In discussing Sleeping With Sirens’ eighth studio album ‘An Ending In Itself,’ rhythm guitarist Nick Martin opens up about the band’s tacit brotherhood, fusing generational rifts, and the universal language of music.

Stream: ‘An Ending in Itself’ – Sleeping With Sirens

Endings carry immense weight.

They can be abrupt and disorienting. Yet, there’s a sense of completion and relief. They can be painstakingly gradual and eagerly anticipated. At the same time, there’s a sense of uncertainty and ambiguity, in spite of presumed resolution. Endings evoke a wide range of emotions: Resistance, pain, comfort, redemption, acceptance, and the refusal to accept, among many others.

Sleeping With Sirens’ eighth studio album shows an explicit departure from the drear and melancholy of the two projects that preceded it. The series follows the despair and desolation of How It Feels to Be Lost, conceptualized in the wake of the pandemic, towards the authority and acceptance of Complete Collapse, and finally, concludes with the hope and heartfulness of An Ending In Itself. This ending was bittersweet, but more than anything, it provided the closure necessary to embark on a new beginning. Rhythm guitarist Nick Martin reflects on the band’s collective maturation across the trilogy and its role in shaping their forward trajectory.

An Ending In Itself - Sleeping With Sirens — An Ending In Itself – Sleeping With Sirens

“We went through three stages: Starting in a really dark place, finding some sort of light, and then ending in this very positive, beautiful way,” he says. “It’s interesting to call it An Ending In Itself, because you can interpret that as the end-all, be-all. It’s a negative connotation, but for us, it’s a very, very, very positive connotation.”

“I think that it’s honestly the healthiest, most positive, most loving chapter this band has ever been on. I say that in all sincerity, and I think that it’s taken us many chapters and many books before getting to this point. It’s a really, really beautiful thing, and it shows in the new record.”

Sleeping With Sirens' Nick Martin © Ray Duker — Sleeping With Sirens’ Nick Martin © Ray Duker

**In any case, partnerships are seldom wholly harmonious, much less creative partnerships.**

Yet, Sleeping With Sirens have maintained a sense of unity and kept their shared goal at the forefront of the record’s development: At face value, to have fun, and more abstractly, to close out a chapter that was well overextended – emotionally and imaginatively.

Channeling pain into your art is vulnerable, grueling, and, above all else, human. I ask Martin about his experience with grief and tragedy at the onset of the album’s conception, having received news of his grandfather’s passing on the first studio day. He briefly glances offscreen and pauses to think. Recording schedules are unforgiving, providing little interval for healing and reflection, yet, rather than allowing grief to consume him, the guitarist’s loss became the catalyst for creation. He embraces the ephemeral, and captures it in an eternal medium.

“It’s the most incredible feeling ever – knowing that something that we did on day one, which was writing the title track, “An Ending In Itself,” will live on forever, beyond the time that I’ll be on this earth,” Martin looks back at the early days of the record fondly, the pain notwithstanding. “The fact that it came from such a raw place just meant that it was the best form of love and dedication I could ever give to my grandfather.”

Cycles naturally repeat themselves, no matter how transient or fleeting their phases may seem.

This notion is present in all areas of life: The cycle of growth, death, renewal, change, and continuity. Some things change, and others don’t; for Sleeping With Sirens, music captures the expansiveness of these cycles, and connects individual experiences with collective identities.

“You learn so much about the people that you see and meet over the years, you become really close to them, you know about their lives, their struggles, their professions, where they went to school, what they end up becoming, and you just become a part of their family, just as much as they become a part of ours. There’s nothing more gratifying in this world than feeling that sense of family through music.”

Connection is the most enduring and expansive cycle through all stages of human reality. Ephemeral in physical form, yet eternal in its deathless impact, connection remains at the core of Sleeping With Sirens’ ethos, whether it comes in the form of their relationships with one another, loved ones, or those touched by their art. Here, Nick Martin discusses maturation, catharsis, community, and the power of music in bridging generational divides. Such legacies prove that nothing is ever really an ending in itself.

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:: stream/purchase An Ending in Itself here ::

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A CONVERSATION WITH SLEEPING WITH SIRENS

ATWOOD MAGAZINE: JUST TO EASE INTO EVERYTHING, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE RECORD AND ITS RECEPTION SO FAR, A COUPLE WEEKS OUT FROM THE RELEASE?

