Breakfast bond behind Lostalone album success

Lostalone frontman Steven Battelle says breakfast cereal was the key to success on the band's new album Shapes Of Screams.

The singer and guitarist says he and the album’s producer, Dan Weller, bonded over corn flakes as the band were holed up in the studio.

Battelle tells Musicradar: “The humour level was the same, and that is so important. You’ve got to be on the same page about what makes you laugh. And Dan joins me on the thought that if you have a bowl of cereal, it is essential that you have a second bowl. That was a bonding experience between us. I’ve never been able to have one bowl of corn flakes. I have to go straight back.

“We didn’t approach Dan, he heard a single off our last album and Tweeted that he loved it. We had just watched him in a documentary that came with the Enter Shikari album and he seemed like a good guy. A year later we were in the studio together. He fit in with the band, he was the fourth member.”

Battelle adds that the band’s signature sound comes to them effortlessly. He says: “The way that we sound, there is zero effort in sounding like that, that is just what we are. A lot of people say, and they’re very positive in the way they say it, but they say we’re trying to push the boundaries.

“I just love musicals, Queen and heavy guitar bands, and that is how I hear it in my head. I have never been in the studio and said, ‘Guys, let’s try and push this further than anyone else ever has.’ The demos sounded like this with hundreds of vocals everywhere. This is the first time we’ve managed to get on a record what I hear in my head.”

Shapes Of Screams, Lostalone’s third album, was released on April 7.

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.