^{Header Photo Credit: Josh Dage}

^{Interview by Kayla Hamilton (@kaylazomboid)}

If there is something that has been proven over the last few years is that emo is not dead. Whether you want to call it a resurgence or a revival, bands that many of us grew to love in the early 2000’s have been coming back stronger than ever. 

One of those bands is Armor For Sleep.

Arguably one of the most underrated bands of the last twenty years, the New Jersey emo/post-hardcore act has been re-establishing themselves over the last five years. With two albums since their return, their latest There Is No Memory which dropped last month, Armor For Sleep are taking the nostalgic sentiment that comes from their first few releases and using to enter a new chapter of their music career.

Part of this new chapter sees the band heading to Australia for the first time next year with Hawthorne Heights and we caught up with the band’s captain Ben Jorgensen to talk about the tour, the new album and all the things in between.

K: First of all though, I want to say congratulations on the new album.

B: Thank you so much. 

K: I’ve seen some really great reviews on the album and I’ve listened to it myself. Because you’re on tour at the moment, aren’t you? Or have you just finished?

B: Yes. Yeah, we’re on tour with Senses Fail and Story of the Year right now.

K: Beautiful. So how have the new songs kind of been received with the live audiences?

B: It’s been really interesting. So we’re opening up for Senses Fail and Story of the Year. So these shows we play, it’s not a room full of like Armour for Sleep diehard fans, like it is when we headline. So a lot of the people at these shows know us from our more popular songs from back in the day-  like ‘Car Underwater’– and stuff like that. So they know those songs. But when we play the new songs…that was one thing we were actually really nervous about. How are these gonna go over for people who don’t know that we just had a new album that came out and it’s been great. People have just, even if they don’t know all the words to the songs, are definitely very receptive. And then after the show I like to go to the merch area and just kind of like say “what’s up” to people. People have been coming up to me saying “that new song was awesome”. And it’s just been awesome. Best case scenario for trying to play new songs for the first time on tour, which can always kind of be a scary thing.

K: When you’re putting those set lists together, is it something like, okay, you’ve got, obviously There’s No Memory songs and there’s The Rain Museum songs and then of course some people are like I know the old songs. How are you guys constructing those set lists? Is it very nerve wrecking and very like trial and error?

B: Well, luckily and unluckily for us, so we’re only playing 30 minutes on this tour, which is like, we only have eight songs to play. It was basically like, let’s play the songs that we love playing, first of all. We don’t wanna play songs that we don’t like, but also we want to play the new songs and highlight the fact that we’re entering into kind of like a new chapter of our band. So that’s the scary thing. I think a lot of times we don’t want to get into the new stuff in a live situation unless it’s sufficiently out there. But, I think we take a chance and we’re trying to, we’re trying to play some new stuff and shake things up.

K: So what I’ve noticed with your albums, and I’ve seen you touch on it in a few interviews, that a lot of your albums have a kind of a concept or at least a real full circle approach to its construction. It kind of feels like it’s part of the Armor for Sleep DNA. Is that also for sure the basis of this new album? And if so, what’s the theory and the feelings behind it?

B: Yeah, totally. So that is true and that’s something that I consciously and unconsciously wanted to do. Even writing the First Armour for Sleep songs when I was like 16 years old. I just, I wanted our albums to have themes to them and so they always kind of have, and this album is no different. The specific thing that I’m getting into in this album is, it’s in the title, but what this album really is, it’s an exploration of how weird the idea of memories are. I was just thinking about all these things that I’ve been through in my life a lot of times messed up things, and traumatic things and I think I was at a point in my life where I was feeling like these things that have happened to me in my past were holding me back from getting to the place that I wanted to go in the future. And unless I unpacked a lot of events from my past and these memories of things I’d been through, I wasn’t sure that I could move on. So every song here is about a different, sometimes painful memory from my life and the whole thing is how weird is it that this thing from years ago has never let me go? You know? And so it’s exploring how weird memories are. 

