As It Is Announce New Album & Drop Single ‘Ruin My Life’ ft. Murray Macleod

Transatlantic pop-rock quartet As It Is have solidified their return with the reveal of their self-titled fifth album, due for release on July 17th via FLG. Marking the announcement, the band have also shared a brand new single, ‘Ruin My Life’, featuring a guest appearance from Murray Macleod of The Xcerts.

Serving as both a statement of intent and an emotional snapshot of everything the band has endured, As It Is is the first album the group have written and recorded together as a quartet in eight years. It’s a record rooted in reconnection, healing and choosing the band (and each other) once again.

On the new single, frontman Patty Walters explains: “we’re so excited to share with the world ‘Ruin My Life’, a reckless love song about the band and all we’ve been through together. It’s a celebration of getting back together and a nod to all the mistakes we made along the way. We’re not the only band to have made amazing memories and catastrophic choices in equal measure, but we couldn’t tell the story of our band by omitting either. Without our unbreakable friendship, we wouldn’t have survived, and this song is about the love that got us to the other side of the darkness. We wrote this song with Murray from The Xcerts, so it only felt right to have him with us in the studio and his voice on the recording. We wouldn’t have this song, truly one of our all time favourites, without him.”

The road to this album was anything but straightforward. Following the release of 2022’s I WENT TO HELL AND BACK, Walters stepped away from both As It Is and music altogether, taking time to seek professional help and rebuild his identity outside of the band.

That space proved vital. What followed wasn’t a forced reunion, but a slow, deliberate reconnection, first as friends, then as bandmates. Joined once again by Ben Biss, Ali Testo and Patrick Foley, the four began meeting simply to exist in each other’s company, without expectation or pressure.

“I realised the most important thing for me to do was find happiness, fulfilment and a sense of identity outside of all of this,” Patty explains. “So, I found stability. Found help. Found that happiness. Then I slowly started to realise that the possibility of returning to music wasn’t a regression but an opportunity to introduce more purpose into my life and use it as an outlet for self-expression. That’s always been the best way that I’ve communicated with the world, through songs and performance, and I had been denying myself that for so long.”

Those conversations eventually led back to music, but this time, entirely on their own terms. Working with producer Kel Pinchin at Ranch Production House in Southampton, the band allowed themselves the time and space they’d never previously had. No touring burnout. No external expectations. Just honesty, patience and catharsis.

“This is an amalgamation of the last 12 years as well as a new level of honesty and transparency,” Ben explains. “This is the core and crux of who we are. We’re never going to change from now on. It really is more about our relationship with each other and how, through everything, the four of us still have this bond, both as friends and musically. That has been tested a lot through the years, and these songs are now a real testament to our overarching brotherhood and love for each other.”

“You can never manufacture genuine connection with people, just find what is honest to you and honest to your journey, and that’s all any artist has to offer to the world. This is our reality, and reality is looking a bit more positive these days. We’re a band known for four quite depressing albums. But days fluctuate, and things change. That’s mental health. But to be able to look at everything with a different and more positive outlook on the future is all that we wanted to say.”

“This is the spirit and intention of the joy that formed As It Is in the first place,” Patty adds. “It is reconnecting with the kids that we were when we started to write songs. And now, we’re showing up with life in our eyes. We can listen to and support each other. This is the most in control and confident the band has been in a long time, but also the most proud. In the past, I had no choice but to be in As It Is. This new era of the band is my choice. Our choice. A choice. But in having it back, it means having maybe the biggest piece of myself back, too.”