'Are You OK?'
It's the perfect question to follow up The Maine's 'How Do You Feel?', the closing track of their 2017 album Lovely Little Lonely. The question is also central in the band's seventh studio album You Are Ok, which was released earlier this year through 8123. Frontman John O'Callaghan talks us through the album he wrote after falling in love and coming one step closer to figuring out who he is in the wider context of existence.
"There's so much noise now a days and maybe that noise has always existed and it''s just broadcasted a bit louder because of how connected the world is now," O'Callaghan says. "Too often we get so wrapped up in this competition of daily life with social media the way that it is - it's my life versus yours, and so on. We need to take a step back and be appreciative of the breath that we breathe and be introspective, really take a look in the mirror to assess where you believe you're at and getting more comfortable with the person you've become and the person you're becoming."
The Maine do this on YAO through a wide range of songs that feel almost like a mood swing when listening to the album front to back. The songs weren't chosen randomly, though. After having created albums six times prior, to band have developed a good feel of what they're trying to accomplish. O'Callaghan says: "Now, more than ever, we're more realistic and opinionated about what it is we're trying to create. For this record we just came to the table with what we really believed in and just by working with the same people and recording in the same place, we were able to create a continuity to what could easily be a wide variety of sounds and feel."
The main contributor to the cohesiveness is a fresh element the band introduced on this record - a string section. "It helps tie pieces together that wouldn't necessarily have belonged without it, and just puts a bow on the whole project."
Being seven albums in and having the ability to experience something new was important for the Phoenix-based group. O'Callaghan says: "It was bizarre to hear things that i had programmed on my computer come to life for the first time. It was a foreign feeling from anything that i'd ever experienced before in the studio, it was really special and definitely something i want to explore more of in the future."
One of the songs in which the string section is most prominent is 'Flowers On The Grave', an incredible 9-minute stand out piece to close the album. The song wasn't planned out to be that long, initially it was just two and a half minutes. " I didn't really cook the idea long enough after that. With the help of our producer we took a couple of other ideas i'd had and just made them fit to the song. The more we worked on it, the more we realised that it would be the closing song," he said.
"In the past we've always had more anthem like sing along parts on the end of records, and we knew we didn't want to do that again. Within the context of the record being a rollercoaster in itself, I figured that the last song should embody that whole feeling - no matter how long it takes. The way the record begins with the first song, and repeats the line from that it in the last song, it makes it feel complete to me."
The line O'Callaghan refers to is "I was on the verge of breaking down / then you came around", a sentence that refers back to falling in love, but also reflects on the frontman's existential journey suspended in space. He says: "It correlates to the idea of not necessarily figuring it out completely, but coming closer to knowing yourself. It's about self-exploration and trying to find 'you'. It was important to us to make this record more personal to even just one listener who needs to hear it, rather than try to speak to the whole world at once."
The band's goal is then also not to convince the whole world to become their fans, but rather to really appreciate the people who are. "We're so fortunate to have even one person be fond of our band. It's important to be really appreciative and say thank you to the people that are in our corner, because without them we don't get to create music and get to visit. We'll only go as far as people want us to," O'Callaghan says.
"You can't coerce people into digging what you're doing. All we can do is try to broadcast to a large amount of people and let them know that they're included if they want to be. That's the end of our pitch."
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