Inside HEALTH’s New Album ‘CONFLICT DLC’

HEALTH have never been a band to do things the normal way – and their freshly minted record CONFLICT DLC is no exception. What began life as a bonus EP spun out of RAT WARS sessions has since mutated into a full-blown standalone album, officially transforming HEALTH’s recent output into a double-album era defined by maximalism, brutality and dark humour. Out now via Loma Vista, CONFLICT DLC sharpens the band’s industrial edge while leaning harder into hooks, breakdowns and sheer firepower – forged on the road, refined in the studio, and stress-tested in front of massive metal crowds.

In this deep dive, bassist and producer John Famiglietti pulls back the curtain on how CONFLICT DLC came together – from axing songs at the eleventh hour and calling in Lamb Of God’s Willie Adler to fix a “dogshit riff”, to mixing decisions that flirted with sonic destruction, touring revelations at Knotfest Australia, apocalyptic LA fires, and yes… a truly cursed Kesha candle. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at HEALTH at full tilt: methodical, chaotic, exhausted, inspired and still pushing the noise forward.

HEALTH- ‘ANTIDOTE’

From Bonus EP To Full-Blown Double Album

JF: CONFLICT DLC was originally intended to be a bonus EP for RAT WARS. Then it was expanded into the idea of being a second disc; and then we ended up throwing away almost all the material except for three songs. And now it is the second disc, but it’s basically a standalone album. So it makes this a double album.

A Very Civilised Way To Make Extremely Uncivilised Music

JF: When we record, we work regular-ass hours during the daytime and then just leave. We work for six hours during the daytime, and we also take a lunch break. I think with music, you can do your best work like that. During the last two hours of working, or the last four hours in the day, we could keep grinding. But you get diminishing returns, you kind of blow out. You want to be recording when you’re really excited. We usually start the day with a new idea and then we go to refine the other ideas. And then when we feel like we’ve hit it? We’ll just leave. It’s very nice! I dunno if everyone’s able to do that, but that’s how we did this album. And then we take huge breaks with the songs, huge breaks in working and listen to ‘em a bunch of times. Then we’ll come in and work on them again. It just really works for us. We treat it like a 9-to-5 job with endless vacations, just constant vacations. We’ve figured out a way to work that really feels good for us, but a way that also leaves the least amount of regret. We get all this time to think about stuff and re-listen to it and change our minds. And that way by the end we’re just very satisfied. I don’t know if it would work for everyone else, it takes a long time. But it’s just a really nice way to do things, and it feels like a very healthy way of doing things for us.

That One Riff That ‘Fucking Sucked’ (And How Willie Adler Saved It)

JF: This is definitely another fun fact: the album was done, and I was at a party, I’d flown to France for my friend’s bachelor party. I was up late with Pertubator and he played me his new album, which is finished. And I’m like: “hey, well my album is not finished. I want to play you my album and if you have any feedback, tell me because it’s not too late, I can finish it”. I played it for him and he’s like: “I like every song except one”. I’m like: “why?”, and he says: “that riff fucking sucks”. I’m like: “riff sucks, eh? I’m gonna hit up Willie [Adler] from Lamb of God”. I do it, and I’m like: “Willie, really quick, can you solve this? I need you”. And he’s like: “oh, I got you”. I mean, he’s the man, and he just knocked it out. And that’s how we have Willie again.

Writing Fast, Obsessing Forever

JF: Another fact is that we axed songs literally at the 11th hour and did totally new songs…but that’s normal for us. Also, because this one was created from the RAT WARS sessions, the time making this album is technically really, really long; even though we ended up throwing away most of the material. For us it does and also doesn’t take long to write a song. Usually the easier and faster it is for us to write the song, it’ll be better and catchier. But the more you agonize, it’s not as good. However, we still do that stuff where it’s like: we write it quickly and then we agonise over the production and we keep refining and refining it, or changing it, you change the tempo or change the sonic landscape, stuff like that. Remake it, essentially. That’s why we like the long breaks of time, the long breaks of time are awesome when you just keep listening to it and be like: “you know what? Let’s rethink this or totally change this, or take this thing and stick it on the other thing” or whatever it might be. The writing for CONFLICT DLC was mostly all done last year, except for three songs that were left over from RAT WARS. We had all these other songs left over from RAT WARS and we ended up throwing those away. But the three songs that we kept on this album are: WASTED YEARS, DARKAGE and DON’T KILL YOURSELF.

