Lorna Shore return to Australia and New Zealand this October for their biggest headline run down under yet, with Whitechapel joining all Australian dates and The Acacia Strain appearing across the entire Australian and New Zealand tour.
Fresh from the release of Lorna Shore‘s new single ‘War Machine’ on Friday (July 10th) and continuing the momentum behind I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me, we caught up with vocalist Will Ramos to talk about the band’s rapid rise, writing their most personal material yet, Australia’s heavy music scene and why he still wants to see a huntsman spider.
Lorna Shore have gone from packed clubs to arena sized shows in Australia in a remarkably short amount of time. Does it feel like you’ve crossed into a completely different chapter of the band’s career?
Ramos: Honestly, yeah I think that the band is bigger now and better than it’s ever been. It’s hard to keep track of all the good things that go on, but when you find yourself in places that you never thought you’d be, not just once but twice, it’s a really good feeling. So, we’re doing fantastic. We’re definitely in a new era of what Lorna Shore is or what it could be. I don’t know what that means for the future, but for now, things seem to be okay.
I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me somehow feels bigger, heavier and more emotional than Pain Remains. Was there ever a moment during the writing process where you thought, “We’ve probably gone too far with this one”?
Ramos: We wanted to lean into every direction that we went. We were like, “you know what? If we’re going to do something sad, let’s make it really sad. If we’re going to do something that’s uplifting, let’s make it very uplifting”. And there were only two songs that were hard to write just because of what they’re even about in the first place. But I don’t think it was too far in the wrong direction. I just think that it required a lot more thought. I don’t even know how to describe it, I guess they were just the most difficult songs to write, let’s put it that way, Glenwood and fucking Forevermore. But I’m glad I wrote them!
Lorna Shore ‘War Machine’ video
You’ve spoken openly about writing from personal experiences, particularly on songs like Prison of Flesh and Glenwood. Has becoming more vulnerable as a songwriter become easier over time, or does it get harder knowing millions of people are now hearing those stories?
Ramos: Oh, I don’t care, I like it when other people hear that stuff. For me, there’s other bands that I’ve listened to in the past where I just really loved the emotion, and they’ll talk about some very specific thing that I wouldn’t understand until it happens to me. And then I’m like, “okay, now I understand the song even more”. And I love that. I love that feeling. And I’ll listen to those songs forever, even if the breakdown doesn’t slap as hard as it did. For me, it was like: if I can give that feeling to somebody else, that would be fantastic. I mean, at the end of the day, we all write music for ourselves, but we’re obviously writing music for other people too. And if there’s a moment that somebody can latch themselves onto by listening to my personal experiences and it helps them? I think that’s incredible because now when we’re playing a show, we’re having a moment together. It’s like there’s magic in the air because they’re feeling it too and they’re thinking about that one moment in their life where they were like, “damn, that did happen”. I think, not to go on a fucking ramble, but everybody has the same exact experiences at different times in their lives. If it’s something doesn’t make sense now, it’ll make sense at some point in the future to them. And it’s those little moments that people will always remember and they’ll hold onto it, especially if they can hear it in a song. So, I’m stoked. I want to keep writing more vulnerable stuff. I want people to have that moment. I want music to not just be a dope-ass experience, but almost like a little therapeutic, cathartic moment for listeners.
I think it’s dope. Even when I was in high school, I used to love writing poems about stuff that I really feel, but I never really put it out there in the world until Pain Remains started to come around and I was like, “okay, this is cool. Let’s just try it. What do you guys think about this? ” And they were like, “uhhh…..”. I was like, “trust! Trust me. It’s fine. Heavy metal music isn’t just intense angry. It can also be intense sad”. And here we are!
Will Ramos ‘Prison of Flesh’ Lorna Shore Vocal One Take
The band has become one of the biggest gateway acts into extreme metal for younger listeners. Do you ever think about that responsibility, or are you still just writing music that excites the five of you first?
