As It Is, ‘Never Happy, Ever After X’

Ahead of their upcoming live return at Slam Dunk Festival this May, As It Is‘ Patty Walters and Ben Biss guide us through their reworked and re-recorded debut album, ‘Never Happy, Ever After X’, set for release on April 18 via Slam Dunk Records.

Plus, we have teamed up with the band to bring you this limited edition ‘Swallowed Glass’ vinyl.

With only 300 copies available, order yours now at SHOP.ROCKSOUND.TV.

Read As It Is, ‘Never Happy, Ever After X’ | The Album Story below:

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“When the idea began, it was a more humble seed of an idea and a premise. Then, like all things As It Is, it snowballed and became a much bigger, more ambitious, creative, long term endeavor.”

With the surprise announcement of their imminent return arriving in 2024 after a period of silence and seemingly disbanding, As It Is frontman Patty Walters knew that fan expectation would be high. Approaching the ten year anniversary of their much loved pop punk and emo-infused debut ‘Never Happy, Ever After’, the time felt right for a dash of nostalgia as they take stock of what they have achieved over the past decade. The result is a fully re-recorded and reimagined take on that first album, now featuring a mix of their heroes and contemporaries, all united in a grand celebration of what was a breakout moment for the UK scene.

“I think we were initially only planning to re-record a handful of singles with a few features. Maybe 5 at the most,” Patty explains. “Then it became this project where we just couldn’t stop ourselves from reimagining and recording the entire album and getting a feature on every single song and updating the things that we really wanted to explore, putting a fresh perspective on songs we wrote 10 years ago and keeping a couple things exactly the same. It was such a joy to be working on in secret for the majority of last year, and now to finally be sharing it and shouting about it is extremely exciting.”

“The idea started with ‘Dial Tones’,” adds guitarist Ben Biss, returning to the lineup after six years away. “We’d started playing it in this heavier style towards the end of ‘The Great Depression’ tour to make it fit in with the live set more. So it was about how we would approach these songs with the freedom that we have now. We were really, really stubborn going in the studio the first time around and not really that open to anyone else’s ideas or takes on it. This time around, well, it’s all about collaborating.”

Revitalised and ready, Patty and Ben guide us through this milestone and reveal how looking back created a path forward.

THE SOUND

In revisiting a classic record, the challenge for many artists is to achieve that healthy balance of nodding to nostalgia while still adding in some new and fresh touches. How do you ensure that ‘Never Happy, Ever After X’ doesn’t simply tread over previous territory?

“That’s always a fun dichotomy for me, because there’s always a contingent of fans that will want us to revisit our roots,” Ben reflects. “And in a sense, this is us doing that for the first time ever. We always were just pushing forward. By the time a record came out, we’d already be writing another record, or in some cases had it already done or conceptualized. It is nice to just take a moment and appreciate something that happened whilst also updating it.”

“The thing that felt so authentic about celebrating the nostalgia of ‘Never Happy…’ is that the future of the band was so uncertain,” Patty adds. “The project was dormant, if not dead, in all of our eyes for a very long time. I think in our personal lives, when that future seemed really uncertain, we were really nostalgic. We were reminiscing. We had a group chat and we would meet up just to get drinks and laugh about all of these memories from touring. Aren’t we so lucky that we got to experience this? Fast forward to 2024, now 2025, and the band is back and in a sense more alive than it’s been in a very, very long time. So nostalgia, this time, was just so authentic. We had been in this place of reminiscing and remembering and cherishing and celebrating already.”

Working away from the public eye, the band’s return still a secret outside of their inner circle, the group found they could easily refocus their energy to capture the feeling those early years had inspired.

“So much music now is advertised before it’s even made and that’s part of just how Tiktok has changed things,” says Ben. “It’s all about putting out unfinished songs or clips from the studio. It was really nice to not have the pressure of worrying about the social media side of it and actually focus on why we wanted to be in a band in the first place, which is making music as friends and not worrying about all the other noise.”

“This is the most humbly we’ve created and produced a project in a long time,” Patty agrees. “The majority of it was recorded exactly where I am today, at this desk in my living room. We recorded some of the other bits with the boys up in Sheffield at While She Sleeps’ studio space and obviously there’s all the amazing guests who sent their parts from all around the world. But going back to the humbler, simpler roots of the band, this felt the most DIY way that we’ve done something in a long, long time. That total creative control, ownership and pride. It was a shitload of work, but it was a total joy.”

The first taste of ‘new’ music from As It Is actually came in the shape of ‘A Decade Uneventful’, a comprehensive rarities collection that helped set the scene for their comeback and allow the fanbase to dive a little deeper into records they already knew and loved. But, in typical As It Is fashion, prior to that release they were already deep into the process of creating their next project.

“When we shared the first single, ‘Balloons’, I was in Minnesota with my family,” Patty remembers. “It was September, and we were celebrating that the band was back. Later that day, we were recording my sister’s guest vocal parts for ‘My Oceans Were Lakes’. We were already so deep into the next thing. It’s just how this band operates. It’s like they say about ducks. They look really calm, but it’s chaos under the water.”

As Ben concludes, “We used to feel like sitting ducks, but now we’re at least swimming.”

THE LYRICS

As their songwriting developed, As It Is would dabble with grander concepts and lyrical conceits, most successfully on the concept album ‘The Great Depression’, arguably their crowning moment as a group and a creative highpoint. Yet part of the charm of ‘Never Happy…’ is in its simplicity, shaped from the kind of honesty and open hearted optimism that can only ever infiltrate a debut record.

