Fit For A King has consistently wielded excellence in every release — from technical elements like tone, rhythm, and mix, to more abstract qualities like delivery, feel, drive, and impact. In their seventh studio album, The Hell We Create, the band raises the bar yet again with an offering of exquisite vulnerability and heart that is evident both on and off the stage.
Running straight into the end, eradicationNo more reason to pretend that we can save usWe’re dying casually, poisoned by apathyNo one is safe, this is the Hell we create.
Lyrically, the album explores crushing realities redeemed by collective fortitude and personal belief — realities that expose the phenomena of self-perpetuated misery, cultural disintegration, and institutional corruption. Staring truth down the throat, FFAK holds nothing back this time around, and the music hits just as hard.
Frontman Ryan Kirby sat down with us and shared more about the events in his own life, and in the lives of those he loves most, that caused him to separate belief from culture and led him to the powerful content and delivery of the band’s latest full-length release.
How’s it going? We haven’t talked since Warped Tour 2017 I think, and before that, it was right before Deathgrip came out.
Wow, yeah, it’s good to talk to you. A lot’s different now.
I was gonna say, a lot’s happened since then. If you’re okay to jump right in, can you tell me about the new record? I know the story has already been put out there, but how did you go from all that life happening to writing?
I think this album was kind of a result of using music as therapy. I hadn’t really digested everything that had happened during the pandemic because I was going through so much, and honestly, whenever you’re on the other side of things — I mean, my wife still having struggles with her health and there’s mass trauma — but for the most part, we’re not dealing with the pandemic as much anymore.
With all these other things, I was able to sort of look at the past and understand what had happened. This album would have been impossible to write during the pandemic because I was just an emotional wreck at the time.
It’s mostly me putting everything down on paper.
Photo by Trevor McGoldrick
Absolutely. I feel like even before you consider all the deeply personal stuff, we’re not made for isolation, which is what we all got for a few years.
I agree. I get told quite frequently, “Oh, writing must have been great. You just took all that time off to write a lot,” and I’d say, “No, actually, anxiety is not the best mindset to write in.”
Right, and you know, we talk about how a band writes their first record with a lifetime’s worth of experience, and then the second album, it’s like, “Okay, now what? All we’ve done is toured since the first album, so what are we writing about?”
I think that’s why you see a sophomore slump a lot of times. I know for us, before our first record, we weren’t a touring band. Like you said, we just got signed. So we were able to take so much time and put so much effort into the first record. And then the next record, it was like we had to learn how to balance writing and touring. It’s really hard to find that balance.
This record is probably my favorite of yours so far. It is so freaking heavy, in every way. I know it’s gotta feel different for you than past releases. How do you feel personally toward this record, being that it’s so close to you and your family? Does that shape your view of it now that it’s out?
I think, honestly, so much happened when this record came out, and it just makes me excited to write the next record, too. But I definitely start viewing these more like chapters in my life than albums. In the past, I always wrote what was on my heart and all that, but I hadn’t gone through anything like this before. So this is the first record where I had really big life issues hitting me — not just typical things, but really big, heavy stuff.
I felt like the performance needed to match the vibe, and the setting needed to be more emotional, not just with the lyrics, but the actual performance.
Did that show up differently in how you recorded it or performed it, or how you connected to it at the time?
It definitely made me want to push myself harder, with singing specifically, but also screaming. Screaming is something that comes more naturally to me because it’s what I’ve been doing for so long. But I wanted to push myself with singing because this record is so emotional and so deep. I felt like the performance needed to match the vibe, and the setting needed to be more emotional, not just with the lyrics, but the actual performance.
Yeah, that was my next question. So would you say stretching yourself vocally was rooted in how you felt the songs needed to be delivered?
Yes, definitely. There were some parts in “Falling Through the Sky,” and “Fracture,” and “What You Left Behind” that were so emotional. That’s my personal favorite on the record. But the amount of takes we did for some of those where I was like, “It’s not emotional enough. It needs more.”
And singing is still pretty new to me, and for a long time my biggest concern was just hitting the notes. Then my second concern on the next record was that I wanted to be easy to understand. Maybe hit some higher notes.
But then, for this record, I knew I’d have to put a lot of emotion into this. It needed to match what I was feeling. That was a really big journey because adding emotion to singing is a lot different than just trying to sing the notes right.
Yeah. Well, seriously, not just a biased opinion, but it totally comes through. It’s really solid. I’m gonna sound like such a fan right now, but every time I hear you guys, I don’t know how you could get more solid, but you do.
Well thank you. We just have a group of people who really push for better every time. Even with this record, we’ve already dissected it a million times like, “We could have done this, this, and this so much better.” I think it’s just what happens when you have five people who love to constantly game plan for the next record all the time. I think when one person in the band is that way, it’s fine, but when all five are, it’s different.