Calling In WZRD BLD To Blow It All Out

JF: Also, the album is mixed by WZRD BLD [Drew Fulk] who has worked with Knocked Loose. We heard the Knocked Loose record and we were like: “get this guy on the phone immediately”. He usually doesn’t mix albums, he usually produces. So he was like: “hey, I usually produce”. But we were like: “well, just do some producing shit when you mix!”. And he said okay. He’d do all kinds of crazy stuff and you’ll be like: “hell yeah!” or you’ll be like: “okay, let’s dial that back”. He’s amazing, and it was really amazing to work with him. We’re very happy with it. On the topic of WZRD BLD, he also likes to super crank his records where they sound insane and all blown out. When we were mastering CONFLICT DLC, the mastering guy was like: “I can do it like that. Or it’ll be 0.5 DB quieter and be less blown out”. We heard the two and we’re like: “…do the less blown out one” (laughs). It’s still pretty blown out, it’s still maxed out. It sounds bananas.

More Firepower For Bigger Stages

JF: Us going to Knotfest Australia, and us playing these metal festivals in Europe made us realise: we need some more firepower. We were sandwiched between these bands who are just the most insane bands. So we were like: “all right, we need some more firepower for these big shows”. And we also need bigger hooks for those really large audiences. The creation of this album just changed over our touring that year as we made it, we kept trying to go for higher tempos, get heavier, have more breakdown-esque content. I mean, we’re playing in these spaces where people are like: “where the fuck is the breakdown?!”. The fan reaction was still great when we did Knotfest in Australia, we had a great time, sold a lot of t-shirts, and we’re very happy. And it’s funny when it comes to HEALTH: anywhere we’ve always thought we weren’t going to be accepted, we’ve been really accepted. I can’t complain. We’ve been to Australia now two years in a row, and it’s very rare to do that.

Winning Over New Crowds On The Road

JF: Touring leading into this album has also been interesting, we’ve been touring with Pierce The Veil, they’re incredible musicians, the show is really good, they’re just up there ripping. Initially we were worried about playing to a new audience, to the Pierce The Veil audience, but they’re great. Also, Pierce The Veil are kids, and young people are just the best. They’re excited, they’re not jaded and they’re ready to have fun. They’re ready to rock full of life. And on this run, the more remote the town, the better the show was. Rogers, Arkansas was one of the best shows. I don’t even know where that is! It was great. In a place like that, you don’t get shows at all unless they’re country artists, so they’re fucking pumped to see a rock show. Also, I was just tickled, these kids are going to watch this show and then they’re going to high school the next day. Fucking sweet.

Living With The Album (Then Never Listening To It Again)

JF: When it comes to the album, I like all the songs. I’ve heard them all too many times, we’ve all listened to the album so many times while we were making it, we’ll be fucking sick of it by the time it comes out, and we’ll never listen to it again. But I do think the songs are really good. I think DON’T KILL YOURSELF is really great, we made a cool music video for it that’ll be coming out too.

Every Song Gets A Video (Unfortunately)

JF: On the music video topic, that’s been a pain in the ass too, we’ve been doing a music video for every song. By the end of it, every song on the album will eventually have a music video, which is a huge pain in the ass. I don’t recommend that either. We know we can do videos really cheap, we stretch the dollar and do really low-budget videos. But it’s just a fuck ton of work. Videos have never meant less than they do right now, but we’ve found that it does help with every new single that a video comes out with it. And for the fans it makes it more fun and more of a premiere. We’ve done that consistently for this album, and there’s only a few videos left to release that are covering all the singles. Then we’re going to take a little break, but eventually we’ll make ’em for all the other songs. And we’ve already shot some of the videos for the other songs too.

Recording Through Literal Apocalypse

JF: We also made this album while the entirety of LA was on fire. It was fucking apocalyptic! But then we started to get worried, we’re like: “fuck, we don’t want people to think these songs are all written about the fucking fires”. But everyone forgot really fast anyway. I remember the same shit happened in Australia to you guys, the entire country was on fire. It’s horrible. In California, it’s the same thing. When we were making this album, I remember being pretty stressed because I lived next to a park. They had this app, like a “fire watch” app. The whole time we were recording the album, I was looking at fires and there was one right next to my house. I was like: “motherfucker!!”. So I got in my car, I drove down there and the cops had already arrested him, but there was just some guy there just setting a fire, some arsonist guy. They caught him immediately, but I was so pissed. I’m like: “dude, you’re going to burn down my house?!”.

The Kesha Candle Incident

JF: And finally, this is a little silly, but it’s one extra fact. When we were making CONFLICT DLC, I took this insane world-ending shit. We have a small studio with a tiny bathroom, and I stunk up the place so badly that they were yelling at me: “dude, do something!!”. The producer that we worked with on the album, he’s worked with Kesha, the pop artist, and she had this candle from her album release event for her album this year. I lit it, and the scent was so horrible and overpowering, we couldn’t get it out of there for like five days, and we were just miserable those whole sessions because of this goddamn candle. It was insanely powerful. So, there go you, pop star Kesha’s got a wicked candle! It’s a shit neutralising candle, we were like: “the candle was so bad, I would rather smell the shit than the candle”. However I will say, her song Boy Crazy? One of my favourite songs of the year. Amazing, big hit. She’s back, I love it!