Tonight Alive: “I’m ready to go and do something heavier” 

Tonight Alive: “I’m ready to go and do something heavier”

In the studio laying down a new album, Tonight Alive are embracing their weird.

“It feels like the past nine years have just finished,” starts Jenna McDougall, leaning back at Slam Dunk. “And now we start the next cycle. In numerology, a cycle is nine years long, and this band is about to turn nine in two days. It feels like a lot is behind us now and it just felt right to move forward. The older we get, the faster the spinning top gets.”

Between now and then, Tonight Alive have been in Thailand recording their new album. The songs were written first out the back of Jenna’s house, and then in Whakaio’s place in Nashville. “It’s a real family of songs. We experimented and said, whatever happens, happens.” Since signing to Hopeless Records and UNFD, “We have a team around us now that supports that. Our label said, ‘Go and make the record you want to make’. We had to figure out what that was for a second, take a few rules out of the way and change how we had been doing things but it’s been really fun,” grins Jenna.

“We got 20-something songs, and it’s going to be hard choosing which ones go on the record and which ones don’t,” continues Whakaio. “Our mantra is we just want to enjoy this one. We know what we need to do. We know how to do it. We just want to love it, and I think the album’s going to feel like that. It’s taking the best things we’ve learned from ‘The Other Side and ‘Limitless’ and making it into one mega thing. It’s going to feel like a mix of the two albums but with a cool twist.”

The band have already given us a glimpse into the new cycle with ‘A World Away’. “People had a real emotional reaction to that song,” starts Jenna. “And I love the message behind that song. The future isn’t so far away; the future is a second away. It doesn’t have to be so unattainable. You are the creator; you are the designer. It’s about taking that power back, even if it’s from a past version of yourself. A lot of our fans are all on that path of evolving, self-development, self-improvement and healing the past. That’s very much what the record is going to be inspired by but with a different sound to ‘Limitless’. It’ll be wrapped in a different package.”

“It’s heavier,” beams Whakaio, as Jenna adds: “It’s chaotic, it’s erratic. It’s rock. ‘Limitless’ was a very polished, musical record and I love it for that, but it’s fun to return to the child. It’s just been cool going back to what naturally drew us to music in the first place.” ‘Limitless’ was a record about new perspectives in every possible way. “I wanted something more,” starts Whakaio. “I wanted to delve and do something different, and that’s what happened with that record, but now I’m ready to come back and be a child again. I’m ready to go and do something heavier but with the message intact.”

As much as Tonight Alive are heading forwards, there are elements of this new record that act as a bridge between ‘Limitless’ and ‘The Other Side’. Sonically, sure but Jenna has also “revisited things that I wasn’t ready to deal with three years ago. It’s about healing past pain. Looking back between those albums, there’s this big jump in lyrical style and content. [With ‘Limitless’], it was about being drawn to the light. I just wanted to keep evolving and learning about myself and learning about conscience lifestyle, awareness, becoming vegan, spirituality and all that drew me in. I’m very much still on that path, but a lot of that work needs to be the hard stuff. It’s not all exciting, beautiful, light, airy-fairy things. It’s a deep, dark rooted things that you don’t want to know about yourself. Once you get to a certain place, you realise you’re not healed from certain events in your life. I’ve voluntarily gone back to that place and, now that I see the worth in healing the past, I stayed there for a little while. I went to a place that wasn’t enjoyable, but I worked through a lot of crap. That’s really inspired this record.”

“I never want us to become preachy, so it was about finding our story. ‘We’ve gone through this, and this is what we’ve learnt’. We do have such a strong message, but we never want it to come off as ‘if you’re not living the way we’re living, then it’s wrong’,” reasons Whakaio. Instead, “hopefully our story can help you. I always want to make everything universal. I want Tonight Alive to be different for everyone, and I want that to be in our lyrics as well. It was about delving deep into the darkest corners of us and being ok with that. Accepting our past failures or insecurities and not being scared of them. It feels fucking awesome to break through that. It’s about finding that balance. Now we’re okay with the dark and the light. ‘Limitless’ was us putting our toe into that, and through playing it, we really realised everything. That’s where we are right now. It feels like what we’re doing is our purpose and why we’re here. It’s just about accepting us and knowing that we’re changing all the fucking time. We want everything we do to have such a connection, and for everything we do to be special and to mean something.”

More than ever before ‘Limitless’ had a fully realised vision. This time, “I just want to freestyle it,” says Jenna. “I don’t want to control it too much. I do think it’s important to have a vision and it’s still coming together, but we’ll probably go a little bit left of centre and try and do something we haven’t done before. I’m starting to realise how temporary everything is. What if we only make a few more records? We don’t know what’s going to happen, so I just want to do the weirdest, freakiest stuff that feels natural to us. It’s a world of opportunity. It’s a world of possibility. I’m trying to live in the yes. Just learn how to accept things a little more and remind myself that this is all for enjoyment and fulfilment. There shouldn’t be so much pressure for anything else. Nothing matters except for expressing ourselves, enjoying ourselves, and influencing people in a positive way. I’m trying to keep everything clear, cut the bullshit and enjoy my life. That’s my path.”

Taken from the September issue of Upset – order a copy below.

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