We’ve already discussed the direction we want to write next. I think it just keeps getting better. This is album number seven and I can almost guarantee that number eight will be even better than this one.
Photo by Trevor McGoldrick
.So without giving too much away, what are you pushing into for the next one?
The other day we were going through our old songs and talking about how cool it would be for an EP to have “When Everything Means Nothing,” “Deathgrip,” “Prophet,” and “What You Left Behind” on it.
We thought that would be a really cool vibe and we thought maybe we should dive into more of the vibe-y nature of our band, which some of the songs tap into, and maybe dive into some more of the orchestral elements like in “What You Left Behind.”
We just think it brings a lot of emotion and it might be cool to toy around with it. I think the next record is gonna be a lot more along those lines.
Sweet. That’ll be cool.
We’ll always have heavy songs, too [Laughs].
Oh yeah, I’m sure. So how will it change how you approach performing them? Will it change anything?
This next year we’re doing three headline tours, and we really want to make the show an experience. I remember going to see Underoath live. It was so cool because they just took the experience to a whole new level. It wasn’t just watching a band play songs. There was production and there was video and there was all this stuff happening.
So for our headliners, we’re looking at getting some LED walls and getting some cool stuff to add to the experience and help you feel the emotion of the song live.
Oh, absolutely. So, I was reading through the press release before putting this together and you said that you learned that “hell is passed down.” Could you say more about that?
It really struck me when talking about the kids that we’ve adopted — about how their parents dealt with issues, and how that trauma was passed down to them. We can create hell for ourselves through our choices, but we can also create hell for someone else if we’re responsible for others.
Photo by Trevor McGoldrick
And then the second way we create for ourselves — there’s three levels on this record — is anxiety. How many times do we think about the worst-case-scenario, we stress about it, we lose sleep over it, and then it never happens? I know my answer is ‘a lot.’
It’s literally as simple as fabricating a scenario, and then you live in a “hell” you’ve created in your head, thinking everything is going wrong and everything’s gonna fall apart. For me, during the pandemic it was, “I’m never gonna get to play a show again. No one’s ever gonna care about our music because there’s so many other things happening in the world. Music’s gonna die,” and all that stuff ended up not being remotely true. But I lost sleep over it. I went into a deep depression over it.
The third level of hells we create are more of a societal one — the way we eat, the medications we take. We can create problems like doctors over prescribing medication, or mis-prescribing medication, which is how my wife got her blood clots. It was from birth control she was prescribed.
That’s what made me look into it. We were wondering if the company has ever been sued, and they had been, by 80,000 people, and they settled with all of them. So now, I guess they can’t sue again unless something happens. But we’re still prescribing this to women, and one in every five women who take it gets blood clots. I know for my wife, it’s turned her life upside down. She’s about to have her third brain surgery, and she’s in constant pain.
So that is more of a mankind issue — just the corruption and people’s health being put on the back burner.
Wow. I can’t believe that, first of all. Reminds me of how the opioid crisis has been just perpetuated for so long.
Yeah, the fentanyl stuff, and then there’s the stuff they’re allowed to put in our food. It’s insane. So we’re just creating hell through cancer and heart disease and all this stuff.
You said something else I wanted to ask about, too. This is your quote: “Everything made me realize how ill equipped I was to deal with true tragedy even with all the Scripture I’ve read.” I feel like that’s such a huge thing in faith communities in particular. Have your views of belief or the church (separately) changed through all this?
My beliefs of the church definitely changed, just through touring. Honestly, some of the meanest, most judgmental people are the big church-going Christians.
But I guess regarding my personal beliefs, I’ve treated my relationship with Jesus like that — a relationship. It’s very personal. I don’t force things on other people because I view it as a relationship, like with my wife. I don’t force my views on how you should treat your relationship onto other couples. That would be weird.
I mean, there are things that are objectively bad, like abuse, but to say, “She should be cooking,” or “This guy should be working,” or that stuff, I don’t think that’s right. And that’s very much how religion was for me. It’s very, “This is the woman’s place in the house. This is the man’s place in the house,” and I read Scripture myself, and I think, “I don’t really get that from what I’m reading, but that’s what my pastor has been telling me.”
And then when you realize that pastors are just that — they’re a person who interpreted this and told everyone in the congregation. A pastor isn’t an extension of God. So I started looking into that stuff for myself as I got older and I don’t really agree with a lot of what I was being taught.
Photo by Trevor McGoldrick
Yes, I think there’s a lot of people coming to similar conclusions. It still bothers me so much that the industry takes bands and makes them billboards for their faith. So, I just feel for you all when you end up bearing that weight, even when you don’t mean to, you know?
