When pushed Perri says that the thing he's most proud of about the latest album is the development of his writing style. “It's really changing. The first record – he explains – was really immature, it was the first record I ever wrote. It's a growing process. I think the maturity of the singing and the lyrics on the second album really show through, and this next album is going to be totally expanded and different”.
And what does he base his songs on then? “The first record was all about one relationship that I had. Every song is about that one girl – he laughs – I wanted to stray away from that on the second album, so there are only two songs that are specifically about relationships. The rest are just about human emotions – I see situations, and how people react, and I try to write about that to help people through situations.
One of the things noted about The Fiction we live has been the increase in production values, in comparison to Too Bad You're Beautiful, but Perri downplays the role of production, in that case. “The last record, the producer didn't really have much of a hand in it. We went in with all the songs worked out and prepared. With this next record that we're going to do, we're going to go in a month early and work with him on the songs. Have him help us to make a better record”.
From Autumn to Ashes are unashamedly populists. They want to take their music to the biggest audience possible, though without compromising their songwriting. From a productin point of view, tellingly, Perri, given the choice of working with anyone in the world, would choose Bob Rock. Rock, while famous for a number of records, is probably best known for having taken Metallica into the mainstream with the 'black' album in 1991.Watching them live, many of the seeming contradictions in their sound and style resolve themselves and make perfect sense. They put on an incredibly intense show, and the combination between Fran Mark's vocals, and Perri's screaming works brilliantly. At times they're eerily reminiscent of Iron Maiden – both early Maiden when Paul Di'anno sang for them and the Bruce Dickinson line up, at the same time, which is no mean feat. Whether they'll reach a crossover point with huge sales time will tell. One thing is certain though, they'll keep on recording and playing and creating a sound that is uniquely theirs. When discussing the Mp3 debate, Perri says “I think it is definitely killing record labels, without a doubt. I think in maybe five or ten years CDs will be obsolete”, but seems unfazed: “If they dissappear, we'll just have to do it all ourselves, which won't be such a big deal, because we've done it all before ourselves anyway”.