Nick Martin (Sleeping With Sirens): It’s still fresh to me. I went to lunch yesterday with a few friends, and someone actually brought it up. They were like, “So how does it feel? The record’s out!” It still feels… just new to me. I’m the person who takes a while to kind of let things sink in and process everything. But I’m just very, very excited. It feels like so far the response has been really positive – very overwhelming in the best way possible. It feels very, very good.

DOES IT FEEL DIFFERENT FROM PREVIOUS RELEASES?

Nick Martin: 100,000%. I think every album feels different. With this, we just spent so much time on it, and I say that in a really positive way. I feel like the attachment to it is even more stark. I really do view it like it’s my baby. It’s this thing I hold so dear. It feels immensely different from other releases, and I love that it feels that way.

DESPITE THE ALBUM BEING NAMED WHAT IT IS – AN ENDING IN ITSELF – I FEEL LIKE IT REPRESENTS MORE OF A NEW BEGINNING FOR THE BAND THAN AN ENDING. WHAT CHAPTER OF SLEEPING WITH SIRENS DO YOU THINK THIS ALBUM REPRESENTS?

Nick Martin: This is like Chapter 487! I think that it’s honestly the healthiest, most positive, most loving chapter this band has ever been on. I say that in all sincerity, and I think that it’s taken us many chapters and many books before getting to this point. It’s a really, really beautiful thing, and it shows in the new record. I think that you’re right that it is an ending in itself – of whatever chapter this current band is in, or what chapter of our lives this is in – and it only makes us more excited for what is to come. We don’t even know what is to come, and I think that’s probably been something that we’re very, very excited about. Not putting a whole lot of thought into what the next chapters or iterations of this are sets us up for whatever is next in a really fun, exciting way.

WHAT’S BEING CLOSED OUT MOST CLEARLY WITH THIS RECORD?

Nick Martin: The best way that Kellin has put it was this is kind of like the last of a trilogy of records. Complete Collapse is what we wrote during COVID, which was a very, very dark place in all of our lives. How It Feels to be Lost was what we released right before COVID started. The whole world changed within a couple of months of that record coming out. Complete Collapse was darker, but I feel like there was a semblance of light at the end of the tunnel. This record was like the light at the end of the tunnel. We went through three stages: starting in a really dark place, finding some sort of light, and then ending in this very positive, beautiful way. It’s interesting to call it An Ending In Itself, because you can interpret that as the end-all, be-all. It’s a negative connotation, but for us, it’s a very, very, very positive connotation.

THAT’S A REALLY BEAUTIFUL WAY OF PUTTING IT. I KNOW KELLIN ALSO SAID THAT EVERY TIME YOU GUYS MAKE A RECORD, YOU HAVE TO QUESTION, “IS THIS US?” HOW CAN YOU TELL WHEN SOMETHING FEELS AUTHENTIC TO YOU?

Nick Martin: It’s a collective breath that we take together. I don’t know how else to put it. It’s being able to look at each other and knowing how we’re feeling, since we know each other so well. I know when Kellin’s not feeling something. I know when Justin isn’t vibing on something. We can do that wholeheartedly together. This was an album where we collectively knew where we were. We could look around the room and feel it. We were listening to the album together, going, “Yeah, this is Sirens.” I feel like the telltale sign is always Kellin. He’s so great at being the leader of this group, and also being the first person to say, “I’m not feeling this.” We could be deep into a song – many weeks and months into it – and he’ll just wake up one day and go, “We’re trying too hard at this. This isn’t it.” He’s able to vocally just say that without anyone feeling hurt by it, because we’re all fighting for the best finished product at the end of the day. It’s just a collective breath of knowing what we’re supposed to be; this is what Sirens is supposed to sound like.

YOU’VE DEVELOPED THAT SYNERGY OVER THE YEARS, SO YOU’RE ALL KIND OF CONNECTED IN THAT WAY.

Nick Martin: I feel like that’s so hard to achieve in any relationship. When you’re able to do that with five dudes in a band who have been doing this for a long time, and being able to get on the same page together in a very artistic way, it’s not easy. For us to find that in Sirens, I couldn’t ask for anything more. It’s beautiful.

