Editors called their new album Violence—subtle, right? Naming a record after an act of force is a pretty aggressive way to announce your presence, but as Justin Lockey explains, it’s not about what’s inside the album—it’s about everything happening outside of it.
“The violence in the title is almost the violence of the backdrop,” Lockey says. “We live in a world that’s a constant, snowballing assault on our senses—rolling news, politics, the need for an exploding narrative. It’s happening everywhere. You’ve got it over there in the States with Trump, we have it over here with Brexit, France had a close call with the far right, the Dutch have got their own mess, the Austrians—just pick a country.” He pauses, then adds, “Also, it’s our sixth record. VI is in the title. Seemed fitting.”
Nothing about Violence suggests this is a band running out of steam. The first single, “Magazine,” is one of the most anthemic tracks Editors have ever released—loud, soaring, and catchy. “I don’t know what it was about the state of mind we were in when we made it, but the best way to attack these songs was head-on,” Lockey says. “It wasn’t calculated. We didn’t overthink it. We just got to work, and everything kept coming back big, focused, and poppy. Which, considering the subject matter, is… well, a choice.”
Then there’s the tracklist. “Cold,” “Darkness at the Door,” “Nothingness.” Lighthearted, all of it. “I mean, we’ve always written dark music,” Lockey says, “but this record is full of hope, too. These are statements of hope against where we’re at as a race, as people. It’s about human connection. It’s about balance. Lyrically and thematically, it’s the most balanced record the band has ever made.”
And if the song titles don’t make the point clear, there’s the album cover, which looks like a physical manifestation of a human pile-up at a post-apocalyptic nightclub. “We live in a world where half the time you go outside, no one even looks up from their phones,” Lockey says. “Go to a gig—people are watching it through a screen while they’re standing right in front of the band. If you’d told someone 15 years ago that this is how people would experience life, they’d think you were insane. So yeah, the cover is just blunt-force humanity.”
The political undertones run deep, but Violence is not a protest album. “Tom doesn’t tell people what to think,” Lockey insists. “It’s not a Rage Against the Machine record. We’re not standing on a soapbox shouting slogans. It’s more about offering up a narrative and letting people take from it what they will.” He does, however, acknowledge the inescapable reality of the refugee crisis, something the band has witnessed firsthand. “If you’re willing to put your family on a raft and cross the Mediterranean, knowing there’s a chance you might not all survive, then I don’t know who the hell am I to deny you a better life?” he says. “This is modern Europe. We’ve got particle accelerators running in the mountains a few countries over, and at the same time, we’ve got people living in the dirt just trying to survive. It’s a one-sided global phenomenon that requires a global response, and right now, we’re too cozy in our modern lives to care.”
One familiar track among the ten songs on Violence is “No Sound but the Wind,” a song that has been floating around the Editors catalog for years. “It’s weirdly a national anthem in Belgium,” Lockey says. “Tom never felt we nailed a proper recording of it. And with all the brutal electronic energy on this record, it felt like we needed a breather.” The result is a fully fleshed-out version of the song, now sitting among Editors’ most definitive work.
Speaking of definitive, Editors will be sharing a stage with The Cure for their 40th anniversary show this summer, alongside another stacked gig featuring The National and Kraftwerk. “Some things come in, and you don’t even think—you just say yes,” Lockey says. “Like, yeah. We’ll do that one.”
And while Robert Smith has been making vague promises about new music for the last decade, Lockey isn’t giving up. “I actually emailed him last year about working on a project,” he says. “We went back and forth, but the timing didn’t work out. Maybe for album two. I’ll keep knocking on his door.”
At a time when albums are becoming bloated, streaming-first affairs (Violence clocks in at a lean ten tracks), Editors are still committed to making complete records. “We believe in albums, which is probably an old-fashioned concept now,” Lockey says. “But we’re an old-fashioned band.”
He pauses, then adds, “And I still think we’re getting better.”
Listen to the interview above and then check out "Magazine" below!
