Circa Waves on ‘Death & Love, Pt. 1’: “I thought I might die before I made this record”
Circa Waves have shared new single ‘We Made It’ to announce their sixth album ‘Death & Love, Part 1’ – inspired by frontman Kieran Shuddall undergoing emergency heart surgery that saved his life. Check it out below along with our interview with the singer.
The Liverpool indie stars were forced to cancel several shows in January 2023 when Shuddall was urgently admitted to hospital for surgery for viral pericarditis, an inflammation of the heart. The success of the operation and his subsequent live-for-the-moment mindset has deeply influenced the revivified new album, due on January 31.
“I thought I might die before I made this record,” Shuddall told NME, “and then I didn’t, and I got to make an album of music that I loved. The shackles were off, in a way, because I had this newfound joy and excitement for being alive.”
Ahead of the album – and a UK and Europe tour in February 2025 – Circa Waves release the first single ‘We Made It’, a punchy pop rock anthem celebrating Shuddall’s recovery.
“The chorus lyric says, ‘Every silver lining is a gold mine’,” he said of the song. “Having such a mad thing happen to me in my life has made me appreciate everything else so much more and a lot of the record mirrors that sentiment.”
Check out our full interview with Shuddall below, where he tells us about savouring life after his brush with death, and what to expect from ‘Death & Love, Part 1’.
NME: Hello Keiran. What happened with your heart issues?
Kierdan Shuddall: “I had a problem with pain in my heart, and then left it for a couple of months, did a bunch of touring. The doctor said it was inflammation, and then basically I was in an absolute agony, and went and had a test done, it’s called a CT scan. I got home, and he rang me up saying, ‘You need to get to hospital because you might die, one of your arteries is fully blocked’. Within two days I was on the operating table getting a tube sent in to my heart to open it, to make it work again.”
That must have been a terrifying experience.
“It was, yeah, it was genuinely terrifying. The record covers that in the lyrics a little bit. I’ve got a wife and a child, so the idea of leaving them behind was just a mad feeling. The material of the record came out quite quickly because the emotions were so high, I guess. Now I’ve just had to learn how to live after that. You feel like you’re invincible until something like that. That’s the kind of thing that happens to other people, not you. [But] it gave me a new lease of life.
“Now that’s happened, I look forward to everything a lot more. The idea of going to play another tour or release another record, it’s given me that excitement back. This is our sixth album, and I was just so buzzing to go in the studio again and make music with my friends, because you can become a little bit complacent through the years. Everything feels fresh again, which is quite cool. It’s a weird byproduct of thinking you might die.”
What was the immediate impact of the surgery on your life?
“General anxiety and fear that it would come back and just kill me. I think that probably what happens when anyone has a heart operation, they’re like, ‘Did they do it right? What if they left something inside?’ But I didn’t have much time to think because we had an Australian tour. I literally said to the doctor, ‘Can I go to Australia in seven days if you do this operation?’ and he was like ‘I wouldn’t recommend it’. I was like, ‘Well, I’ve got to go, because we’ve got it booked’. So I was on a plane to Australia with all the new medication in my bag ready to play a tour, and to be honest it was amazing.
“It was exactly what I needed, because I’d been sat at home for a while, stewing in my misery. It was amazing to fly on a plane across the world and hear loads of Australians singing the songs in their Aussie accents. It was just a mad week of being on an operating table and then being in fucking Brisbane, or wherever we went. It was strange, but great.”
How was it performing at that point?
“Amazing, because I’d done two tours with a blocked artery, so I was in so much pain on stage. I didn’t know, but I was probably moments away from a heart attack at any moment. So as soon as I had the operation, it was an immediate opening of the artery and I was able to jump around on stage and not feel any pain.
“As soon as they do it, you’re off. The operation I had, it wasn’t a bypass or anything. It’s called a balloon angioplasty. They go in with a balloon and it opens the artery up. They don’t leave anything in there, so as soon as your drugs wear off you’re pretty much good to go. I was touring a few days afterwards, which is good.”
You decided on a quick follow up to last year’s ‘Never Going Under’?