OBVIOUSLY, RELATIONSHIPS GROW OVER THE YEARS, AND PEOPLE ALSO GROW AS INDIVIDUALS. YOU’VE PROBABLY SEEN A BILLION ITERATIONS OF THE GUYS IN THE BAND, AND THEY’VE SEEN A BILLION ITERATIONS OF YOU OVER THE YEARS. WHERE DO YOU SEE GROWTH IN YOURSELF AND THE TEAMWORK THE MOST?

Nick Martin: Where do I see it in myself? I’m putting more faith in the people around me. There was a period within the band where I had to sometimes feel combative with others, when I didn’t need to do that. I had to really put faith in knowing that I could lean on everybody. That really always was an issue that I’ve had to deal with my whole life: leaning on others. I’m always that person who feels like I can take the world on my own. I’ll put the whole world on my shoulders, and that was really stressful and destructive for me. That’s something that I’ve learned about myself as far as the growth within the band. I think that just opens up such a bigger line of communication and trust at the end of the day: just knowing that we’re all on the same page together, all fighting for the same thing. I don’t have to feel like I have to take all that on by myself.

THE ETHOS GOING INTO MAKING THIS RECORD WAS THAT YOU GUYS WANTED TO CREATE SOMETHING THAT FELT MORE HUMAN. MORE HUMAN, NATURALLY, MEANS MORE IMPERFECT AND IMPOLISHED. WHAT MADE THIS FEEL MORE HUMAN TO YOU?

Nick Martin: We used all real instruments. Everything on this record is real. The guitars are real. The amps are real. The drums are real. Everything was done with real instruments, which just creates a different energy in the studio. We weren’t leaning on overly polished sound or feel. You can hear it in the record, too! There are some parts that aren’t played the same way twice, and we’re not copy-pasting things within our songs. We’re going off of feel, and that was something that we sought out, especially while working with Will Yip. We knew that he was a guy who wanted to capture true emotion and feeling in the moment. He doesn’t want to be overproduced; he would always say he’s allergic to that.

We really leaned on that hard, and I think that this goes back to trusting each other. We’ve been doing this for a long time, and everyone in the band is a great player. Everyone is so good at what they do, so why not capture the realness of that within our music? We don’t need to have it overly processed, we don’t need to incorporate drum machines, and we don’t have to edit the hell out of guitar parts to make them sound a certain way. Just play it how you want to play it, and that’s coming from the heart. I think that lends itself to making a record that is truly us; it’s not somebody else trying to create a vision of what it’s supposed to be.

I THINK THAT COMES ACROSS VERY WELL. YOU TALKED ABOUT WILL YIP, AND I’M REALLY INTERESTED IN WHAT IT WAS LIKE WORKING WITH HIM, GIVEN HIS ICON STATUS AS A PRODUCER IN THIS SPACE, HAVING WORKED WITH MOVEMENTS, CIRCA SURVIVE, TURNSTILE, AND THE LIKE. TELL ME MORE ABOUT WHAT THAT PARTNERSHIP WAS LIKE.

Nick Martin: There are just some people in this life that you meet, and you know you’re just going to be connected forever. From day one of meeting and hanging out with him, it was like, “This is my brother. This is family.” He creates an environment where you can be creative, will not be judged, and he won’t knock down any ideas that you might have. He wants to hear them all! I think being a producer is one of the hardest things in the world, because you’re dealing with so many personalities, so for someone to be able to steer that ship is an immensely hard job. He takes it on so well! Working with him is easy, but he’s also blunt, in the most loving way. You’d write something, and he would say, “It’s good, but I think that you can do better. I know you guys are great players, and I know that you can dig a little deeper.”

It would honestly just motivate and inspire the whole team. He just has such a great approach to hearing music, because he’s so well-rounded. He’s so well-versed in punk rock music, but he’s also well-versed in hip-hop music, rock music, and hardcore music. He just has this insane ear where he’s able to blend those things without including more or less of anything. It’s just this combined musical energy thing that he has, that I don’t think a lot of people possess. It shows with the records that he does! We love all the Turnstile records that he’s done, we love Scowl, and Circa. He’s able to capture things that I don’t feel like a lot of producers can, so I don’t want to go to anybody else after this. Will Yip forever!