Definitely. I even posted an opinion I had on a piece of scripture and people were so mad. They’re calling me a heretic and I’m just like, “Nobody knows until you speak face-to-face with God about it.”
There are literally how many translations of the Bible? How many people have had it in their hands? And this is off topic, but my favorite line of questioning is, “Do you believe the government is corrupt?” The answers are always, “Yeah, I believe there’s corruption in the government. It doesn’t mean everyone is, but there’s definitely corruption in the government.”
So I’ll say, “Okay. So you think one of the most powerful things on earth — which the movie The Book of Eli illustrates so well — religion, has never once been twisted by anybody in power ever?” There’s literally a translation called the King James Version, and it changes things pertaining to divorce and all that. I’m sure he had no reason to do that at all. It doesn’t mean that it’s fake. You should just read into the history of it and not take things at face value all the time. I think that’s part of having a relationship.
I think the best way to prepare yourself for pain is to just condition yourself to be okay with asking for help when you need it. Also, being available to others when they need it.
And that kind of circles back to “Falling Through the Sky.” I grew up taking things very literally, and I think that’s a lot of people when they’re first attending church. When bad things happen, like your mom passes away or this or that, you hear, “God has your back.” For me, I was just always trying to “give it to God.” Oh, you’re stressed? Give it to God. At the heart of it, it’s not awful advice, but I think it makes a lot of people really complacent.
It made me complacent because then I just didn’t make mental health a priority. I just thought, yeah, if anything goes bad, God’s got my back. I just didn’t ever actually try to build up my mental health, and since I lived a very easy upbringing, or very normal, I’d never had to deal with trauma, so I just thought I had it figured out because I thought, “This is easy.”
As soon as everything happened with the kids and my wife and the pandemic, giving it to God wasn’t working because, it turns out, God’s not supposed to do all the work. You actually have to pull your weight. You can’t just sit on a couch with your bills due and say “God will provide.” You have to actually take care of yourself or go to work.
Yeah, and it seems like mental health and therapy is being pulled away from the other extreme because it felt like it was placed so harshly on the other side of the aisle from church.
Mhm. It was always talked down on, like, “Why are you going to therapy when you can just pray?” This is something I’ve gotten flak for before. I don’t know, I prayed a lot. And I do believe in Jesus. But there’s often not a lot of back and forth, and we’re humans, so sometimes we need some back and forth. That doesn’t belittle God’s role. But a lot of times, people forget God literally puts people in your life for that purpose and speaks through them.
Yes, absolutely. So, other than what we’ve been talking about, do you think there is anything else that could be done to prepare us for pain in that way?
I think at the end of the day, there’s no way to stop hurt and pain. If someone loses their child prematurely or loses their parents to cancer, I don’t think anything will make it not hurt but I think being open and talking to people about it can help. My biggest issue, because I grew up in a “pray the pain away” household, was that there wasn’t an emphasis on opening up to people and to talking about hurting and being vulnerable and say, “I am hurting right now. I need somebody.”
I think the best way to prepare yourself for pain is to just condition yourself to be okay with asking for help when you need it. Also, being available to others when they need it.
Right, and I mean to kind of tie it back to what y’all have done on this record, I feel like making honest art is helping pull down those walls, too. Do you think this is a defining moment for you as a band?
I think so. This is by far the most personal record, and I’m really hoping it helps others talk and open up about their lives. I’ve already found out about so many fans who were also adopted through the first tour, just hearing the story about the kids. It’s really cool to hear fans come out and talk about their experiences.
Have your kids heard the record? And are they involved in this conversation in any way?
Not super directly because they’re not in the studio with us, but I’ve sat through hundreds of hours of therapy with them. I’ve heard their thoughts and their concerns and the hurt that they’re going through.
They do hear the album and there are songs they definitely feel touched by, especially songs on the new record like “What You Left Behind” or “Reaching Out.” With “Reaper” and stuff, they just think it’s brutal and scary sounding.
Last thing. Your tour’s coming up. It’s exciting. I saw you in St. Louis a few months ago. It was great. Where are you looking forward to playing the most?
I’m really excited to play Detroit on this tour because it’s I Prevail’s hometown. I feel like it’s gonna get crazy.
Oh yeah, that’ll be rowdy. Is there anything else that is going on that you want to talk about or share?
We’re just gonna be doing a lot of headlining next year starting in February, and we’re gonna make sure it’s our coolest headliner so far. We’re gonna go pretty big in the lineup.
Awesome. Well, I can’t wait. Can’t wait.
Well, thank you so much. Thank you for having me again.
