Utah rockers The Used made a flying visit to our shores recently, unleashing their newly refined line in ‘Gross pop’ to a few packed out venues dotted across the UK in support of their new album, ‘Artwork.’ Planet Loud briefly caught up with Quinn and Jeph (on guitar and bass respectively) in London to see how it’s all going.

Planet Loud – Hi guys, thanks for your time today. You’re playing smaller, more intimate venues on this short UK tour; are you enjoying the chance to get up close and personal with the fans, and do you have a preference between small venues and larger ones?
The Used – It’s been really fun… It’s always fun pretty much. Yeah there’s more of an energy and reaction that happens in a smaller venue with the crowd, I really enjoy it, and I think we all do. Both have their benefits really, with big shows more people can come and see you which is awesome, and it always sounds a bit better at the bigger ones, but the smaller ones it gets so personal and so close, all of your fans get to be like next to you. Everybody sings along because everybody’s there to see you. So it’s like 50/50 kind of thing.

Planet Loud – ‘Artwork’ seems to mark a major development in terms of your sound, while maintaining the core elements of what makes you the band that you are. Can you identify any major influences, musical or otherwise, that prompted this shift?
The Used – Well, some of our favourite records are like, In Utero (Nirvana), Pinkerton (Weezer)… Just like a grungier kind of sound, and that’s always been an influence in us from the very beginning, and that’s what the essence of our sound has always been. But the signature really came with John Feldmann who made it poppy… I think a big influence on the album has been events with the band, we kinda had to come together, we had new management, went for a new producer. We took more control and made it a little bit more like some of those albums I just said, and tonnes more artists that I can’t even name.

Planet Loud – Yeah, how did you find working with Matt Squire on production this time around, rather than John Feldmann who produced your previous albums?
The Used – I think that it was a great experience, Matt’s so much more laid back, so much more relaxed, just like, Ah, like, we’ll call up and we’re not coming in, ‘Ah whatever,’ you know what I mean? We’d come in like two hours late and he’d be like, ‘hey guys what’s going on, I’m just working on something,’ like, whatever’s cool. We’d sit there and jam a song for an hour, or two hours, and he wouldn’t care, just sit in the room with us, mess with his phone and listen to what we were doing. Even recording was the same way. Sometimes letting the magic happen rather than creating the magic is the difference between him and John. With John we were at full speed, you know like we were at his house, there’s nowhere to go, so…

Planet Loud – Are there any tracks from the new album that you particularly love, or that have been getting a really positive reaction live so far?
The Used – I think… I’m in love with this whole record; this is the most that I’ve loved every single part in every single song, than in any of our records, personally. Yeah, the songs were pretty much ready to go before we went into the studio so they already have a kind of live feel to them, so it’s more of a full band collaboration. I think that fans really dig it, it’s more sincere, ‘Come Undone’ sounds good live, goes over well… ‘Blood on My Hands,’ ‘Empty with You’ goes over well. ‘Empty with You’ goes over really well live. There’s still some sing-along stuff, then some heavy stuff, so we’re really excited about it.

Planet Loud – Have you any plans or ambitions that you would like to fulfil in support of ‘Artwork,’ as regards touring etc?
The Used – There are definitely so many countries that we haven’t played but need to, like… Russia, a lot of Asian countries that we haven’t been to yet like Singapore, the Phillipines. South Africa, even like Peru, Argentina… there are so many countries where we haven’t been that we… We’ve only really played Norway and Sweden about one time, in an outskirt, an island in Norway, so it would be nice to play all these countries that we haven’t been able to, and hopefully we will with this record.

Planet Loud – This is kind of a lyrical question, so no worries if you don’t want to answer… (laughs).Tracks like ‘Kissing you Goodbye’ and ‘Meant to Die’ cover some very dark lyrical themes, such as death and regret, as have many songs throughout your career…Do you find using these a cathartic experience as a band, or does it stem from the issues preoccupying you during the writing process?
The Used – It really comes from Bert’s world… Bert’s a great poet and a great writer; I think he’s gotten a lot more in touch with himself as a writer. Where those ideas and themes come from, I don’t think it really comes from too much literal, personal experience, it’s kind of like a… It’s not really from his point of view all the time, metaphorical. It’s very about Bert’s life, sometimes I’ll catch certain things that are in songs, certain words, and think about certain events that have happened in his life, and put it together. Maybe that’s the more literal part of it… like one song, he’s talking about both of his broken hands (Watered Down.) He’s broken both of his hands multiple times so it’s like ‘oh, ok, that makes sense then.’

Planet Loud – To finish off then, can we expect to see you in the UK once more any time soon?
The Used – We’ll be back early next year… January 7th at noon, we’ll be in London. Na just kidding, but early next year.

Interview by Rob Sayce