ERRA’s new album “silence outlives the earth” could be seen as a reflection of today’s current climate, but it wasn’t intentional for the metalcore band.
“We accidentally wrote a dark album again,” vocalist J.T. Cavey said with a laugh. “I don’t even come in the studio with specific topics. Of course, if you come in with nothing in the bank, as far as a lyric library, and you just let today’s world affect you, yeah, it’s hard to avoid it. There’s nothing explicit that we address on the record, but there’s definitely a lot of things that people have picked up on, even on the singles that have been out, that have reflected what’s happening currently.
“So I think by accident that happens, but we don’t explicitly come in there with a goal to write about the political climate or the administration or war across the ocean. We want to talk about what we want to talk about, and sometimes it can get political or explicit on a certain topic, but we try not to be too divisive, but we do have our opinions on things, and we like to speak our minds sometimes.”
The new album — the band’s seventh — will drop March 6, coinciding with the launch of their “The Silence Follows” co-headlining tour with Currents. They’ll be joined by Caskets and Aviana, with a March 22 show at the Roxian Theatre in McKees Rocks.
“It’s going to be a banger,” said Cavey, who joined the band in 2016. “We haven’t been on tour since August, so we’re gonna probably be very rusty for the first two shows so don’t judge us. But we’re super excited to show this record and start this new record’s cycle.”
In a Zoom call earlier this month from Lancaster, Cavey spoke with TribLive about the new album, lyric interpretations, collaborations and more. Find a transcript of the conversation, edited for clarity and length, below.
This year marks your 10th year in ERRA. How would you describe it? Has that time just flown by?
Yeah, I would say it has. I’m definitely the type of person that tries to stay busy and definitely when it comes to making sure our band continues and grows. I’ve always used this comparison, but you put the goalposts down to make metrics for yourself, then when you go check on them, they’re like way past, and you have definitely moved on since then. I approached this like I would any other occupation. I care a lot so I’ve put all my eggs in this basket. So I try to make it look like I have. I’m very grateful for the position I’m in to do this type of job and help people and make something that I’m proud of. But I have never really taken for granted the position I’m in.
The new album, “silence outlives the earth,” comes out March 6. What do you want people to take away from that album?
We’re very proud of it. It feels like one of our best pieces of work, if not our best. And it’s probably my favorite record. I know it’s Jesse’s favorite. I feel like the record has a little bit of everything. We try to do that every record, but I really think this record gives more context to what we were doing on “Cure.” I think it goes back to some of the strengths that we have for the self-titled (album), but I also think it incorporates stuff from our back catalog as well. I think it’s a good showcase of where we’ve been over the last decade, as far as songwriting. There’s some Easter eggs in there and some stuff we haven’t done before. It’s a good level-up and progression for the band, as far as releases go.
Was there a vision for it whenever the band first started working on it?
Probably not concretely. I would say the vision was, we took two different approaches this time. We broke up the recording process into multiple sessions, which we’ve never done before. Actually that’s a lie. I think we did it for two sessions with “Cure,” and we liked it, so we did it again for this record. But I think this record was actually three sessions total, all with Dan Braunstein, just like “Cure.” I think we realized that not feeling pressure to finish a record within X amount of time was so much more helpful. I know I felt better about approaching the songs and there’s definitely been times in the past where I am writing or trying to meet a deadline for a song, and things slip through the cracks and your best work ends up not getting on the record because you’re under some sort of time frame and you don’t want to have to come back and spend more money to get more studio dates. But we didn’t have that issue this time around, so that luxury was really beneficial for improving the overall result of the record.
Does it also help to take a step back from the songs and come back?
Oh, yeah. You get what’s called demo-itis. So you’ll keep listening to the same thing over and over, and eventually it’ll just sound good to you. (laughs) When you come back with fresh ears and you’re like, what was I thinking? So being able to take a break from the content and songs allows you to step away from the environment a little bit and come back with fresh eyes and ears.