Ramos: Whatever excites the five of us first is definitely the most important thing. We don’t want to write music for the sake of being something that we’re not. We don’t want to sell out and we don’t want to be something that’s not genuine to what Lorna Shore is or what all of us like together. That’s pretty much where we’re at. Obviously, we want listeners to love what they’re listening to, but we also don’t want the listeners to sculpt what we’re listening to. We want to sculpt it and then display it for everybody.
You once said that if the music doesn’t excite you personally, there’s no point releasing it. What’s the last album (metal or otherwise) that genuinely gave you that feeling as a fan?
Ramos: The Plot In You’s last four EPs were really fucking good, that shit’s so good, I listen to that when I go to the gym. I’ve been listening to them since their first album ever. It was actually one of my favorite albums and I used to listen to it all the time. And it’s so very far away from the sound that they’re making right now, which is fine. I’m not upset about it. It was super deathcore. I was 17 or 18 when it came out, and I’m like, “this is crazy!!” And now it’s crazy in an emotional way that is in the same realm, I guess, of how I feel about what I want Lorna Shore to be, like an emotional rollercoaster of everything. I love their band. They’re so fucking good.
Bring Me The Horizon also does that, but they do also have a very symphonic, electric, Japanese vibe to them. The Plot In You is just very raw and still has emotion, but I wouldn’t even consider it electronic. I would say if anything, maybe Bad Omens would be more in that direction because they’ve got a whole bunch of stuff like that too. But something about The Plot In You tickles me in a way that I don’t really get from any other band right now.
The Plot In You ‘Carved’ video
Australia’s developed a reputation for producing world-class heavy bands. With Parkway Drive, Thy Art Is Murder, Polaris and Alpha Wolf all making global waves, is there an Australian band you’ve been particularly impressed by lately?
Ramos: Northlane, best Australian band ever. I mean, I used to listen to King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard a long time ago, that is some Australian shit! Hell yeah, the King Gizzard cult is strong. And honestly, that’s more impressive than any band that’s come out of Australia in my mind. The cult following is just insane. But Northlane is definitely the band for me, even back when I was a teenager, listening to Quantum Flux and Singularity, that whole album. All of their first albums are my favourite, and the stuff that they’re making now is just the more evolved version of that. I’m stoked for it.
Northlane ‘Quantum Flux’ video
Whitechapel and The Acacia Strain joining this tour feels like a deathcore fan’s dream lineup. If you could build the most ridiculous heavy music tour possible using any bands alive or dead, who’s on the bill?
I mean, I feel like we’re pretty damn close. Maybe I’d bring Chelsea Grin in. As far as heavy deathcore bands, obviously there’s way heavier bands out there, but it’s going to be straight grindcore shit and all this other crazy stuff. And then you start going down a whole other avenue. But I would say as far as deathcore, it’s got to be Chelsea Grin, it’s got to be Whitechapel, Shadow of Intent and Lorna Shore. And honestly, we already did that. That was literally a tour that we did at one point. I was like, “this is so sick!”. In my mind, I was like, “I literally can’t imagine a heavier tour being put together”. And it was so good. It sold out so fast. That was one of the best tours we ever did.
Your Instagram is a fun one. Between the animal content, memes and what not, do fans ever get surprised when they realise the dude screaming in Lorna Shore isn’t as serious as they may think?
I don’t know, I’m always just like this. Honestly, it’s more on them for assuming that I wouldn’t be like this, you know? What the fuck is that about (laughs). You could ask anybody who’s known me growing up. I’m just a crazy little dude and I don’t know, if I enjoy it, I’m going to do it. That’s why I do it! People are like, “oh dude, you drive and you drift cars and shit”. And, “oh, you probably do that because it’s heavy metal”. I’m like, “no, I do it because I literally love it”. I like enjoying doing stuff without getting hurt. And that just seems to be the thing right now. I used to skate, I don’t do that anymore. But do I like being a goofy little dude? Hell yeah.