YOU MENTIONED HIM PUSHING YOU CREATIVELY. I KNOW YOU’VE BEEN DOING THIS FOR A LONG TIME, BUT WITH EVERY ALBUM, I’M SURE YOU LEARN SOMETHING NEW. WERE THERE ANY PARTICULAR CHALLENGES OR LEARNING CURVES?

Nick Martin: I don’t know if there were any real challenges, per se. I think that I had a lot of built-up preconceived challenges. I sometimes struggle with confidence in a studio setting, and I don’t know why. I’ve always had really positive experiences with every producer I’ve ever worked with, but I think it just comes from a place of being really, really hard on myself. He erased any emotions like that from day one. He’s just super easy to work with, and that’s what we wanted when working on this record. We didn’t want it to be stressful, because it shouldn’t be. At the end of the day, it’s just music. At the end of the day, I always say, “We’re not brain surgeons.” This isn’t life or death. This should just be fun. We should just enjoy making and creating art together, and I think he just did a great job at facilitating that. I don’t think there were any real challenges at all, which is interesting. I haven’t really thought about that until now, which is great! Obviously, he challenges you to do better, but it was never a stressful scenario or situation when presented with that.

THAT’S INCREDIBLE, AND OBVIOUSLY VERY IDEAL. EARLIER IN THE CONVERSATION YOU TALKED ABOUT FINDING IT DIFFICULT TO LEAN ON PEOPLE, AND IN THE PAST YOU SAID YOU HAD TO LEARN TO NOT GET MARRIED TO SOMETHING EARLY ON IN A CREATIVE PARTNERSHIP. WERE THERE ANY MOMENTS IN THE RECORD WHERE YOU FELT REALLY COMMITTED TO SOMETHING FROM THE JUMP, BUT IT ENDED UP NOT MAKING THE CUT?

Nick Martin: No, I think that the things that I felt really strongly about or committed to made the record! But yes, that’s something that I had to learn many, many years and records ago. There are times that I think, “Oh, this is like the best riff I’ve ever written. We have to use this.” Then, I look back on those years later, and I’m like, “God, it really wasn’t that good.” Like, I get why it didn’t make the cut. I learned a long time ago that a band is a collective, and it’s not just one person, so that’s why I’m really conscious of not getting married to things early on.

Even if somebody else presents an idea that I’m on the fence about, it’s not until we all dig in on it that I fall in love with it. I’ve learned to just let things simmer. Let things grow before I have a really strong opinion on whether it’s good or bad. But, it’s hard! It took me a long time to learn that as an artist. It’s difficult, because you do get married to things, because they come from your heart. But, again, it’s about leaning on others, trusting them, and knowing when it’s the right time to fight for something. Pick and choose your battles.

I ALSO HEARD THAT YOUR GRANDFATHER PASSED AWAY IN THE EARLY STAGES OF MAKING THE ALBUM. I’M SO SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS; I CAN’T IMAGINE HOW DIFFICULT IT MUST HAVE BEEN TO GRIEVE WHEN ALL CYLINDERS HAD TO BE FIRING. HOW WERE YOU ABLE TO NAVIGATE THE PASSING OF A LOVED ONE WHILE WORKING ON THE ALBUM?

Nick Martin: I think it was just creating art. I know I’m saying this again and again, but the overarching themes were just leaning on others and feeling like I didn’t have to take everything on my own. Getting a really heavy phone call in the morning, and then two hours later, being in a studio with a guitar, and having to write something. It was leaning on everybody and having the support of everyone to do something special that day. And we did. It’s the most incredible feeling ever – knowing that something that we did on day one, which was writing the title track, “An Ending In Itself,” will live on forever, beyond the time that I’ll be on this earth.

The fact that it came from such a raw place just meant that it was the best form of love and dedication I could ever give to my grandfather. It was a dark, but also a really, really beautiful day. It also gave me a ton of confidence. I was like, “God, if I could co-write a song like that after experiencing what I experienced that morning, then I feel good.” I feel good at the end of the day.

