Stray From The Path are done with getting caught up in other people’s games. On the highest level, that’s about rejecting the machinations of modern society designed to bend us to the wills of the rich and powerful, while simultaneously desensitising us to the fact that it’s happening. Too often nowadays we find ourselves ‘getting clockworked’. That might be by the hamster-wheel struggle to stay afloat. It could be down to the cycle of addiction, intended to distract but engineered for self-defeat. Most alarmingly, it’s the result of endless media reminders that scenes of societal outrage and political farce we would’ve once considered impossible have somehow become entirely commonplace, robbing away our will to give a shit.
On a personal and professional note for Stray, it’s more about releasing their music with the same sense of slap-in-the-face immediacy and excitement that comes with listening to it. Fans turning up at Slam Dunk last weekend knew that new material was in the works. Some of it had been teased at shows in London at the start of the year. Advance single Kubrick Stare showcased unhinged new levels of intensity. Even still, seeing posters announcing that a whole record would be out in under seven days felt like a stirring adrenaline shot even before they hit the stage. And then they chucked vinyl copies into the mosh-pit, with a stack more up for sale on the merch desk.
Over two decades since they first raised their voices in anger, guitarist Tom Williams hints that this is about reconnecting to their early years as fans while waging war on modern complacency. 2022’s epic Euthanasia was a definitive statement. Recorded with vocalist Andrew ‘Drew York’ Dijorio, bassist Anthony Altamura and drummer Craig Reynolds, Clockworked feels like a reset, cranking the flames higher than ever before. And for fans to find out about it without months of online lead-in and pre-order shilling should ensure its 10 tracks hit just as viciously as they should…
Was it always your attention to catch fans off guard with this surprise?
“Basically, I wanted to tap into the feeling I had when I would get records as a kid. Like, when Deftones’ White Pony came out, I saw the Change (In The House Of Flies) video on TV, then I went to the store and bought it. That doesn’t really happen anymore. Normally nowadays you announce the record and put out one song, then maybe a month later you’ll put out another song, then eventually the album comes out. It’s annoying. I play videogames, so when I saw the trailer for the remaster of Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater and the release date was like a year later, it pissed me off. But I watch TV shows, too, and when I found out that the whole new season of Squid Game would be out in like two weeks I was all like, ‘Let’s go!’
“I work in management for other bands, including Counterparts, who did something similar recently with their Heaven Let Them Die EP. Theirs was completely secret, though. We didn’t tell anyone. We didn’t ship it to stores. We didn’t even upload it to Spotify until 48 hours before to avoid leaks. Stray haven’t been quite so secretive. People have known that one day they will wake up and a record will be there. I just find the idea that someone could find out about it, then go down to their record store and actually buy it an hour later so exciting. If someone told me Rage Against The Machine had a new record in stores now, I’d finish this interview and immediately go to seek it out.”
It saves too much of a release being spoiled before people get their hands on it, too…
“Exactly. Often by the time an album comes out, fans will already have heard 30, 40 or even 50 per cent of the record. If I had gotten to see half the movie of There Will Be Blood in fits and bursts and then three months later I finally got to see the ending, it would still have been cool, but it wouldn’t hit in the same way as experiencing the whole thing in one sitting!”