Making Up for Lost Time with As It Is

My relationship with As It Is is one of many full-circle moments. Back in 2018, I spent part of the summer before my senior year of high school traveling around the Northeast with two of my best friends, attending Vans Warped Tour and seeing all the bands that initially brought us together. I won a contest to volunteer alongside the As It Is tour manager at the Massachusetts date, an experience that solidified my excitement and passion for wanting to work in music. My reunion with the transatlantic pop punk band on their spring tour the following year was even more special because of that experience, but little did any of us know about the future. Six years later, As It Is and I have both grown significantly, with their having taken a brief hiatus following guitarist and co-vocalist Ben Biss’ departure from the band, and my becoming a music marketing specialist. The night after the band performed at the venue I now work at, I got to speak with both Biss and frontman Patty Walters at Asbury Park’s House of Independents, where we talked about touring, mental health, their debut record’s tenth anniversary, and the band’s triumphant return.

First off, welcome back to the US. This is your first US headline tour in six years. Last time included a show here at this venue, which is super full circle. I know it only started a few days ago, but how's it been back on the road?

Ben Biss: A lot of fun. That's been the main ethos. I think a lot of the time, when we toured America before, we'd see nothing. You'd turn up at the venue, you'd stay at the venue. This time we were like, “Let's actually do some things,” and that's been really nice. This morning, I just got up way earlier than anyone else, walked along the beach here, and saw the sights. Last time we were at this venue, it was freezing cold, and I basically just saw this dressing room. It was nice to see some bits around, same with New York yesterday. New York is always really stressful for us. You drive in, you find parking, which is a whole other nightmare, and we just woke up in New York. I walked 14 kilometers around yesterday. Vibes are really high. We're just enjoying being here. The shows have all been really good, so far, so awesome.

Since this year and this tour both commemorate 10 years of Never Happy, Ever After, how does it feel to revisit those songs after all this time?

Patty Walters: It's cool. We had a VIP a moment ago, and we've been face-to-face with some fans we haven't seen in many, many years. It's been a while since we've been back in the States, and a lot's changed for them and us. We're celebrating 10 years of a record that we wrote in our 20s, and we're completely different people now, and the same is true of the fans who sort of discovered us through those songs and that record. I think that, as Ben said, the ethos and the spirit of the tour have been celebrating who we've become, reacquainting ourselves with all the fans that are still here all these years later, and everything that they and we have been through in that time. It's been a lot, but it's been fun to celebrate those songs, and the sing-alongs have been loud, very loud. 

Has any particular song hit extra hard this time around? 

BB: “Dial Tones” has been very, very loud. I get teary during the quieter ones, one of the moments that shocked me, both on the UK tour and the first couple of shows of this tour, is the end, quiet bit of “Silence.” It’s an album track, but when we let the crowd kind of sing out the end, and it's sung as loud as any other part, that bit always gets me like, “Oh, wow. People have listened to this album.”

PW: Yeah. We also released a cover two days ago of “Wherever You Will Go” by The Calling. I think it has been going down a little better in the States, maybe just because it’s an American band. Maybe that song was even bigger here. It was big in the UK and things, but since it was more of a radio hit in the US, the sing-along for that cover has been loud too. It's been really fun playing that one live.

Are there any songs on Never Happy in particular, especially after the rerecorded version that came out earlier this year, that you have a new outlook on 10 years later? Maybe you’re more proud of it now, or it means more to you now that time has passed?

PW: I think “Turn Back to Me” is one that [Ben] and I, in particular, are really reinvigorated playing that song. 

BB: We stopped playing that pretty shortly after this album. I don't know, we just fell out of love quite quickly with the original version.

PW: Rae from Artio brought so much to that track [on Never Happy, Ever After X] and just reinvented it, making it brand new again. It made us so much more sort of excited to play it every night.

BB: This sounds like a kind of a weird answer, but “Dial Tones.” On the last tour that I did with the band, I got to curate the setlist, and I chose not to play “Dial Tones.” I was so sick of “Dial Tones.” I was like, “I don't want to play it. I'm sick of it. I don't like it,” right? Now I look at bands when they opt not to play their biggest songs, and I'm like, “Oh, get over yourself.” So now I've fallen back in love with that song, what that song has given us, and what it means to people. Maybe when you're in it, you don't see that as much, but it's been really nice to take a step back, come back, and be like, “Oh no, I love what this song means to me and to everyone else,” and have a reinvigorated love for “Dial Tones.”

Absolutely, total coincidence that you said “Turn Back to Me.” That's always been my favorite song, actually. Even though I know it was a deluxe track, “Winter's Weather” is number one for me, too. Outside with my friend earlier, I was just like, “I can't believe I'm seeing ‘Winter's Weather’ live in the year 2025.”

BB: One of the most popular comments I've seen online was “When you announce this tour, make sure you play ‘Winter's Weather.’ We need you to play ‘Winter's Weather.’ Okay?”

