In a world where manufacturing bands more than often leads to instantaneous success, it's refreshing to find a musician invested in his art in the long term, someone who has worked tirelessly for years. William Control has had his fair share of exposure to the industry, from touring on high profile runs to self funding solo shows where he sold the clothes off of his own back. For better or for worse, he seems devoted to the art of music and has well-founded opinions on the
industry he's built a career in.
 "Fuck, everything is different now," sighs Will. "Records literally don't sell anymore. You can't get signed to a record label and not sign a 360 deal, which means that you pay them part of your tour money, pay them part of your merch rights and they still take the money from the CDs. See, record labels know they can't even make money off of CDs anymore and that's why they're charging bands tour money and that's why they're charging bands T-shirt money and all that kind of shit. It's so, so different to when [Aiden] first started. It is 100% a different world."
After parting ways with Victory Records after a number of years, William Control's latest effort was funded by generous fans through his own 'Control Project'. As to why he didn't go down a pre-established fan-funded route, he explains, "Pledge Music is one of those companies like Kickstarter where it's basically the same thing as mine - you sign up the project and the different packages that you sell, but at the end of the day the company takes 15%. I mean, the 'Control Project' I just did myself so I wouldn't have to pay that 15%."
"There's no record labels anymore really, so we've got to change a little with it," he admits. "The only way for artists like myself to make records is to have the money to do it because it's not free. Not just anybody can go make an album and all the other shit that goes with it - mixing, mastering, duplication; this shit costs a lot of money. If my fans want me to make music, I'm obviously trying to give them a product that is worth the money and I honestly feel as if I did. I feel that there was a surprising amount of support and it was surprising the amount of people who came out and bought a package."
As a contrast to people who buy the music, the obvious issue in the industry at the moment is the ability to acquire it for free. "I mean, what sucks about downloading is that people don't really value what the artist has done as a collective whole for a piece of art rather than just a part of a record. Art is the process of painstakingly going over shit like what song to put into which order so that when the listener is giving it a go, it flows into the next song at the right pace and the right tempo. I think that downloading and the internet and iPods has really kind of killed that spirit and has killed that sparkle, that glimmer of those aspects of putting a record together. It's taken that piece out of the puzzle in the art of making a record.
"I'm not a big fan of downloading and I don't download shit but at the same time, it's a generational thing. Kids who have the internet and go online share music and stuff with other kids. This is just normal behaviour. I mean, when I was a kid you'd have to go buy records and go buy CDs. You'd wait until it came out and go to the record store and hopefully get it if it was still stocked. You know, now you can get any record, anytime, anywhere, from anywhere on the internet."
With some shake-ups in the alternative music world, such as the UK's prime metal label closing down, does it feel that alternative music takes more of a knock as everything changes? "Right now, I'd say so. I think that every ten years you have this influx of bullshit, manufactured pop music like One Direction and Justin Bieber and X Factor - you know, soulless crap that people get tricked into buying because it's on the television or it's in the magazines or it's on the radio. People want a catchy hook and they're like 'Oh, great, yeah!' and everyone gets into it. But then a few years later, people are like 'Wait, we're being tricked'. They realise this is all fake, phoney baloney and people want some real rock artists. So fuck all this shit. It does that every ten years. It happened with New Kids On The Block, it happened ten years later with the Backstreet Boys and ten years later we now have Justin Bieber." He sighs, adding, "It's just all fucking shit."
But, in the midst of a world packed with manufactured, hooky records, there's still a love of a more artistically driven, darker tracks. What is it about his music that he feels unites fans? "Probably the lyrical content," he smiles. "We write a lot of macabre, kind of dark topics about death, destruction, hopelessness, fear and anger, angst and worry. I think that people can relate. I think that collectively people can sort of relate to feeling depressed and feeling alienated and outcast - I think that's a key part of what binds us."
So, it seems that though the industry will continue to change at an unfathomable rate, there will still be genuine and dedicated musicians in its ranks. Troublesome as the road in the future may be, it's fair to say that fans of William Control will continue support him every step of the way.
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