There is no memory. The title of the album is kind of ironic. It comes from, to make a long story short, basically my computer crashed when I was working on demos for the album and an error message came on screen and said, ‘there is no memory’ before it shut down. I was like, it’s really weird ’cause I was writing all these songs about memories and my computer’s like, there is no memory .

So, it’s kind of a sarcastic like tongue in cheek name to the album. But yeah, so the whole theme of the album is just dealing with traumatic things from our lives that we have to face or else they’re gonna keep controlling us.

K: That’s kind of like the basis of like the emo genre, inpart anyway. So you said you started writing the first Armour for Sleep songs at 16 and obviously now we aren’t 16 anymore, let’s be honest…[Laughs]

B: Yeah, I just turned, uh, I just turned 22…[Laughs]

K: So when you approach songwriting now in your later years compared to obviously writing from that teen angst kind of mindset. How has your approach to the actual songwriting changed? Or has it? Do you have to tap into that mindset of that early twenties, teens mindset anymore or is it from a new place?

B: Totally. So that’s a really good question and that’s something that I was thinking a lot about writing this album. Because a lot of it is like what I think about, like, what is the point of putting music out there in the world. There are a billion people writing music and what I arrive at is like, the only thing that makes me different is that I’m me, you know? And so my perspective now is, is exactly what you’re saying. I’m at a much different point in my life than I was when I was 16 and I look at the songs that I wrote when I was 16, and it’s very much songs that were coming from the experience of someone who had not had experience in life. Right? So it was like, first loves in my first breakup and everything, and now years later I’ve lived through a lot more life, you know, and life has been a lot more complicated for better or for worse than it was when I was younger. And I’ve been through losing friends and losing close people, family members in my life and dealing with real issues that I didn’t deal with when I was, you know, that 18- year-old kid writing What To Do When You’re Dead. So from that perspective, I think this album is a lot more about like real life and about like kind of being a grownup person and how sadness and isolation is different when you’ve lived as many years as I have now than it was when I was like a kid in high school who thought he knew what the world was.

K: Is that funny coming back to playing those songs live that you wrote when you were younger? Because sometimes I can listen to ‘Car Underwater’ now and I still kind of feel it. And as an adult you look back and go, oh man, what was that? Life is so much harder now.

B: Yeah, no, a thousand percent. I never feel stupid about it, right? I’m never like, oh, I was so dumb because those feelings were so real to me at that age. I think it’s just interesting. I still respect, the me who wrote that song at the time, even though now I’m like, wow, I’ve lived through so much more. I can’t believe I had such a small perspective on life at the time. What it is for me, it’s like, it’s remembering. It’s a chapter marker for where I was at that time in my life when I was going through those things.

And I think the beautiful thing is, I think that’s what other people are feeling too when they’re singing along with me. They’re remembering where they were when that song hit them and the person they were, and the feelings they were feeling at that part in their lives. It’s like paying homage to that person. And we were all those people and those people grew up into who we are. I think it’s like having a respect for where we came from emotionally, you know?

K: That’s beautiful. I love that. 

This is your second album since you’ve kind of returned, do you still get people coming up to you saying “oh my God Armor For Sleep are back”?

B: Yeah. It does happen. [Laughs] So The Rain Museum we put out in 2022 or 2023, I don’t remember. I recorded it like right at the end of COVID. I forget the exact year it came out, but I was, I was going through some shit during that one too. But when that came out, a lot of people were like, well, that’s so cool that Armour for Sleep is back with a new album and I was always like, cool, did you listen to it? But I feel like the big story was just we were back and that was the story of the album as opposed to people digging in. So hopefully for this new album people know that we’re back and can actually listen to it. And it’s not like, well Armour are back. 

I still do get that “I can’t believe you guys are back making music” and I know that there are a lot of bands now that just are kind of nostalgia bands and that just do reunion tours, but don’t have new music. I hope that we’re not one of those bands. I feel creative and inspired to want to keep putting out new music and new art. I hope our fans just see that about us.

K: You guys have kind of come back through what it seems to be a full blown emo revival that’s coming on. Did that inspire you guys to come back or was that just something it just seemed to coincide?

