Employed to Serve is back with a new record titled Conquering due out September 17. The band is now streaming the new song "Exist", whose video vocalist Justine Jones said captures the excitement of music.
"'Exist' is a song that celebrates the highs and lows of existing," says Jones. "For this video, I really wanted to capture the excitement of being a pre-teen and discovering the absolute joy that is music. I loved the idea of getting into someone's head at that time and them daydreaming about being on stage with the band you love, like we did when we were that age and recently in the past year when we couldn't play shows!"
"It took six months of planning due to the pandemic and because we had to source someone who could create one-off figures of each band member. We were lucky enough to come across Mattachine Society from Brooklyn, who creates awesome bootlegs. For the model stage and backline, [guitarist] Sammy [Urwin] and I channelled our inner Art Attack and made that during the winter lockdown to keep our minds from the apocalypse. When having meetings about how to dress the set and actors, we wanted to shout out as many of our mates' bands as possible and leave little Easter eggs for people to find with each re-watch of the video."
"The most important aspect of the video for me was finding a young energetic girl to play the really stoked kid. When I was growing up, metal was a very male-dominated genre and I always felt a bit out of place. I feel that this is a different story now with so many women in bands. Working in the industry and in the crowd, it's becoming normalized, which is really exciting."
Conquering was produced and mixed by Lewis Johns (Conjurer) at The Ranch, Southampton, and mastered by Grant Berry (My Dying Bride) at Fader Mastering. Pre-orders for Conquering are available here.