Woe, Is Me are well and truly back. After announcing their reunion last year and playing comeback shows at Dallas’ Monster Mash and in their hometown of Atlanta, the band have now shared the first new music of their new chapter, and it is a beast.
It’s called “Ghost” and finds Woe, Is Me paying homage to their past whilst still placing themselves firmly in the present. With a haunting atmosphere, a crushing intent and splatters of post-hardcore emotion and metalcore brute force, it’s a song that looks inwards whilst also speaking out on those who have doubted their journey to get here. It’s so incredibly lovely to have them back. Following its premiere and placing in Heavy Rotation on idobi Howl, you can now also check it out below.
To find out more about their comeback, how the song came to life and what the future holds, we chatted with vocalist Michael Bohn and bassist Corey Ferris…
How does it feel to be at this stage, a moment pretty much a decade in the making?
Cory: It feels really awesome, honestly. I had no intention of playing music again, to be honest, except just around my place, but the last nine months have been a total whirlwind. To see everything that has happened up to this point is just surreal.
Michael: Yeah, I never imagined we would be in the position. Even when we did the first comeback show, we didn’t have new music in mind. We decided to do a reunion show so that people could see us one more time. But then that snowballed to where we are now, and it’s just been absolute chaos. Good chaos.
The incredible thing is that you are here, though. Like, the Woe, Is Me story is one that, at times, you could never see getting another chapter…
Michael: That’s the thing. Back then, we were so dysfunctional, but we were kids, you know? We were right out of high school and had no idea what we were doing. But we somehow made it work each time, and now we have this second chance to say, ‘Okay, this is everything we did wrong, and now we can do it right’. I’m grateful that we learned all these things and made the mistakes we did. But I almost wish we had the knowledge that we have now back then.
Cory: We were the epitome of dysfunction, but it somehow worked. We still made it to shows and tours and stuff. And even now, with full-time jobs and businesses, we’re still making it work so much better. There’s the communication there, the voting on decisions. Everything is so much smoother. Second chances like this don’t come around very often, but we are all so grateful for people and fans giving us a second chance in the way that they are.
What was it like to see things unfold before your eyes, though? From conversations to playing that show to then working on new music? How did the emotions of that timeline influence each next step?
Michael: What did it through every step was the fan reaction. My mom even called me and said, ‘You know you’re not going to be able to play just one show, don’t you?’ just because even she could see how much people still cared after all this time. It gave us the little boost we needed to see that this was serious. People are still connecting to these songs and to us as people, which was as eye-opening as it was humbling. So if they still want it, let’s give it to them.
Cory: Seeing that Woe, Is Me was trending on Twitter. Someone sent that to me and said, ‘What is this, 2012 all over again?’. But that just blew my mind. And at the first show back in Dallas, we had tears in our eyes. It was so crazy, and we couldn’t believe we were doing this again. That’s when I knew I was in this deep again when I felt a feeling I hadn’t felt in ten years.
Michael: We never discussed new music as a group, either. We played Dallas and Atlanta, and then the next thing we knew, Kevin and Andrew started writing. We all just knew. It just started happening naturally.
The beauty of that is that you’re working with a clean slate. You’re in control of what Woe, Is Me is in 2023…
Michael: That’s a lot to do with how the scene has changed. The way that metal and metalcore has changed. That definitely played a factor in it. But as far as Number[s] and Genesi[s] go, they are two distinct albums that are very different from each other. They are like a timeline of the band, and right now, this is Woe, Is Me’s final form. This line-up is that final form after going through three previous ones. This is what we always intended it to be. Song-wise, though, anyone can write, and it can head in a different direction, but once you put vocals in it, it all comes together. Hance’s distinct sound brings the Woe, Is Me sound together.
Cory: I wondered how it would work after ten years. First, can we still write? Have our musical differences grown so far apart from each other that we don’t know what it will sound like? But then there’s just seeing how seamlessly it all came together and knowing that it was us. We all had input and ended up with a song we were all happy with.
Another difference is the emotional depth and direction you are heading in. Woe, Is Me has always been an angry band, but this song feels like it looks inwards rather than screaming outwards…Michael: One thing that we all decided we didn’t want to do was diss tracks. I think Woe, Is Me definitely had a lot of anger back in the day, but it was targeted at other people. We felt like it was us against the world. We always felt like we had to prove ourselves to everyone. We were the underdog. Now we don’t necessarily feel like that, but we still have all of this built-up emotion. We’ve all been put through the ringer somehow, and we can now take that and get it out.
Cory: It’s funny how all of us have been through the same thing, and we also all have different things that we are fighting as well. We’re similar in that way. So when one person expresses something, we all get it. That’s how the song came together because we all felt the same way. It just makes it so much easier.
Michael: This time around, we are very much grateful. We may have taken some things for granted back in the day and didn’t realise what we had and could do. To be able to tour right out of high school and travel to so many places, I don’t think we knew how special that is. Not many people get to do that, and now we are older and wiser, and we still get to do that, and we’re very grateful for that.
You guys, more than anyone, are aware of how quickly things move in the scene and how one day can shift the whole trajectory of your career, so holding off and making sure you’re making all the right moves is definitely key…
Michael: That’s the thing. We only have a booking agent. We don’t have any management or any label, everything is on our terms. We control everything. Whatever direction and whatever we want to do and whatever we think is best for us as a whole.
Cory: There was a lot of pressure back then, people telling us that we should do a tour because they owed a band or company a favor. Now we only do something if it makes sense to us. It’s nice to have that freedom.
And lastly, what excites you the most about the possibilities for the band’s future and beyond?
Cory: There’s so much that we have yet to learn about. For now, we have some dates lined up over the weekends, and that’s it. Back in the day, we had that schedule in place for us, but now we are going at our own pace. The aim was to get this track out and then see what happens. We have yet to determine the future, which is cool.
Michael: This time, we can get it right. It’s all about stepping stones, a level-up. And getting festivals locked in like Inkcaceration and Blue Ridge, after being gone for ten years and not even doing back in the day in the first place, that’s what is really exciting. To play for huge crowds full of old fans and brand-new ones. That’s really awesome. And also, “Ghost” may sound very different, but we have three other songs in the works already, and a couple of them are really heavy. We want to keep up with the times, but we still want to give the fans some of the heavy.
