Only three years ago, Spiritbox had never performed in the UK. Fast forward to 2025, and the Canadian heavy metal outfit have sold out London’s 10,000-capacity Alexandra Palace months in advance. Last week (February 13), the band tore the roof off Ally Pally, debuting some extravagant arena-ready production and stepping up to the fabled next level.
The day before the show, vocalist Courtney LaPlante is “trying to not be so stressed out,” speaking to NME inside a Kensington hotel room after a gruelling day of rehearsals. “I’ve been trying to change my anxiety to excitement – because deep down, that’s what it really is. I’ve been dreaming about this [show] for a long time.”
Alongside Reading & Leeds main stage appearances, tours with Bring Me The Horizon and Korn, plus two Megan Thee Stallion collaborations, Ally Pally is just another marker of the unstoppable force that is Spiritbox in heavy metal. Their stunning 2021 debut ‘Eternal Blue’ effortlessly weaved between heaven-sent choruses and ruthless, uncompromising riffs, propelling the band into the metal mainstream.
While the pandemic ensured they remained heavy metal’s unseen, best-kept secret, the band’s organic growth from the extensive touring that followed only augmented the hype for their second album. Two exhilarating EPs (2022’s ‘Rotoscope’ and 2023’s ‘The Fear Of Fear’) came in between, whetting fans’ appetites further through some cutting-edge experimentation, be it groovy industrial stomper ‘Rotoscope’ or the Grammy-nominated tracks ‘Jaded’ and ‘Cellar Door’.
“It helped bridge the gap between album one and two, without us feeling forced to put out an album,” she confirms. “In general, the stakes are lower for everyone [with EPs]. I think that’s why a lot of people have the ‘sophomore slump’ – they blow up, get all these incredible opportunities, and feel pressured to do that next album while they’re so busy with everything else.”
Finally, however, that follow-up is on the horizon – with ‘Tsunami Sea’ set to crash land into the metal world on March 7. LaPlante joined NME for the latest in our In Conversation series to discuss the ongoing hype surrounding the band, the record’s themes and where their ambition could take them.
NME: How did you cope with the pressure of expectation for ‘Tsunami Sea’ – were you able to zone it out and focus purely on the music?
Courtney LaPlante: “That was so surreal. We always joke that there was some propagandist going around, being like, ‘That new Spiritbox [song] is gonna be the next big thing.’ I didn’t say that – I just want people to hear my songs. We make breakdowns and cry over them, that’s all I’m selling to you. It’s not the second coming of ‘metalcore Jesus Christ’ – it’s just us. That was really scary to live up to.
“I’m a lot more used to this life now, getting to focus everything on making music, because this is something I’ve always wanted to do. It’s a lot less complicated than when I’d have to juggle this with working 9-5, making sure I can make my rent or buy groceries. When you’ve been struggling [for more of your life] than doing what makes you happy, I think it will take a long time for me to be jaded about that – I’m very grateful about it now.”
Why does ‘Tsunami Sea’ sum up the feeling of the record?
“There’s a lot of layers that would take me hours to get into, but the visual could be literal. A tsunami is one of the worst things that could ever happen for anyone that lives near it. It makes somebody feel very small, and you’re powerless to stop it – it washes everything away. Sometimes, when you’re at a really bad breaking point in your mental health, that’s how it feels. It’s like a tide pulling you in… you’re just a passenger on that voyage.
“A lot of the album is about where Michael [Stringer, guitarist and LaPlante’s husband] and I are from, which is Vancouver Island in Canada. We can only get off it on a boat or a plane. It’s such a strange thing where you would do anything to leave this place because you feel like it’s holding you back from your dreams… and when you leave, it’s weird because you long to go back to it. It’s like how you can really romanticise your depression in an unhealthy way. You almost long to go back to that mania, just before all the serotonin just leaves your brain and you’re back on the floor. Our island is a very special place. I miss it, and also, it repels me away.”
“Ride the wave / Like a message in a bottle” feels like a particularly poignant lyric regarding both of those layers…
“A lot of our songs are sad, but ‘Ride The Wave’ – I haven’t sang a song that sad in a while. When you’re recording, you’re feeling real feelings, but you’re also acting. Like a musical, you have to convey the emotions. I’m glad we recorded that one first. It feels like someone being pulled and pushed and pulled and pushed. It’s also a little bit spooky – we say our band’s a little spooky and scary.”
Sonically, what prompted the liquid drum ‘n’ bass influence and vocal production we hear on ‘Crystal Roses’?
