If you’re a fan of massive riffs, bone-rattling bass lines, and the kind of sonic assault that leaves your neck sore for a week, then you already know exactly which band I’m talking about. The heavy music scene has been crying out for something raw, uncompromising, and completely unapologetic and right on cue, the absolute powerhouses in President have stepped up to deliver the goods with their crushing debut album Blood Of Your Empire, out now via Atlantic Records.
After teasing us for months and nearly breaking the internet with their blistering lead singles Angel Wings, Mercy, Dark Heaven and DOOM LOOP, President have unleashed their highly anticipated studio album onto the world to universal acclaim. HEAVY sent through some questions to President to find out more about the release and what is happening elsewhere in the world of the band, including the inside word on their upcoming Australian tour.
Get Blood Of Your Empire HERE
HEAVY: PRESIDENT recently released your debut album BLOOD OF YOUR EMPIRE. I know it hasn’t been out for long but how has the early response been?
PRESIDENT: It has been overwhelming, honestly. You spend so long living with a record privately that eventually you lose all perspective on how anybody else is going to receive it. I knew that I loved it, and that it represented exactly where my head was while I was making it, but once it leaves your hands you have no control over what happens next.
The response so far has been extraordinary. Seeing people connect with individual songs, hearing what those songs mean to them, and watching the album travel far beyond anything I imagined when I was making it has been quite difficult to process. I’m incredibly grateful.
HEAVY: Given the level of your success and the relative anonymity personified by the band, it’s hard to believe this is actually your first full album. Most bands enter their debut album still trying to establish their audience but you are in the unique position of already have a global network. Do you think there was more pressure on this album because of that?
PRESIDENT: Absolutely. King Of Terrors was made in complete secrecy. Nobody was waiting for it. There was no audience to satisfy and no expectation whatsoever. Blood Of Your Empire was completely different. By the time I was making the album, PRESIDENT was public and people had already formed an idea of what the project was. Suddenly there were people waiting to hear what came next, and I definitely felt the weight of that.
Angel Wings was the first song I wrote for the album, and finishing that was quite an important moment because I loved it. It reminded me that the only way through that pressure was to stop trying to predict what anybody else wanted and make the record I wanted to make.
HEAVY: Musically, the album combines moments of brutal heaviness with massive, soaring melodic hooks. How do you balance those two extremes in the studio without letting one overshadow the other?
PRESIDENT: I don’t really think about them as opposing forces. I’ve always loved heavy music, but I’m equally interested in melody, electronic music, dance music and cinematic sound. They all provoke different emotions, and I think PRESIDENT works best when I allow all of those things into the same space. I never sit down and think, “This needs to be heavier now” or “This needs a big chorus.” I normally follow whatever feels emotionally correct for the song.
Sometimes that means something incredibly aggressive. Sometimes it means stripping everything back to almost nothing. White Devil eventually becomes essentially a house track, while other parts of the record are probably among the heaviest things I’ve made. The contrast is part of the identity for me.
HEAVY: You’ve noted that the album tackles the heavy tension between the beauty of faith and the bloodshed caused by religion. Was there a specific catalyst or existential crisis that triggered this thematic direction?
PRESIDENT: It wasn’t one specific event. These are questions I’ve carried for a very long time. Faith has been enormously important in my life. I’ve been a devout Christian, and I understand the comfort, love, community and purpose that religion can create. At the same time, I look at the things human beings have done in the name of religion and find that incredibly difficult to reconcile. Power, greed, violence, division. That contradiction became increasingly impossible for me to ignore.
Blood Of Your Empire isn’t a criticism of God. It’s a criticism of man. A lot of the record is me trying to understand where spiritual truth ends and human corruption begins.
HEAVY: Further to that, you are quoted as saying “Writing it became a way for me to confront the fear, confusion, and questions I’ve carried for years, and turn them into something I’m truly proud of.” Can you elaborate on that for me?
PRESIDENT: I have a tendency to overthink things to an almost destructive degree. Time, death, faith, why anything exists at all, whether there’s a creator, what happens when we’re gone. I can disappear into those questions for hours and there comes a point where that isn’t particularly healthy. Writing gives those thoughts somewhere to go.
Instead of carrying them around internally, I can turn them into a lyric, a piece of music or an entire song. It doesn’t necessarily solve anything, but it changes my relationship with it. There are things on this record that I had struggled to articulate even to people close to me. Somehow I was able to say them through PRESIDENT. That is probably why I’m so proud of it. It feels truthful.
HEAVY: The track Hate Figure features Ando San. How did that collaboration come about, and what did he bring to the identity of that specific song?
PRESIDENT: Vice had some beat ideas that became the foundation of the song, and once I had written the chorus I kept hearing a rap vocal in that section. Ando was the person I heard immediately. He has a really distinctive pitch and tone, and I knew that putting his voice against the rest of PRESIDENT would create something interesting rather than simply making the song feel like a conventional feature.
We sent him the track and the premise, and he came back with his entire part within a couple of days. What he brought was another texture and another personality. Hate Figure needed that sense of confrontation and unpredictability, and his part gave it exactly that.