“I’ve always written relatively fast, and I couldn’t tour much. I was just at home writing songs for six months, really. That’s all I could do. I had a lot of material so we thought, why not just do another one?”
Some songwriters might have written a more sombre record in the wake of such a life-threatening event…
“There are a couple of sadder ones, probably three which are a bit heavier on the lyric side. But I remember lying in the hospital bed and thinking, ‘If I’m going to make a record, I want to make one that excites me and one that I love and reminds me of the music I used to listen to growing up’. I’ve always loved making music that reminds me of The Walkman and The National and The Cribs and The Strokes and all these things, like the New York scene. That was the stuff that I was obsessed with and I still am.
“I felt like I really wanted to lean into that, because that’s what I love. I wanted to make a record for me, really, a record that I could listen to now and be super proud of, and not something that was catering to what a band who are making a sixth record should do, or what anybody expects us to do. I just wanted to make a record that I listen to and go, ‘Wow, that’s fucking boss, I’m made up with that’. And if no one likes it, at least I can say I like it. That’s what true art is, I think.”
What elements of the experience are on the record?
“There’s a track called ‘Everything Changed’, which is about after my operation, how life was never going to be the same again. But then the record’s going back to thinking about my youth. There’s a song on there about an indie club I used to go to when I was younger. I wanted it to be light and shade, and I guess like death and love – which is what the record’s called – it shows both sides of life, the terrifying fear but also the mad enjoyment of just dancing with your friends in a club. The first single ‘We Made It’, is a song about resilience, and about the fortitude of people. Our ability to bring good things out of bad situations.”
It’s a real survivor’s anthem.
“Hopefully. I hope people sing the chorus and it means whatever it means to them. The lyric of ‘we made it’ can be so many fucking things for different people, and that’s what I wanted it to be. I wanted it to be a fist in the air, universal anthem for people.”
There’s a line which seems to be about turning to drink to overcome grief – “Lost your mother, don’t know if you’ll recover, found the bottle like so many others”. Is that personal experience?
“The chorus is a general call to arms and the verses are more about a specific person in my life. I guess it’s more story based in the verses, with a particular person that did turn to alcohol in their grief. Plenty of people go through that, and that’s just something that I wanted to write about.”
The album’s called ‘Death & Love Pt. 1’’ – are you going to follow the same double release plan as ‘Sad Happy’?
“I think so. There’s going to be a part two. I don’t exactly know the date when that’ll be, but it’s going to follow up from this record. In an ideal world, me and you remember back in the day when you’d go to HMV and you’d buy a record, and it was a succinct thing, it was dead easy to consume, you’d put it in your CD player and listen to it from start to finish.
“Now music is consumed differently. The idea of splitting records up and releasing more singles, it’s all just experimentation with how we consume music and splitting the record into two or whatever is just a way of not scaring people with 18 or 19 tunes.”
Does this new era represent Circa Waves fighting back?
“I’d say so, yeah. We didn’t know if we’d exist anymore, so the fact that we get a second chance at this is amazing. I’m just very grateful for us being able to make music again and tour again, really.”
Circa Waves release ‘Death & Love Pt. 1’ on January 31, 2025 via Lower Third. Check out the full tracklist below.
1. ‘American Dream’
2. ‘Like You Did Before’
3. ‘We Made It4. Le Bateau’
5. ‘Hold It Steady’
6. ‘Let’s Leave Together’
7. ‘Blue Damselfly’
8. ‘Everything Changed’
9. ‘Bad Guys Always Win’
The band will also embark on a UK headline tour in February. Visit here for tickets and more information.
FEBRUARY 2025
14 – Birmingham, O2 Academy
15 – Nottingham, Rock City
16 – Glasgow, Barrowland Ballroom
18 – Cambridge, Junction
19– Norwich, UEA
21– Newcastle, NX
22– Manchester, O2 Victoria Warehouse
23– Bristol, Beacon
25– Leeds, O2 Academy
26– London, 02 Academy Brixton
27– Southampton, The 1865
MARCH
1– Liverpool, Olympia
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Mark Beaumont
NME