WAS IT CATHARTIC? DID IT CHANGE THE RELATIONSHIP YOU HAD WITH AN ENDING IN ITSELF?

Nick Martin: 100,000%, yeah. I think that was a moment where I got very married to the project. Day one was a very defining moment. It was like, “Okay, this is something so special.” It was very cathartic, and I think it allowed me to really feel like I could open up on the record. That self-doubt or that lack of confidence I may have had in the past going into the studio… after that day, there was just this vibe of, “I can do this.” In the two weeks that we were in Philly, we had written over 10 songs across 11 days, or something like that. I knew that the creative juices were there, and that everyone was firing on all cylinders, which created a really therapeutic record-writing process.

I ALSO KNOW THIS ALBUM WRAPS UP LOOSE ENDS AND CLOSES OUT THAT TRILOGY, WHICH IS EXCITING SINCE THAT CYCLE’S NOW COMPLETE. ON CYCLES THOUGH, I KNOW YOU GUYS TALKED ABOUT HAVING A LOT OF FANS ACROSS DIFFERENT GENERATIONS, GROWING UP WITH FANS, AND NOW SEEING THEIR KIDS AT SHOWS. WHAT’S THE MOST FULL-CIRCLE MOMENT YOU’VE EXPERIENCED SINCE BEING PART OF THE BAND, OR IN THE PROCESS OF MAKING THIS RECORD?

Nick Martin: I’m just constantly inspired by seeing the multi-generational aspect of what we do. It’s one of the most mind-blowing things. It’s crazy meeting people, and then they bring their kid out to the show. Then, they’ll show me a photo, like, “This is the first time we met!” We all look like babies! It’s just what I love about what we do. The full circle-ness of it all just feels like a family. You learn so much about the people that you see and meet over the years, you become really close to them, you know about their lives, their struggles, their professions, where they went to school, what they end up becoming, and you just become a part of their family, just as much as they become a part of ours. There’s nothing more gratifying in this world than feeling that sense of family through music. Anywhere that we go, we run into people, and people share their stories with us, and those kinds of full-circle moments are just enriching and life-changing for all of us.

AND THAT SENSE OF FAMILY IS INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL. WORKING WITHIN THE BAND, TOO, YOU KIND OF NEED A REAL CONNECTION WITH YOUR BANDMATES, RATHER THAN JUST SEEING THEM AS CREATIVE PARTNERS OR COWORKERS. A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE SAID THIS IS YOUR BEST RECORD YET. I KNOW YOU GUYS WANTED TO BE NOSTALGIC, BUT IT REALLY FEELS LIKE A MORE EVOLVED FORM OF YOUR CORE SOUND. I SEE THAT IN THE ALBUM ART, WITH THE MOTIF OF THE TREE BEING REMINISCENT OF THE FIRST RECORD, WITH EARS TO SEE AND EYES TO HEAR. WHAT’S THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THAT?

Nick Martin: It’s really just a Kellin thing. Kellin had this idea for the record, and I actually don’t even know if he’s confirmed that he purposely did that. I honestly think it was more of a subconscious thing. I think he had this idea of the tree and everything kind of going on around the tree. It was actually the first thing I noticed when we started getting rough sketches of it. I was like, “Oh! This is the tree from the first record. This is some crazy full-circle moment.” I like the nods to all of that, because I think it’s important for us to pay homage to where we started and where we are now. I do like that nostalgic sound that we achieved with the record, which wasn’t a conscious decision either, you know? We just knew what we wanted to write, without even having to tell each other what. I think we were all on the same page.

A big part of it was that we just wanted to have fun. Being in a band has a business aspect to it, and there are relationships and all these other things that go into it, but then you just go back to, “Why did we start doing this in the first place?” When we all started our bands in garages, we just wanted to have fun! It doesn’t have to be that serious. I think that tapping into that feeling is what really brought out the nostalgic aspect of what we do, because we’re going back to the early days of when we first started doing this. That is exactly what came out on the record. I think that was really important.

ON THE TOPIC OF NOD-BACKS: I DON’T KNOW IF ANYONE’S MENTIONED THIS, BUT I NOTICED THAT THE LITTLE MELODY IN THE INTRO OF “WAITING FOR YOU” IS VERY SIMILAR TO THE INTRO OF “FLY” ON MADNESS, WHICH IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE SONGS!