HEAVY: Blood Of Your Empire features sharp, cinematic lyricism. When you write lyrics for a project where the musicians are anonymous, do you approach the songwriting more like scriptwriters scoring a fictional narrative, or is it deeply personal catharsis hidden behind the masks?
PRESIDENT: It’s far closer to personal catharsis. There is obviously a constructed visual world around PRESIDENT, but the emotional content isn’t fictional. A lot of these songs come from very real parts of my life. Faith, self-destruction, self-loathing, love, mortality, fear. The anonymity gives me enough separation to talk about those things more openly.
That is probably the strange contradiction at the centre of PRESIDENT. Hiding my face has allowed me to reveal much more of myself. The cinematic aspect comes in how those emotions are presented, but what sits underneath it is very real.
HEAVY: How do you feel the band’s sound has evolved, especially in texturing the heavier themes, from your King of Terrors EP to this full-length album?
PRESIDENT: The biggest evolution was giving myself permission to go further in every direction. King Of Terrors established the vocabulary, but the album gave me more space to expand it. The electronic side is much more prominent. Dance music is hugely important to me, and I wanted that influence to be allowed to exist alongside the heavier material rather than being hidden underneath it.
The record was also written while I was touring, so different songs reflect very different emotional states. Pink Noise is probably the clearest example because I returned to it at different points and it kept changing with me. I think Blood Of Your Empire simply shows more of the full spectrum of what PRESIDENT can be.
HEAVY: You were in Australia last year supporting Architects but are coming back in February 2027 for a run of headline shows. How are these shows going to be bigger in every way than your first visit?
PRESIDENT: The first Australian visit was about introducing PRESIDENT to people. Coming back as a headline act means we can finally present the world properly. We have more time, more space and much greater control over what happens in the room. That means the production can become more immersive, the set can breathe more and we can take people through a much broader section of the music.
The live show is incredibly important to us. I don’t want it to feel like a band simply playing songs beneath some lights. The ambition is always to make the whole room feel like it has entered PRESIDENT for the duration of the Rally. Australia will be a significant step forward from what people saw last time.
HEAVY: The UK and Australian heavy music scenes have a massive, symbiotic relationship right now. Why do you think Australian audiences, in particular, have latched onto the dark, atmospheric world of PRESIDENT so quickly?
PRESIDENT: Australian audiences seem incredibly open-minded when it comes to heavy music. There are so many brilliant artists coming from Australia who are comfortable moving between heaviness, melody, electronic elements and atmosphere without feeling the need to stay inside one particular lane. I think PRESIDENT probably makes sense within that environment.
When we were there last time, I was struck by how quickly people engaged with us. Even if they had never heard the music before, there was a willingness to give it a chance. There is also an intensity to Australian audiences that suits these songs very well. I’m looking forward to experiencing that from the other side of a headline room.
HEAVY: If you had to pick one track off Blood Of Your Empire that serves as the perfect gateway drug for a brand-new listener catching you on this tour, which song is it and why?
PRESIDENT: Probably Angel Wings. It contains a lot of the things that define PRESIDENT for me. There is weight, melody, atmosphere, electronic texture and vulnerability all living within the same song. It was also the first song written for the album, so in some ways it became the point where I realised what Blood Of Your Empire could be.
If somebody heard that and connected with it, I think they would probably understand enough of the language of PRESIDENT to know whether they wanted to go further.
HEAVY: Run us through a typical President live show and what fans can expect.
PRESIDENT: Intensity. There are moments designed to feel enormous and others where everything contracts and becomes much more intimate. The music is only one part of it. Lighting, visuals, transitions, spoken passages and the pacing of the set all matter because I want the Rally to feel like one continuous experience rather than a sequence of unrelated songs.
At the same time, I never want the production to disguise what is happening onstage. PRESIDENT still needs to feel alive and slightly dangerous. The best shows are the ones where the boundary between us and the citizens in the room begins to disappear a little.
HEAVY: You are bringing along Canberra’s Hands Like Houses as your national support act. What drew you to their alternative rock sound, and how do you think their energy will set the stage for your headline set?
PRESIDENT: We wanted somebody who could bring their own identity to the night rather than simply sounding like another version of PRESIDENT. Hands Like Houses have a strong history within Australian alternative music and they understand how to build melody and atmosphere without sacrificing energy. That contrast is important. A good bill should feel coherent without every artist doing the same thing.
I think they’ll create a really strong atmosphere in the room before we come on, and having an Australian band with that connection to the audience makes the whole run feel more special.
HEAVY: Any messages for Australian fans?
PRESIDENT: Thank you. The response PRESIDENT received on our first visit was extraordinary, particularly considering how new the project still was. This time we return with Blood Of Your Empire in the world, a full headline set and a much clearer idea of what a PRESIDENT Rally can become.
We remember the welcome you gave us. In February, we intend to repay it.
AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES 2027
February 19, 2027: Metropolis – Fremantle
February 21, 2027 : Hindley Street Music Hall – Adelaide
February 23, 2027: Forum – Melbourne
February 25, 2027: The Fortitude Music Hall – Brisbane
February 27, 2027: The Roundhouse – Sydney
Tickets HERE
