Interview A Floor Below

A Floor Below’s While Angels Sleep offers an unfiltered look into mental health, tackling themes of pain, resilience, and hope through an emotional musical journey.

1. "While Angels Sleep" dives into the darker corners of the human mind. What personal experiences or emotions drove the creation of this album?
 Great question, but hard to answer succinctly.  Our songs are based on so many different experiences that it’s hard to pin any one of them down.  What we can say is that the range of experiences cover death, betrayal, and redemption.  No different than what most people experience (or will eventually experience), so we hope that our music speaks to those undergoing personal struggles and gives them a sense of hope in that we all struggle with such experiences.

2. Mental health is central to your music. How do you balance exploring such heavy themes while still making your music relatable and cathartic for your listeners?
 Given that we all struggle with similar experiences, we think that our music is definitely relatable.  As for catharsis, music in and of itself is cathartic.  We hope that the themes of our music provide a platform for that catharsis.

3. You mention that your music is a platform for acknowledging darker emotions. How has this message resonated with your audience so far, and what has the response been like?
The response has been positive, despite the darker side of the themes of life that our music explores. For those who are open to embracing their demons, we hope that our music will be the shining light to guide them to a more stable state of well being.

  4.  Your songs touch on topics like depression and anxiety—subjects that are often avoided in conversation. How do you think music helps break down barriers when discussing mental health?
Such a great question! To us, music is a powerful equalizer.  It puts us all on the same playing field and, for a moment, we forget our differences though common emotional experiences.  Music allows us to move past societal barriers so that we can experience life in its true form, without any denial of emotion.

5.  Your sound spans from acoustic rock to metal. How do you decide what style best suits each song, especially when you’re dealing with such varied emotional landscapes?
I wish that we had a straight answer for this one.  We let emotion define the style.  As we go through our own ups and downs, we document those experiences through music.  Whatever we’re feeling (or have felt) defines what we write.  We’re not trying to fit into any genre because that’s a backwards approach to song writing.  We let the emotions decide what ‘genre’ we belong to.

6. You mentioned that your music doesn’t fit neatly into one genre. How has this freedom impacted your songwriting process, and have you ever felt constrained by expectations from fans or the industry?
Related to the previous question, we let our emotions drive the creative expression and aim to make our audience feel what we’re feeling.  We don’t aim to gain fans.  As odd as that may sound coming from musicians who release music, we instead focus on creating an emotional landscape that others may or may not relate to.  If we can help folks in the process, then we consider any given album as a success.  As for the ‘image’ industry (there is no such thing as the music industry, that seems to have died long ago), no, we feel no pressure there :).

7. We often talk about how music affects listeners, but how does writing and performing these songs impact you personally? Does it serve as a form of therapy or emotional release for the band?
Both for sure!  Writing (and listening) to music has always been a huge release for us.  If we can help others in the process, then we feel as though we’ve accomplished something.

8. Since you’re comfortable exploring darker emotions, do you ever worry about the toll it might take on your own mental health, and if so, how do you navigate that?
No, not at all.  The creative act itself is a release for us, and we hope that others feel the same release when listening to our music.

9. There’s a line between expressing pain and glorifying it. How do you ensure that your music remains a constructive outlet for difficult emotions rather than simply dwelling on them?
Great question!  Our songs are all written to let out the pain of the human experience, not dwell on it.  It’s natural to dwell on negative experiences.  But, the real question is whether you can move past those experiences.  We hope that our music gives listeners a platform to engage those emotions so that they can be more easily let go.

 

10.  You’ve expressed interest in how others perceive your music. What have been some of the most surprising or insightful descriptions of your genre or sound that you’ve heard from fans?
Interesting question.  We’ve heard people describe our music as ranging from acoustic rock and grunge to hard rock and metal.  We do not explicitly try to fit into any genre, and enjoy the freedom of expressing our emotions how ever we like.  One upside to that is that our songs span multiple audiences.  So, while any one listener may not like an entire album due to some songs not fitting the genre that they relate to the most, some songs might.  Besides, most people these days only download specific songs.  So, by offering a large selection of songs that ‘fit’ into different genres, we hope that we can reach more people.

11. In your view, how has the conversation around mental health in music evolved over the years? Do you feel the industry is becoming more open to discussing these topics?
As we alluded to earlier, there is no music industry, only an image industry.  So, we think that it hasn’t evolved much at all.  At some point along the way, the ‘music’ industry mutated into trend support as opposed to emotional support, which is one of the most powerful attributes of music.

12. Looking forward, what message or feeling do you hope people take away from listening to "While Angels Sleep"? How would you like your music to impact their personal journey with mental health?
Hopefully it’s clear that we hope people walk away having faced their demons and emerging as stronger and mentally heathier than before they engaged with our music.  Our constant message is this: t remember, we’re all human, we all struggle with the same shit.  If we can acknowledge that and recognize it in others, perhaps we can stop judging and start supporting.

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