Thank you for the fan service. We all appreciate it. Similarly, looking back a bit, when working on A Decade Uneventful and digging through those older songs like “Pilgrims” and “We Fight Back,” how did it feel to work on that? Were you looking at them kind of like, “I wish we did something like this to improve upon it,” or was it an immediate nostalgia trip for you guys?

BB: When we were doing it, we were asking ourselves, “Do we remaster or rerecord or do anything to them?” I think our things with those songs are that they were such a snapshot in time; we were literally like a local band playing tiny club shows. Early songs like that are just a snapshot of those times and that period of our career. At that point, it wasn't a career—it was just like five mates playing around our town. I think we wanted to just keep it as that. Obviously, those songs had never been on streaming. We had never put them up there. They lived purely on Bandcamp, basically. We thought, “You know what? It's time that people can access them easily if they want to.” In those days when that came out, Spotify wasn't even really a thing, you know, so the landscape of how people listen to music has changed. It was really nice to go through those songs, especially more of the B-side ones. We found songs that we had completely forgotten existed, and it was like, “Oh, do you remember this?” That was really cool to dig those out, and I spent hours digging through old Google Drives, Dropboxes, and the depths of hard drives to see what we could find for it. So that was really cool.

It came out to 25 songs, so digging was worth it for sure. Shifting more into the present, “Lose Your Way & Find Yourself” is such a great way to welcome you guys back. When did you know it was the right moment to get everyone back in the studio to work on it? Patty, when you were writing it, did you know that this would be an As It Is song, or were you just writing for yourself cathartically?

PW: Together, I think we knew it was going to be an As It Is song. There was a period when Ben and I started to write again, and we weren't sure what project, if any project, those songs would be for, or if it would just be for the joy of writing songs in a room together again after a very long time. There were one or two songs where we were playing with the music and then mostly playing with the lyrics, and we were writing from a really familiar place of self-deprecation and anguish and pain and all this sort of stuff. That was real life, that was authentic in our 20s, but in our 30s, that isn’t who we were anymore. “Lose Your Way & Find Yourself” was one of the first, if not the first, songs of like, “Okay, well, let's write authentically and sincerely about who we are now.” It's going to feel a little different, but it just came out so, so great. It's a song that we're all so proud of, and it's connected with people. As long as it's authentic to you, then hopefully it connects with somebody as well.

BB: I think there was a time we would be nervous about doing something a bit more optimistic. You know, we were quite a pessimistic band, and our fanbase kind of almost jokingly knows that we're quite a self-deprecating, miserable band. To come out and be like, “Okay, we're on the other side of that now,” everyone's response has been fantastic. I think the reason for that is that our fans are also on that journey. A lot of them come through the other side as well and can relate to it.

PW: Yeah, I think that's the thing is that, you know, there are still mentions of pain and loss, but it's more sort of in the rearview mirror than it is just at the forefront of the song.

Exactly. I know it's mentioned in the new song a bit too, but the idea of not being okay is something that's kind of permeated your music over the years. Has the meaning of that word, or of what “okay” looks like, evolved for you at all over time?

PW: It has a bit, you know. Every time we include “okay” as a word and a lyric and a song, it's almost like a nod to the album, that song, and that era, which I think we quite like to do. We like to be self-referential, so it's something that we think about, decide whether we want to or not. So anytime we include “okay” in any future song, it's just this nice little nod to who we were and that period of the band.

On a similar note, is there anything that you would go back and tell yourself in your 20s now?

BB: It’s okay to take a break. I think we existed at this point in the music industry where it was like, “Go, go, go. Say yes to everything.” We said yes to basically everything, every opportunity that came our way, every tour that we got offered. Sometimes it's okay to say no and not have to be on the road 200 days a year. It was always band first, our lives second, and it took us a while to realize it's okay to prioritize yourself and your needs. Now that we're older, we want that for each other as well. Our priority is making sure that each person is okay in themselves before we then decide, “Well, then let's go on tour and let's do this and X, Y, and Z.” It's okay to say no and to take a break from things if you need it because we did not do that.

PW: When you prioritize yourself, when you care for yourself, you can care for others better. I think, in our personal lives, we're trying to take care of ourselves and then just show up, sort of to the gigs and on stage as people who are looking after themselves and caring for themselves and able to play a show. One of the through comments has been just people pointing out how happy the four of us look on stage these days. That's the thing: we weren't always happy or the best versions of ourselves, but you know, taking that time away and doing that hard work means that we can step up on those stages and really feel great and so appreciative and joyful to be up there again.