Nick Martin: I love that song too!

THAT ALBUM WAS MY INTRODUCTION TO YOU GUYS! I WAS LIKE, 12 WHEN IT CAME OUT. “FLY” WAS MY FAVE ON THAT RECORD, AND “WAITING FOR YOU” IS MY FAVE ON THIS ONE, SO THAT’S A FULL CIRCLE MOMENT FOR ME. TELL ME MORE ABOUT “WAITING FOR YOU!”

Nick Martin: I love that you hear a tie-in from “Fly!” I don’t think that was consciously done. Again, it was just us tapping into what we’ve done in the past, so there’s that weird correlation of the two. That is also probably my favourite song on the record right now. That was a song that Kellin worked on with our buddy, John London, out here in LA. I remember when he first started showing me what he was working on; I was fighting the feeling of getting married to something really quick, but my brain was like, “We have to work on this song because it’s so good!” I think that was one of the more fun songs for me to track in the studio, just because it, again, taps into the early years of writing music. It wasn’t overthought at all. It was all just done on feel. Kellin just delivered so hard on the chorus and in the verses. That’s just a favourite of mine! I hope that we throw it into our set in the fall, because I would love to play that song every single night.

OH, IT HAS TO. BESIDES THAT SONG THOUGH, WERE THERE ANY OTHER STANDOUTS FOR YOU?

Nick Martin: “God In My Head.” I think that was the second or third song we wrote with Will. It happened pretty early in the process of writing the record. I remember we worked on it all day, and Kellin laid down a bunch of vocals on it. We had a rough demo of it by the end of the day. I remember Will played a rough draft mix of it by the end of the night. We had gone to dinner, then we came back and listened to it, and I was just starting to feel emotional. He was blaring it in the studio, and I remember just looking over at Matty, our drummer, and he had tears just coming down. He had to walk out of the studio, because there was just something about that song that all of us had an attachment to. You can’t manufacture that.

That goes back to the importance of all of us being involved in writing the music. It started with all of us on the literal ground floor of, “I think I’ve got an idea on a riff,” and then just going from there! Everyone would contribute whatever energy, whatever force came out into that song, along with every other song on the record. There was just something different about that song, though. I think it was Kellin’s lyrics that really just hit us on a prolific level, and just pierced us. I feel like that was the moment that we were trying to capture throughout the record, because we strongly felt like, “Okay, if we’re getting emotional just doing the demo of this, and Matty’s in tears walking out of the studio, I’m sure that other people will connect with these songs as well!” They’d probably have really strong feelings after listening just as much as we did.

I HAVE A LITTLE STORY WITH THAT SONG ACTUALLY. I LISTENED TO THE ALBUM FOR THE FIRST TIME WHEN I WAS SITTING AT MY WORK DESK, AND WHEN THE SONG ENDED, I WAS LIKE, “WOAH.” IT WAS THE FIRST TIME I STOPPED IN THE MIDDLE OF WHATEVER I WAS DOING TO PLAY A SONG AGAIN.

Nick Martin: I love hearing that!

I WANTED TO CLOSE OUT BY ASKING ABOUT TOUR! YOU HAVE WARPED TOUR IN A FEW WEEKS AND THE TOUR IN SUPPORT OF THE RECORD COMING UP IN THE FALL. WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO MOST?

Nick Martin: It just goes back to the new chapter that we’re in right now. Everyone is just in a really positive, fun-loving space, which just makes touring so much better. Obviously, touring is not fun when no one is feeling it, and the vibe is not right because it’s just like any relationship you have in this life. When your partner, your best friend, or whoever is in a dark place or feeling down, you do everything you can to lift them up, but the vibe and the environment are different. When you have to do that with four other guys in a band, as well as a full crew of people, you just want the vibes to be right. Fortunately, I’m very grateful that the vibes are amazing right now, so I’m just looking forward to playing more shows, seeing our fans, playing the hell out of these songs, and just doing what we love to do the most! Getting back to it is kind of nerve-wracking for me in the most positive way. I just can’t wait! Put me back on stage. I’m losing my mind not being on stage, so let’s do this!

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