Looking ahead, what does success even look like for Lorna Shore now? You’ve got the streams, the arenas and the global fanbase. What’s the next mountain left to climb?
We haven’t played South America at all. I think we want to go down there eventually. It’s so close to us, but we still have never done it. I definitely want to do an even larger Asia tour. I know we’re hitting a couple places on that one that we’re doing in Australia, but we’re not doing as many places as I thought. If we can go everywhere even more? I’m down. And more stadiums, stadiums would be dope. I just want to have that picture of me, looking out at an endless sea of stadium people. Not like a flat field of people, I feel like we’d get that in Europe. I want people up. I have to look up and I’m just like, “wow!!”. That’s what I want.
You’re heading back our way this October? What’s been your weirdest Australian experience so far?
The last time I was in Australia, the last show was in Brisbane and then I stayed at my friend’s house. It was three hours away and I had the most Australian experience because he lives in the fucking outback, he owns 400 acres of just outback. I didn’t realize how big that is, but that’s like a fucking national park basically. We went to his house and it was just crazy. They had a lot of hogs, they had kangaroos everywhere. I got to ride a dirt bike, I crashed a dirt bike and I fucked my hand up. I drank at a fucking shitty bar. The town population was like 15 people, so everybody knew each other. There was no police in town because the old police guy retired and he was the only police guy in the entire town. So technically there was nobody running the town at all for the time, at least while I was there anyway. That’s pretty fucking weird!
I was also hoping I’d see a huntsman, which is crazy because most people don’t want to see that, especially if you’re not from Australia. But you know what? I started to understand them and I started to be like, okay, well, you know what? If they ain’t going to kill me and they’re hopefully not too big, it could be okay! I didn’t see a huntsman though. I wanted to! These people were like, “yeah, we have a huntsman who just lives in the house. He just sometimes he hangs out by the window”. And I’m like, “so you just let him run around?!” and they’re like, “yeah, maybe you’ll see him!”.
A little tangent, but the last time I was there, the day before I was about to leave to go on a plane, one of my friends and I went drifting somewhere and then he was like, “oh, everybody went to sleep.” And him and I are the only ones that smoked weed. He’s like, “dude, I got weed.” I was like, “I haven’t smoked in two weeks. Let’s smoke.” And then I smoked, I got too fucking ripped. I was like, all right, sleepy time, see you later. I go to my bed and the entire time I’m sleeping, I just feel like there’s things crawling on me. Not really, but you know that moment where you’re like, “if something touches me, I’m freaking out because I know it’s going to be a spider”. I’m like, “what if it’s a poisonous spider?”. I started having all of these intrusive thoughts just thinking, “this is it. I went to Australia to have a good time. I got bit by a spider. I fucking died”. That’s my tangent. I still didn’t see a huntsman.
Lorna Shore Australian/New Zealand Tour Dates
Lorna Shore 2026 Australian Tour Dates:
- Friday, October 16th – Melbourne, John Cain Arena (Lic AA)
- Saturday, October 17th – Adelaide, AEC Theatre (Lic AA)
- Monday, October 19th – Perth, Metro City (18+)
- Wednesday, October 21st – Sydney, Hordern Pavilion (Lic AA)
- Friday, October 23rd – Brisbane, Riverstage (18+)
- Monday, October 26th – Wellington, Shed 6 (18+)
- Wednesday, October 28th – Auckland, Powerstation (18+)
- Thursday, October 29th – Auckland, Powerstation (18+)
Find out more and pick up your tickets here.
From arena ambitions to deeply personal songwriting, Will Ramos makes it clear that Lorna Shore aren’t interested in standing still. With I Feel The Everblack Festering Within Me continuing to push the band’s sound forward and new single ‘War Machine’ adding another chapter to that momentum, Lorna Shore return to Australia this October with one of the strongest deathcore line-ups to hit the country in years.
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