B: You know, good question! [Laughs] I don’t know if I know the answer to it. I know that when we broke up the first time in ‘09 everybody hated emo, everybody hated the scene. Every band that was touring were like, Emo’s over. It just got really lame. It was like, I don’t know if you have hot topic in Australia, and like the emo scene just became such a cliche. So we went away. A lot of bands went away. What I remember is in 2015, I moved to Los Angeles and this guy, TJ and his friend Morgan started throwing parties called Emo Night, right? Where they would get up on stage and they would play like Paramore, My Chem and Armour for Sleep songs. And thousands of kids would show up and would just be dancing basically to a playlist from their laptop. And honestly, I think it was around that time when I was like, man, this is coming back around again. Like, there’s no longer shame about this scene because all these people were this is what we grew up with. We love it. Why did this go away? So I think then I was like, okay, are people starting to respect this whole thing again? So with that in my head, 2015 is like when I started going okay. I just had a thought in my head and to be honest, I think it randomly coincided with shit I was going through in my life. So during COVID, I actually went through a very bad breakup. Actually a divorce, so the worst possible breakup you could go through.

And I think for me, I had a little bit of an epiphany where I was like, my life is ticking away. My time on this earth is not infinite and I really wanted to get back in touch with music and I felt like I had wasted so much time not doing what I was passionate about.

And so 2020 right after COVID, right when shows opened up again and When We Were Young [festival], was a massive thing. That’s right when I was feeling, wanting to get back into music too. So I think that was a little bit of coincidence. Sorry, that was a really long answer.

K: No, that’s perfect. It’s beautiful. It’s good. I’m glad to hear that. Because I feel like that is the sort of mindset that has kind of sparked this emo revival. We’re all just like, oh, we don’t give a fuck anymore. Let’s just who we are and be so unashamed.

B: Absolutely.

K: So why we’re talking today is because you are going to be joining another kind of emo legacy band, Hawthorn Heights, in Australia. Did I read it’s your first time coming to Australia?

B: It is, yeah. So I’ve been there a couple times. I played some solo acoustic shows in like 2010. But yeah, this is the first time the band has ever been there ever. Wow. So it’s going to be very, very special for us. We always got those comments on Instagram over the years. Come to Australia, come to Australia and we’re like, man, we just, we don’t know how that could ever be possible. But yeah, we’re excited that we’re finally gonna be making the trip down there. 

K: Has there anything you’ve heard about Australia that you are kind of like, well you said you’ve been here a few times, but what about the rest of the band that you are kind of excited for? Is there anything that’s on a must do while you’re here list?

B: I’ve been a couple times, but I think it’s a must do for me, and I know this is probably, we sound like silly Americans saying it, but I love kangaroos and koalas. And I would love to hang out with koalas up close. You know, obviously if there’s like a non-invasive way to do it that’s not going to like bum out a koala, you know? So I’m, I’m really excited about that. I love animals and we obviously don’t have those up here, so I’m excited about that. I’m honestly excited to give Vegemite another chance. I didn’t understand it the first time I was there, but I want to get into it.

K: You got to get an expert to do, get an Australian to make the Vegemite toast for you. It will be easier. 

And so what can Aussie fans actually expect from an Armor For Sleep show in 2026? Because it’s gonna be obviously our first time getting you guys. 

B: We’re just so excited. We’re firing on all cylinders now and we’re just super grateful that we can still be doing this. And we’re so grateful for Hawthorn Heights that they’re bringing us over. You know, we love those guys. We’ve known them for so long and I just know these shows are gonna be awesome. In the States, we love playing shows, but people in the states have more likely than not already seen us, you know? To be able to play for people who we’ve never been able to play for we don’t ever get to do that. So we’re gonna be super excited  to just play for everyone down there for the first time. It’s gonna be awesome.

_{You can catch Armor For Sleep next April, touring with Hawthorn Heights.
Tickets on sale now. You can find them here.}

^{The new album There Is No Memory is also out now.
Stream it here.}