“As things move on, it is not to say that it was any less about the music or the artistic integrity, but you become mindful of what rooms you want to be playing next,” Patty explains. “How big do you want this band to get? What’s the right sound? What’s the direction you haven’t explored? Which bands and artists do you want to be touring with as the main support to? But ‘Never Happy…’ was just such a simple, innocent project. It wasn’t about becoming the biggest band in the world. It was just about expressing ourselves, making music that was pretty similar to our EPs, but really creating an album for the first time, the dynamic journey of an album, and to tell that story across eleven songs instead of four or five. But it was really humble, really honest, really pure, and I think for that reason it’s always going to be special.”

THE COLLABORATORS

“I feel like Lucas was the first one, and kind of the most obvious one,” says Ben as we discuss the appearance of Holding Absence frontman Lucas Woodland on the new, heavier version of the iconic ‘Dial Tones’. “For our fans as well, I had noticed that they, for the portion of time where we were missing, Holding Absence were now their favourite band, and since a lot of them were introduced to them on ‘The Great Depression’ tour, the crossover was just massive despite existing now in what feels like different worlds or parts of the scene. But they’re just so good.”

“Sonically, it made all the sense, not just because of that post hardcore direction that we took the song in, it made sense for his voice”, Patty agrees. “Everything Holding Absence have done, history with them, taking them on one of their early UK tours even before they put a record out, we just knew that they were going to be as big as they are, and probably bigger still. But I think back to last year and seeing him stepping up as front man for Funeral For A Friend, and how much the guitar parts for the new ‘Dial Tones X’ are reminiscent of that sort of sound. Just everything about it made so much sense. And not only is he unbelievably talented and capable. He’s just so kind. He’s just such a nice person and any opportunity to just get to speak with him and hang out with him again was not something I was ever in a million years going to turn down.”

“On a lot of the features, we didn’t necessarily have a song in mind for them”, Ben continues. “Noah just went ‘Can I do ‘Can’t Save Myself’?’, for example, because that was his favourite one. It’s funny looking back at how some of those worked out. It was about the person and the vibe. It all happened so fast, and we were so happy with everyone that we got on there. Everyone really went above and beyond. I think that’s really important to note. Everyone really put in so much effort on their parts and made the songs their own.”

“There ended up being three pillars or categories of features”, Patty comments as he assesses the formidable list of collaborators they have managed to enlist. “There were the heroes, the inspirations and idols that we grew up listening to; Sleeping With Sirens, Sum 41, Hidden In Plain View, Transit. Then there were the friends we made along the way; Roam, Mallory Knox, Holding Absence, Trash Boat. Then there were some newer artists who cite us as an inspiration in the stuff they’re writing, which is absolutely mad; Noahfinnce and Artio. I don’t think I realized quite to the extent that Noah was a fan.”

One particularly special full circle moment came on the track ‘Silence’ where they were joined by Hidden In Plain View, a group of such importance to Patty that he has a tattoo of featuring their lyrics. Ben kept their potential appearance hidden from his friend and bandmate at first, surprising him with the news as the final track was being delivered.

“I just adore that band”, says Patty. “That one was unbelievable. I opened the session, I put the stems in and teared up. I cried. It was so surreal.”

THE TITLE

“It was just the Roman numeral of it all”, says Ben on the simple yet effective title of this 10 year collection. “The original album title was in a standard Times New Roman font. It just made sense and it looked very striking. It’s not really any deeper than that it means 10, just if anyone’s confused and doesn’t know Roman numerals or hasn’t learned them yet.”

“It also may or may not have come from my affinity for bad movies”, Patty adds. “Because in the ‘Friday the 13th’ franchise, ‘Jason X’ is the one where he goes to space and it’s fucking brilliant. So that may or may not be why I started titling stuff that way.”

THE FUTURE

When discussion turned to future live shows, there was only ever one event that was going to make sense for the reunion of As It Is.

“Slam Dunk has always been really special to us”, Ben confirms. “We first played it 10 years ago, and it was the first UK festival that took a chance on us. They had us open a stage and then a couple of years later we headlined that stage and then headed to the main stage. It’s been a real journey with Slam Dunk, and we’ve been really grateful for the relationship we’ve had with them. And the shows are always great. So it made so much sense to us. We knew it would be a really sentimental thing. South is the one Patty and I grew up going to for three years before we played it. I don’t think I’ve played a Hatfield show and not cried at some point. I think the last time I was there was being at the side of the stage, watching the guys play after I had left.”

“It’s easy now to overlook the fact that when we were picking up this project again, coming back, we weren’t sure who was still going to be around and going to be interested”, Patty reflects. “And Slam Dunk just felt like this really familiar, really gentle, really comfortable stage on which to come back. We’re higher billed than we may have expected. We’re really blown away that there were still so many people here waiting for this band to come back to life. We’re extremely grateful for that. Slam Dunk just felt like this perfect place to kick start being a live band again.”

Given that, as previously stated, this is a band who always has an eye on what is next, we can be certain that the upcoming big weekend in Hatfield and Leeds will not be the last we see of these returning heroes. But after spending most of a year in a 2015 mindset, how has this exercise in reflection driven their future plans?

“I think the biggest thing that it reminded us of, and made abundantly clear, is that I’ve never felt that art is more important”, Patty states. “I didn’t always see the importance or the value in being a musician and what it was giving to other people. But, from this point on, I only want to create music that I feel really deeply connected to and proud of, and this is a project I’m so incredibly proud of, not for just having produced and mixed and worked incredibly hard, and all of the sort of outreach and admin of getting the features, but just celebrating songs and giving flowers to songs that I’m still, 10 years later, so proud of. So what I’m saying is that anything we do next, if I can be this proud of it 10 years after we share it with the world, that is maybe the only thing I care about anymore.”

See As It Is perform ‘Never Happy, Ever After’ in full at Slam Dunk Festival 2025. Tickets available here.