Autumn Kings are living the philosophy of their songs. More specifically, ‘Sleep When I’m Dead’. “We arrived at 6:30am and haven't slept for probably over 24 hours,” admits guitarist and vocalist Jake Diab. “A couple of weeks ago, we did a whole radio circuit across America. We did like eight different radio stations in four days, and our team was very happy about that, so they said, hey, for the UK, can you get there a day earlier and we'll just stack your day with press all day? That's okay, right? No sleep, cool? Yeah, of course, that's fine. So, here we are!”

Like every other part of the Autumn Kings story, Diab and co-founder Joe Coccimiglio are taking it all in their stride. From a chance meeting while both working at a grocery store, they’ve built up a massive following with tracks like ‘Tongue Tied’ and ‘Hellbound’ that connect with fans wherever they go, and whatever they’re going through. “‘Tongue Tied’ is awesome,” explains Diab. He has a beaming, sincere enthusiasm that bounces from him at the mention of one of his songs. “That’s a song about finding the courage to speak your inner convictions in a world where it seems almost dangerous to speak what you believe to be true. We wanted to do it in a way where it didn’t take a religious or political stance, but more of a moral and philosophical stance to find courage to speak your convictions firmly. Hopefully people can relate to it, whether you’re getting bullied at school or you want to be a whistleblower in the workplace or what have you, you find that mental strength to say what you want to say. You say screw it to the boss. The people who have heard it, love it. The net just hasn’t been as wide as we thought it would be, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to have that light of day once the record comes out. It’s a deep cut.”

“Yeah, it’s a cult classic,” grins  Coccimiglio, “but, you know, ‘Sleep When I’m Dead’ and ‘Hellbound’ have been just crushing it, and ‘Hellbound’ is really climbing up the charts right now in Canada and the USA.  We just finished a three week tour in the US a couple of days ago and fans, at every single show, talk about how ‘Hellbound’ has had an influence on their life or helped get them through a tough time, whether it was a breakup or dealing with health scare of a family member. They were able to find a lot of comfort in ‘Hellbound’. So it’s one of the best feelings when your music is in that next level. The best reaction we get from any of our live songs, I would say. ‘Hellbound’, 100%, the crowd goes crazy.”

At the other end of the pop punk spectrum, they’ve dropped ‘Snake Charmer’, a song with a totally different energy but equal intensity. “It was one of those things where, a lot of times, we’ll look at each other, like we need this energy on this record or we need that energy,” Coccimiglio waves his hands to illustrate his process. “We needed something that just hits people in the face and ‘Snake Charmer’ was born out of that, to be honest.”

“Yeah, we had a lot of mid tempo songs and we were on FaceTime actually,” Diab continues. “We wanted something fast, something that has a little punk rock to it to get the crowd going. It’s just so funny how songs are written. It’s very unexplainable. You can explain a lot of things. You can almost explain guitar riffs and drum parts and even how you craft a concept or a lyric, but the melody of the song, the snake, it just comes from the sky. It literally came out of the air. We have melodies that we listen to in different genres that we absorb into our brain and download, but it subconsciously comes out and the way that that is captured, it’s like lightning in a bottle. You can’t really teach it. ‘Snake Charmer’ was one of those. It just came together.”

“You called me one night and said ‘we gotta get this song, a punk rock song, a fast song,” recalls Coccimiglio, “it was almost midnight and then I think you maybe started humming the ‘Snake Charmer’ melody. Like, what are you saying, Snake Charmer?” Diab starts singing the chorus to himself. “‘Snake Charmer, come, come, come and get you good’. It all rolled off the tongue. The song is about… it’s a revenge anthem. It’s that primal tribal instinct that across any culture across the world, you feel that you want to take revenge on somebody and not be diplomatic about it. And ‘Snake Charmer’ speaks to that raw instinct. Now, of course we’re not encouraging violence…”

“Nobody go kill your ex-girlfriend, please! But it’s the song that at least connects to that instinct.”

Autumn Kings are, of course, in the UK supporting Those Damn Crows on their UK headline tour. While the main act are all about channelling classic rock energy, Autumn Kings are frequently described as a musical hybrid of Linkin Park and Fall Out Boy, which Diab’s quick to correct. “Linkin Park’s definitely one of our favorites. Fall Out Boy: there are definitely quite a few songs that we love from them. We’re sort of evolving away from that. That’s a good starting point that we tell people is Linkin Park and Fall Out Boy had a baby. You know, a lot of artists are precious about not being compared to other artists. It triggers something in the ego and insecurity. For us it’s nice to just give people some sort of basis and then as you dive deeper into the catalogue, you realise it’s very different….”

“It’s a trailer to a movie,” explains Coccimiglio. “We have lots of genres that span beyond just Linkin Park or Fallout Boy that we listen to. We love everything. I love heavy metal music. I’ll listen to some country songs that I think are great. I love the rap, heavy heavy metal, jazz. I studied jazz for a brief period about ten years ago. So we take in everything we hear and let it influence us in little ways.”

If you miss out on catching Autumn Kings in their week in the UK, don’t worry. We can expect their followup album to 2022’s ‘Book Of The Broken’ to be released next year. “As of right now, [the release date is] March,” shares Diab, “I give the caveat: it’s March until ‘Hellbound’ starts doing so well that everyone’s like, ‘Oh my God! Push it back! You gotta push back the record a little bit!’ It’s exciting because it’s going to be the first record that we put out under a record label, Hopeless Records, which is a legendary label that’s had Sum 41, Avenged Sevenfold, Yellowcard, The Used – I’m missing so many off the top of my head – PVRIS, Neck Deep, New Found Glory… So, it’s really exciting. We’re taking it slow and steady, and it’s one of those things where you evolve from when you’re an independent artist. You have a certain way of releasing songs frequently. Get it out. Build the catalogue. Build your streaming numbers. Build the fan base. And now it’s a very slow, measured, ‘hurry up and wait’. It’s almost like we were on a jet-ski before and now we’re on a cruise ship where we have all the amenities; it just moves a little bit slower, but it’s going to get there. What’s great is when we play live, everybody seems to know the songs that we put out with Hopeless: ‘Sleep When I’m Dead’ and ‘Hellbound’… ’Snake Charmer’s crushing it. Every artist says, ‘this is our favourite record we’ve done’, but it really is for us. I don’t know, you speak for yourself,” he turns to his bandmate, “but I’ll say it from my standpoint. We always had guitar work down, music down, catchy songs down. But now what we’ve had, especially post COVID, is the real life experience, you know, getting to your mid twenties and late twenties to back that music. The lyrics just tend to hit harder. You could try to speak from life experience when you’re eighteen years old, but it just doesn’t quite hit the same way.”

“It’s going to be all breakup songs,” Coccimiglio says, and we’re not quite sure if he’s being serious, “yeah, breakup songs or songs where we are fantasising about a future world or whatever. But now we’ve lived life a little bit, so it’s just got that extra level of potency in the lyrics. We can’t wait for people to hear the record.”  

Even though they claim to be taking it slow, like everything else Autumn Kings turn themselves to, the next record is bound to be a whirlwind of punk enthusiasm, bound together by genuine friendship and a desire to make the absolutely coolest music they can bring together. While this might be their first trip to the UK, it definitely won’t be their last.

Kate Allvey

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‘Hellhound’ and ‘Snake Charmer’ are out now on Hopeless Records.