That’s a big step to take; saying no to things, and drawing boundaries is so hard. You touched on this a little bit before, but the transparency and the emotion of As It Is’ music have developed such a strong fan base over the years. I met one of my best friends because we went to the same date of the Okay. tour, way back when, at GameChangerWorld, which you probably haven't thought about in years. Ahead of this interview, I reread our magazine’s tribute piece to the band that we put out early last year, and there were so many fans who submitted messages that their lives have been significantly changed by your music. How has it been reconnecting with fans post-hiatus, especially as many fans from the start have grown up alongside you?

PW: It is tough to believe that this band means this much to anybody, let alone thousands of people around the world. There are people in the room here tonight in New Jersey who traveled from the UK or Europe to be here and vice versa. When we were in the UK, there were so many fans from North America who flew over. It's wild. I think we're so appreciative that they stuck by us and stuck with us and waited around. Not a lot of bands get the privilege of just disappearing off the face of the Earth without an explanation, and can come back and still see that there was a fan base and a family waiting for them. We’re just so incredibly lucky and appreciative for that.

BB: It also makes me feel really, really old when people say, “I've been a fan of your band for, like, 12 years.” But no, we're just so grateful. I think just meeting everyone and seeing so many familiar faces has been incredible. Then on the flip side of that, today we met someone who was like, “I discovered you after you guys had basically been on hiatus, and I never thought I'd get to see you guys. So this is really cool.” Obviousl,y anyone can just discover us now, however people discover music these days, so this is cool for the newer fans that maybe thought they'd never get to see us, because they discovered us in a period where we didn't exist.

PW: We talked about getting a farewell tour together that never happened, for a number of reasons. We wanted that to happen not just for us, but for the fans. That closure and saying goodbye to something that meant a lot to all of us is important. It was too bad that it couldn't happen, but now it's a beautiful thing because we don't have to say farewell to anything. We're just we're just here, and we're gonna keep going forever. So hello, it’s the Hello tour.

BB: We should have called it that; missed trick there.

You can name it that next time! Moving into stuff that you're a fan of, as your relationship with music has kind of changed over time due to being in the band, are there any artists you've gotten into or shows you've seen that have really reinvigorated your love of music? Anything that makes you think, “This is why I got into this in the first place?”

BB: That’s a great question.

PW: I've worked part-time for a charity these days, and we listen to the radio and talk about artists, and people go to shows and festivals, and those who have really stressful jobs. Just experiencing how most people experience music, instead of being so, so close to it, has actually made me fall in love with music again, seeing how big a difference it makes in people's lives.

BB: There was a period where I didn't really go and see many bands. Towards the end of As It Is, I'd watch shows through the lens of looking at production and being like, “Well, that costs that much.” Do you know what I mean? Viewing it with a really analytical eye, as opposed to just enjoying the music. I've been going to a lot more shows recently and festivals, and I know this is a rogue choice, but I went to the McFly and Busted show the other week, and there was just such a joyful energy in the room. The production was amazing, but I wasn't watching it going, “Oh, I wonder how much that cost.” I was just watching it, going, “This is incredible.” The care that they've put into this show is incredible. It's just fun, purely for everyone. That really gave me a reinvigorated spark, I think, seeing that show. Equally, on the flip side, I saw Letlive. do a comeback show this year, and they were always one of our favorite bands back in 2015. Just seeing that [Jason Aalon Butler] has that same passion and chaos 10 years later, and he's probably, like, 10 years older than us. I can’t do what he does on stage without breaking a leg or hurting my back. It fired something up in me, essentially,

I know that the band has always really initiated conversation about mental health on stage in songs, and even beyond. Have you been trying to find ways to keep mental health at the forefront as you're coming back into the band and the touring lifestyle again?

PW: I think we'd struggle to not write about it at all. It's always going to bleed through in some way, shape, or form. When we write about ourselves, we write about our mental health, our thoughts, our feelings, and our struggles. I don't know if it's just a product of being young when emo bands were as big as they were. We were talking about The Smiths, and we've just always really connected with the saddest fucking bands in the world. I mean, one of my favorite bands in the world is called The Weepies. I just connect with sad music and sad art. I don't know, the feeling is for me, and we're sort of writing about pain, but more from being on the other side of it. Sometimes we reference it really explicitly, and sometimes we do it in a more sort of abstract and poetic way. I don't think we'll ever be a band that sort of can or would stop advocating for and conversing about mental health. It's always meant a lot to us, and I think it's just who we are as artists.

What else is in store for As It Is as we enter a new year soon?

BB: Finishing the album, really. We’ve got a couple of festivals and stuff booked in for next year, but at the moment, our priority is finishing the long-awaited album.

PW: We spent most of this year writing a record that we're really, really proud of, and can't wait to release next year. Hopefully, we get to play a bunch of shows and play a bunch of new songs.

BB: There will be shows, there will be shows, but once we have the album.

As It Is has just concluded their run of North American shows this fall, culminating in their return to Vans Warped Tour. With so much in the works and a sense of reinvigoration among the band, there’s an exciting 2026 ahead for the band; this time, completely on their own terms.