“Michael was playing this thing, and it sounded very sad, like Depeche Mode and Tears For Fears… the weird, eerie [sound] that I love about that new wave stuff. We like UK house, garage, and drum loops have always fascinated us. My propaganda is that I’m always in the back being like, ‘It’d be really cool to do a song inspired by SOPHIE.’ I love the formant thing – bands like The Knife would have always have [Karin Dreijer’s] voice drop up or down an octave, and Kendrick Lamar actually does that a lot with his vocal stacks.
“I was really obsessed with a Beyoncé song called ‘All Up In Your Mind’ on ‘Renaissance’ because I’ve never heard anyone’s voice pitch shift while they were singing down to other notes and circle back. It reminded me of something that SOPHIE would do. Finally, I was like, ‘This is my time.’ While I’m tracking it, slap the autotune so hard and twist my vocals as I’m going, how Dan [Braunstein, producer] was feeling it should be. This is what it’s like to be spontaneous, partying in the studio and having fun. I wanted to have a dance.”
Download Festival boss Andy Copping told NME that “no question about it… I see Spiritbox as a headliner in the future” – what is that like to hear?
“Thank you, Andy. All I can do is be the best that I can, so when that opportunity comes, there’s no excuse. That would be like the Super Bowl! The cool thing about all these opportunities we have this year to be a direct support, [perform at] stadiums, I’m gonna pick something from each band and learn.
“I’m trying to be less self-deprecating this year. I’m very uncomfortable with all this [hype]… I can’t just sit here being like, ‘I’m a piece of shit. It’s fine.’ [Copping] saying that, it’s like a challenge to me. I want to meet that, I’m ready to meet that challenge. As we would say, it lights a fire under our ass. We have a lot to learn, but I think that we can learn it, and I think we could put on an awesome show – the show of our dreams. I really do see it.”
When you last performed at Download in 2022, KISS headlined – and Gene Simmons has recently been particularly outspoken about rock ‘n’ roll being “dead”. Bands like yours, Sleep Token and Knocked Loose continue to throw that notion into disrepute – do you feel there’s a collective wider appetite to push heavy music into places it’s never been before?
“Maybe something that we have in common is when we’ve all gotten to the next level, we weren’t little snot-nosed 18-year-old kids being like, ‘Oh, sick, free beer.’ We all just toiled and put every dollar as grown-ups into our dreams and never gave up. For most bands, we’d be about 10 years younger, so maybe that’s one of the reasons that all of us are a lot more cemented in our identities.
“We don’t really care if someone thinks rock is dead. Call me whatever you want, as long as you call me. This next generation, maybe [none] of us will ever get to the point where there’s any nostalgia about us, but I certainly think that we can get to the point where maybe the next generation is influenced by us. It might sound boring to some people, [how] we all probably have tea, go to bed and rest our voices. But we almost thought we were all gonna lose out on this once, and now that we all have it, we’re never letting go of this.”
Did you expect that Grammys moment when an interviewer mistook you for Poppy – and you went along with it – to go as viral as it did?
“No! I feel bad because in our world, everyone is like, ‘How dare that lady not know who you are!’ Do you guys know where we are? No one here knows who we are. They are holding a card, they just interviewed, like, Sabrina Carpenter. They don’t know who we are! I am so passionate about Knocked Loose and Poppy’s success that I am very well-versed in every incredible thing they accomplished last year – I felt I could answer every single question that they asked me. I never thought that the Poppy interview would be the thing that would [stick]…”
A future collaboration must be on the cards now, surely?
“That’s my joke with all these awesome people I’ve met, I’ve got to figure out a way to pay you to hang out with me. Maybe we have to go on tour or do some songs together, but you’re hanging out with me, whether it’s a contractual obligation or not. I think she’s really cool.”
Much speculation was made about that session you did with Jordan Fish last year. We know he’s not on ‘Tsunami Sea’, but can you give us an insight into what happens in the studio when two huge creative minds collide like that?
“When we have those little ‘playdates’ with other people, I’m so fascinated by how they work. Jordan has a really unique way of making music – he’s really confident, and he doesn’t second guess his first instinct. Michael and I could spend an hour thinking about the tempo of something. He just moves along quickly – he’s got other stuff to do – and he trusts himself.
“We make fun of Michael about [his Instagram story with Fish] – you have to learn how to deal with your famous friends! You can’t just go off, willy-nilly, saying what they’re doing. I think there is always going to be some way that we work with Jordan, because both of us really like collabs. Maybe it’s not our song, but we could help him with another artist.”
Spiritbox will release ‘Tsunami Sea’ on March 7 via Rise Records