
When we start our writing process, with us all be scattered around Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, we tend to record demos and ideas from home as individuals and send our ideas to each other. Sometimes it’s full songs and sometimes it’s just sections of songs that we’ve created individually. Once that’s done, we then all have creative input into the writing process and give the material its very own characteristic spin on the material we have written, which gives it a very unique taste. We all come from slightly different backgrounds and have different foundations when it comes to music which does nothing but make our music blend together so well and that’s why we love making music!
You’ve shared stages with Lastelle, Graphic Nature, Blood Youth, Monasteries, Gassed Up, and more. You’ve also played at Burn It Down Festival in 2021. What has been your most memorable performance to date and why?
It has been an absolute pleasure being able to share the stage with some of the brightest up-and-coming metal bands around the UK but for me, it has to be Burn It Down Festival in Torquay. The reason being is that it was our first big festival together and to see ourselves get a great reception as we did; makes you want to play there again! We had so much fun on that stage and we had plenty of fun off stage too! We got to share it with some amazing bands. We also had the opportunity to explore the festival and check out bands such as Dinosaur Pile Up, Hacktivist, and Wargasm. It was great seeing bands of this caliber because it was also a day of learning as well. With us being a relatively new, young band, these bands really set the benchmark with their performances and we all took notes and will try to work on our performance as a band to push ourselves to be the best we can!
Please tell us more about your latest project, ‘Deadweight’
Deadweight is our 3rd release from our upcoming EP “Current State”, which is released later this summer, which we cannot wait for. When we completed writing this track, we knew that our audience would like it because it carries a lot of energy with it, it’s hard-hitting yet has some great shifts in its dynamic. This song has plenty of grooves and some fun riffs to play! Nathan’s writing for this whole EP has been brilliantly impactful with its meaning, but instrumentally, we all really pushed ourselves while writing deadweight because of how heavy it is! We have to thank Mike Bennett of Foxhound Studios for his production work and help with the whole EP. He really helps us bring our ideas to life and we’ve worked with him ever since our first single “Sun Settings” because he really ties our family together. We have a great relationship with mike beyond the music and I think that’s what makes our music sound so crisp and punchy. That’s why we love working with him! He’s one of the family.
What other projects are you currently working on?
We have got a handful of projects going on behind closed doors, we are all still writing material and building our catalog of music to work with over the coming months while our EP is being released. We have plans for more music videos over the course of this year to partner our music releases. Working under Saviour Management has been a blessing and an honor due to them helping us manage our workflow and maximize our releases as best as we can. We are also working alongside Dynamic Talent International which we are very much looking forward to! They have a huge roster of great bands and we are going to show them what we have to offer!
The most important thing for us is really working on our live performances and pushing ourselves to deliver our best show possible every time. We don’t like to disappoint any audience so creating a big set and show is so important, even more so now that we can actually get on a stage! In our next live show, we will be sharing the stage with the heavy-hitting InVisions on April 15th, so we’ve really had to get our heads down and work hard to put on a great show! We also have our EP Release run of shows this summer being supported by the ever-amazing We Struck Gold that we cannot wait! We’ve got big plans in the works for a great show with some great music ad some amazing bands too.
Where can our readers find out more about you and your projects?
A8. You can find all of our content through our Link Tree which allows you to see our social media platforms which we love to stay active on and give our audience easy access to what we have going on. The Link Tree link also shows you where our upcoming shows are and how you can get tickets making it easy access for everyone. If you get some free time and want to come and support what we are trying to create and have a wild time in the process, that’s all the access you need for everything we do!
https://linktr.ee/InRetrospectBandUK
Co-Headline live show with Spolier, 2022
Soundcheck on Tour with Spolier, 2022
Photography Credit: Alex Dixon of Blackboxphotoco
https://www.facebook.com/Blackboxphotoco
Thank you again Occhi Magazine for taking the time to get to know more about us, it’s very appreciated. I hope you are all doing well and keep up the great work reaching out to bands. Stay safe!
Photography Credit: Alex Dixon of Blackboxphotoco
About Author