With the songs, do you prefer to leave the lyrics up to interpretation rather than spelling it out explicitly?
I do. I know (guitarist/vocalist) Jesse (Cash) sometimes can have a more cavalier approach to that, and I respect that, but I try to be pretty even and fair. I’m not going to judge somebody, unless it’s literally (something) illegal. (laughs) I’m not going to judge somebody for a different opinion from me. I don’t want anybody to have some sort of pre-designated opinion on a song because they know what it’s about, and they just have an opposing view on that topic. So I don’t like to explicitly put somebody in that position. I’ve seen what that looks like, and it’s never pretty.
For the single “Further Eden,” what’s your take on that song?
That song generally is just about looking at the chaos around you and stepping back and taking a look at it. You can either look at it as an approach that we let it consume us and be part of the problem, or you can step back and just ponder on it, or you can try to do something about it, but it’s like the line of the chorus is, “how far can we sink into the abyss?” Do you close your eyes and drift into that abyss, or do you do something about it or what? That leaves it open to you to make the choice. A lot of the record puts you in these different mindsets, and it doesn’t say you have to do a certain thing or feel a certain way, but it puts you there and it confronts you with that particular darkness for you to decide how you want to approach it.
How do you think this album compares to 2024’s “Cure”? Do you feel like it’s along the same lines?
Yeah, looking back, I would say it’s similar as far as the lyrical approach. Instrumentally, though, it’s pretty different. From a writing standpoint, when it comes to lyrics, it’s probably an extension of things that we address on “Cure.” I’d have to put them side by side. I think you go in thinking you’re going to write something different (laughs) and you kind of just write the same thing in a different way. I know I’ve definitely written four songs about waves and drifting and ghosts and another four songs about self-sabotage and regret and (stuff) like that. (laughs)
Well, those are universal themes and everybody experiences a lot of that stuff.
Yeah, it’s hard to be a heavy band and write positively. That’s a lie. You can write positive but for it to not feel like a Disney song and it feel cool is definitely hard. Like, ‘you can do it!’ There’s a right way to do that, and some bands actually crush at that, but I always struggle to find the right approach for the lighter topics. It’s so easy to write when you’re (ticked) off.
For the upcoming live shows, how’s the set selection going? Have you even thought about that yet and how do you balance the new stuff?
It’s long and that’s so hard. It’s like, let’s play this song. OK, now we can’t play this song. You’re like, oh (crap). When your catalog’s getting deeper and deeper, it’s super hard to decide what you want to do. We do a little bit of fan service where we look at the Spotify plays and if there’s a song that’s creeping up in plays, then we’ll toss it in the set. I’d beg to get some “Drift” songs on there. It’s some stuff we haven’t played in a while and a lot of the new songs obviously because it’s promoting the new record on the tour. I’m not gonna give anything away. You’ll have to come to the show and see. It’ll be on setlist.fm or whatever in a week, I’m sure.
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Do you have songs that you want to play, but the rest of the band is not interested?
Not really. I don’t even bring them up because I know it’s a no. (laughs) I know why we play the songs we play, so I’m not even gonna fight it. It’s not J.T. and the ERRAs (laughs) even though sometimes I wish it was.
The band’s worked with Courtney (LaPlante) from Spiritbox and Bad Omens in the past. Is there anybody else that you’re hoping to collaborate with in the near future?
Collaborations are tough. You want to put your friends on songs and you want to bring voices in that you feel like will elevate the part, but I don’t know, we tore with Fit For A King and August Burns Red and Marcus from Northlane, and I could get any of them on any of our songs, but we all kind of do the same thing. I don’t really like bringing in another metalcore vocalist that we can both do the same thing. I want to bring in somebody or maybe an instrument player that can’t do something that we can do because then it makes this song a little more special. I would love to bring somebody outside of our genre onto features. Not that I wouldn’t love to have Jake (Luhrs) or Ryan (Kirby) on one of her songs, but we’re just super selective or picky. And if it doesn’t really do anything for the part, then why are we doing it?