Where do the lyrics fit in with this new phase?
“When I was writing those lyrics, I was saying something that I didn't realise I felt yet, or couldn't fully conceptualise how I felt. It’s honest to the point where it almost feels childlike. It really is this moment of kicking and screaming with myself and fighting all the forces that may be – whether it's myself, or the world around me, or the people around me. You know, man vs. man, man vs. self, man vs. nature kind of vibes, all mashed into one, pointing the gun everywhere.
“How I visualise it is: I'm not trying to be this thing, but I do want it, but I don't, and it's this consistent power struggle with myself over this feeling of… not uniqueness, but rather thinking in a way that isn't the same as some of the people around me. I don't know if you've ever had that moment where you're like, ‘I just wish I could snap my fingers and my life would be normal,’ you know? That was where I was writing from quite a bit.
“I don't want to be different just to stay alive. Like, because there is kind of this feeling, I think, when you grow up feeling outcasted, that you almost cling to the way that you feel different, as a means to stay alive. It becomes comforting to eventually rely on the thing that you hated about yourself, and in a way that kind of eats itself alive. It really is that feeling of loving yourself, but then regression and loving yourself is very real. I don't think a lot of people talk about that, and how it's hard to love yourself when you see so many different angles of yourself constantly – whether it's through social media or pictures. Everybody has a different perspective and a different lens on the way they view the world and the way they view the people around them. So it's also about struggling with being perceived by a large volume of people, and feeling like I don't have control over that. Fine, fuck it. I'll burn it all down. I hope that makes sense!
“I personally feel really confident about the lyrics. Even though they're very simple, they're straight to the point. I'm telling the story of exactly how I feel. In that sense, it feels awfully vulnerable, but it's a sort of vulnerability that I'm really ready to embrace.”
It feels a bit different, there’s a big ’90s alt.rock vibe going on. Was that intentional?
“A little. Mostly we go, ‘Let's just write a song. Let's put a chorus together. Let's come up with a bridge.’ That’s how this was – nothing out of the ordinary, and there wasn't really any preconceived ideas yet, because usually my vocals come last. This is me being a little bit of a stubborn fucker, but I don't really like sharing my vocal ideas too much with the band until we get to recording, because we're all very indecisive, and we'll pick apart everything. Their opinion matters, but I don't open the floodgates until it's very realised.
“I was really liking how driving the music was, and how there’s that alt.rock vibe. It’s very radio rock, right? But that wasn't the intention, necessarily. It just felt good. It was kind of this unknown phenomena that happens when we write music. It's not like we're going into it like, ‘Okay, we want it like this.’ Whenever we’ve wanted it to sound a certain way, it never fucking does.
“The only preconceived notion I had about this song, writing-wise and vocals-wise, was that I wanted to sing as much as I can on it, and where I scream, I wanted it to feel emotional. I wanted to convey a sense of desperation, a sense of disconnect and desperate frustration. I wanted that moment to kind of have a sense of building tension.
“But yeah, there’s a whole ‘big rock’ side. I keep laughing at that, because it sounds like arena rock, but that wasn't what we went in to do. It's just a happy accident. I think that's a really good thing to have happened for us: to come out with something that feels like it could smash in a large room. That’s a dream come true.”
Do you think part of that’s come subconsciously from playing bigger places, and realising what bits of the set work really well on those stages?
“Absolutely. Playing bigger venues, you start to conceptualise, subconsciously, ‘How could I write a song that I could imagine a million faces singing back to me?’ I think that was the subconscious intention with writing a call-and-response chorus. My hope is that I don't have to sing that response, because it's just gonna be sung back at me.”