Almost 20 years after the band’s inception, NEW YEARS DAY have just released their fifth studio album, Half Black Heart. The band formed in 2005 during the MySpace era and gained notoriety there, going on to headline Vans Warped Tour in 2017 and create the entrance theme song Brutality for WWE star Rhea Ripley in 2019.
Like many, the band laid dormant throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, before releasing Hurts Like Hell in 2022, announcing both the band’s return, and their new lineup – comprising of familiar faces. Nikki Misery remained as lead guitar, with Jeremy Valentyne returning on rhythm guitar alongside Brandon Wolfe on bass and new member Tommy Rockoff on drums, led by singer Ash Costello.
On working with familiar faces again, Costello recalls it being “effortless” and that everyone came together “flawlessly”. NEW YEARS DAY returned to WWE in 2023 at the NXT Halloween Havoc, to perform their single Vampyre and announced their fifth studio album Half Black Heart, a title that Costello jokes is inspired by her famous split-dye hairstyle.
The fifth release can be a big moment for bands – often seen as a milestone – but Costello doesn’t think it feels like their fifth record. “The band has been through a lot and changed so much since we started, it’s been almost 20 years now. I was a teenager when we first started, there have been so many incarnations of NEW YEARS DAY in that time, album five just feels right.”
Each album process is slightly different, but the process for Half Black Heart has been a whole new experience for the singer, who has begun to work with outside songwriters for the first time and “gained so much new knowledge from incredible people to help create this record”.
With the album creation beginning during the pandemic, the entire journey has been a long learning curve. “A lot of new experiences and methods to creating music have come together over the past couple of years, resulting in such a uniquely challenging yet rewarding creation process.”
One big change for the band, as aforementioned, has been the lineup, most notably ex-members Jeremy Valentyne and Brandon Wolfe re-joining NEW YEARS DAY and helping with the writing process, which Costello thanks for the album’s success. “It has been so easy, everyone gets each other,” and that she “couldn’t have done it without them and their support.”
When it comes down to the key moments in the creation of an album, many artists have what can only be described as a ‘lightbulb moment’, where the album finally starts to come together in specific pieces. Ash doesn’t recall such moments when creating Half Black Heart though. “I don’t really process things that way, I just complete the task or the track and move on to the next thing. I don’t really get to live in the specific moment, I’m always worrying about the outcome and the response.”
The worrying has been proven to be unnecessary though, as the fan response to both singles has been overwhelmingly positive, with one fan describing Vampyre as a ‘Quintessential NEW YEARS DAY track’. The singer has been floored by the incredible support from the initial releases, explaining that “no matter how many songs you’ve released, or how big of a rockstar you are, releasing the first track off an album, or any new music at all really, is nerve-wracking” especially when bands don’t always get a say on which tracks are released first as singles. Yet Costello recalls feeling “oddly calm” releasing Vampyre because she “loves it” and “knows it is a badass track”.
When the record label, Century Media Records, chose Vampyre to be the main single release, the singer remembers being shocked at their decision as it’s the heaviest song on the album. “We were like, ‘really?!’ but they believed in the song and they believed in us.”
The majority of the time, people expect the singles off an album to give an insight into and represent the record as a whole, but that isn’t the case for Half Black Heart. Fans will be surprised to discover that not all of the songs on this record are the stereotypical heavy rock that NEW YEARS DAY have become known for, but Costello hopes that listeners enjoy the “wild ride of an album” after the years it has taken them to create it.
Usually, bands take a lot of outside inspiration for the sound of a new release, and are able to cite specific artists that have inspired them throughout the album’s progression, but not this time for NEW YEARS DAY. “I was my own inspiration for this album”. Frontwoman Ash Costello took the reins and found that the pandemic allowed her to sit and really take her time. She explains, “I just experimented a lot, I was in no rush, I just continued to try out different things and do what I wanted, what I enjoyed.”
Tasked to describe the album, Costello struggles to encapsulate an entire experience into a sentence and, after a pause, gives a perfect description of Half Black Heart. “If you’re feeling a lack of empowerment in yourself, and if you need something to hype you up and give you that confidence, this is the album.” There isn’t a specific song or lyric that sticks out to the singer, she explains it’s about the journey, not the individual pieces.
Now that the record is out, NEW YEARS DAY are eager to get back on the road touring, to break free of their “post-COVID shell” and actually perform the songs that they’ve spent so long creating and perfecting. Speaking ahead of their US Tour with LACUNA COIL in May, Costello explains how she “loves touring with female-fronted bands.”
When people ask her to create her ‘dream’ tour lineup, she would rather relive The Daughters of Darkness Tour with IN THIS MOMENT and HALESTORM as that was the ‘most fun’ touring with other incredibly talented women in the industry. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat, maybe make it bigger with even more female artists on the lineup!” An all-female festival sounds like a good idea…
Costello praises how the past few years have been “huge” for women in the industry. “It’s such a great space to be in at the moment as a female-fronted band, there’s been so much growth in the scene.” With likes of SPIRITBOX, SCENE QUEEN, POPPY and more carving their names into the scene and taking their moment in the spotlight over the past few years, it’s clear to see why she feels this way.
Nearly 20 years on, NEW YEARS DAY are as empowered and inspired as ever and the future is bright.
Half Black Heart is out now via Century Media Records.
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