Singer Jenna McDougall and guitarist Whakaio Taahi joined us at a café in South Melbourne to chat about the expansive new sounds explored on their third album. “That’s my favourite stuff,” Taahi says. “I love the epic, spacious thing. A big influence that I’ve been listening to a lot is movie scores and soundtracks. I really got into a lot of Hans Zimmer’s stuff and I delved into how he did his stuff, and that was a huge influence on a lot of the music. I wanted to do it differently this time.”
Tonight Alive took their time with the writing and recording of this album, which also had a strong impact on the way it sounds. “I think it’s so varied because it was over a period of two years that we wrote this,” Taahi says. “So it’s like a snapshot of the best of those two years.”
“We stand by everything we recorded, everything we wrote,” McDougall says. “Having been the people that were on that journey and facing the challenges and facing the expectations from ourselves and from the people we surround ourselves with, the journey was what made the record what it is. This will be the next phase.”
“I’m excited,” Taahi adds. “Every single song has a purpose. It’s on there for a certain reason, whether that be lyrics or just the mood of the album. I don’t think we could have done it any other way.”
Fans will get to hear and enjoy the album when it lands this weekend. However, as with most releases, it’s difficult to gain a clear appreciation of what the band went through to arrive at the finished product. Tonight Alive went through a truly gruelling and soul-searching two years as they prepared Limitless, and this had a monumental impact on the strength and variety of the album.
“Those first nine days in the studio just turned our lives upside down,” McDougall says. “We tore the songs apart and tore us apart as people too. But what it taught us to do was converse with our instruments. We were talking to each other with what we were playing, complementing each other with our parts. Nobody was competing any more. There was no repetition, there was no two guitars strumming the same thing, there was no two rhythms that were the same. Every instrument learned how to use its voice.”
The album’s lyrics are autobiographical and reflect the cathartic process the band went through in bringing the album to fruition. “The lyrics are about the personal choice that went into the whole thing, to do this for our own happiness,” McDougall says, “and to make sure that this record, if it became successful, it was on our own terms. It was kind of a looking myself in the eye moment, and I think I got the purest expression of myself and our band with those lyrics.”
The band have a list of tour dates longer than their arms stretching out ahead of them, including some less well-trodden paths on the world touring circuit. However, you can rest assured that they will do at least one Aussie run on the Limitless world tour.
