Chris got heavily into programming and synthwave sounds – was that an exciting challenge to incorporate?
Chris: “I don’t like writing under pressure, and I can never totally predict whether Maria’s gonna love something or not. For this new music, without time-related pressure, I had time to just take the guitar off for a while and really get to grips with programming. I would send ideas to Maria, and she genuinely loved a lot of it, and so we went forward, doing a ton of stuff we wouldn’t normally do.”
Maria: “There’s a real special thing between Chris and I – when he says he can’t predict whether things will please me, it’s not like I’m some diva (laughs). But I need to feel the music. I love industrial and electronic stuff, so when Chris was sending me these ideas I almost laughed because I loved it so much. That’s something I do – I did the same thing when we came up with Blood [the title-track from 2012’s breakthrough album]. Everything flowed, everything resonated.”
You’ve always ‘seen’ music, had visions for how songs will ‘look’, both on video or onstage. How did the concept for The Purge’s fiery video emerge?
Maria: “I’ve been directing or co-directing our music videos for about 10 years, but this time I wanted to work with Jensen Noen who has worked with [bands like] Ice Nine Kills. We came up with the creative storyboarding, but he can do things that we can’t – such as make fire come to life. The fire in the video isn’t real or we’d have burned to death, but it looks incredible. We’ve always been very visual, but we’ve reached a new level now.”
At the end it said ‘to be continued’ – is there another, similarly themed video to come?
Maria: “Yes, and we want our fans to pick the song. We will look at what songs fans are gravitating to, and we’ll make a decision through that.”