{"id":32503,"date":"2017-07-04T07:00:30","date_gmt":"2017-07-03T21:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/?p=32503"},"modified":"2017-06-28T13:58:42","modified_gmt":"2017-06-28T03:58:42","slug":"jenna-mcdougall-tonight-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/2017\/07\/jenna-mcdougall-tonight-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"Jenna McDougall of Tonight Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\n\u201cNow I feel it\u2019s not even about being a teenager it\u2019s about being a child and it\u2019s like lets run wild, what would a kid do? Definitely being a lot more experimental which is something I\u2019ve always wanted to do and the direction I want to take Tonight Alive in from here on.\u201d<\/p>\n

From Tour Release: Sydney’s own Tonight Alive are heading home and to celebrate they’ve announced a very special Australian headline tour. Kicking off on October 31 at The Basement in\u00a0Canberra, this run of dates will see Tonight Alive go back to where it all began and revisit all the rooms they used to play when they first started.\u00a0Joining Tonight Alive upon their return will be their new friends in The Beautiful Monument.<\/p>\n

We skyped our old friend Jenna of Tonight Alive while she was in Thailand to catch up, discuss everything happening in the Tonight Alive camp, touring, label changes, future plans, and much more.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been two and half years since we chatted properly so let\u2019s catch up, and in following you over that time this will be a good one, how have the last two and a half years been for you?<\/strong>
\n*laughs* Oh my gosh, no one has ever asked me how have the last two and half years of your life been. Expansive, yeah, they\u2019ve been just ever evolving, ever changing, ever blossoming, everything is happening all at once and I\u2019m just trying to enjoy the ride and it\u2019s great. I\u2019m learning more than I ever have before I feel like even when I was probably in school I\u2019m hungry to learn and it\u2019s been a really nice mindset to be in. Yeah we toured nine months of last year, we put out a record in March of last year and we very quickly decided to follow that record up and change record labels and spent three months writing an album and now we\u2019re in Thailand and making a kick ass rock record and so everything is quite positive and I feel very supported at this point in time.<\/p>\n

You mention changing record labels, you\u2019ve recently joined some new label families, namely UNFD here in Australia and Hopeless Records everywhere else, so how pumped are you to be starting a new chapter?<\/strong>
\nVery, very much so, we were on Sony and Fearless for five years and we made three records with the same teams and same ears and eyes on our band, and although we had really close relationships with those people the band outgrew its skin and I think it outgrew its environment, so when those deals finished it was just a really, really exciting time for us to connect with people that we have had relationships with for years and years but have never worked personally with. So Dane at UNFD and Erik at Hopeless have been good friends to the band for a really long time, so it\u2019s exciting because I think we\u2019re on rock labels now and we\u2019re on labels that really understand our band and our message and they just want to support that and they don\u2019t want to change anything about us and that\u2019s very refreshing and it\u2019s very liberating for our writing and our creative process so it\u2019s been a great change already.<\/p>\n

Of course we\u2019re also here because you\u2019re headed back to see us, what\u2019s the feeling like coming back home to play some headline shows in these smaller venues?<\/strong>
\nIt feels like it\u2019s about damn time, it\u2019s just been too long I mean the last time we headlined in Australia was 2016 January and that wasn\u2019t even a full length tour ,and there used to be times back in the day we would do multiple tours in Australia in a year and there was one time we did eleven tours which could have been overkill but we were teenagers or young adults and there were a lot of shows going on, so we were playing them. So just very excited to come home and play again, we just always wanted to but the timing just hasn\u2019t been right and it\u2019s just right now and we\u2019re going to be promoting a new record and new music and yeah.<\/p>\n

I also love the competition you\u2019re running to get the female rock bands on board, have you had much response so far?<\/strong>
\nWe\u2019ve had two thousand entries in two days so it\u2019s mental, we\u2019ve never seen that kind of response from fans before, it\u2019s incredible how many people are ready to get on board so I just feel like why haven\u2019t we done this before and why would we do anything different? In a way we have an opportunity to offer young Aussie bands a chance and I think a lot of venues have shut down since we started and a lot less tours come through. A lot of people are always bringing international supports and you often find the same bands will get the support slots and I get goose bumps even saying that as I remember what it was like being much more involved in the scene when we were a little younger, so I really, really want to put good people on the stage and have them share their voices and their music and their messages, so yeah it\u2019s very exciting.<\/p>\n

So we had a taste with \u2018World Away\u2019 and you mentioned you\u2019re making a nice little rock record, but what can we expect from the new album from you guys?<\/strong>
\nWell when we were in conversations with our new labels they were saying just go and make the record that you want to make and that was really nice as that was as much input as they\u2019ve had *laughs* which is really, really groovy and we\u2019ve just put ourselves in the studio for three months at my house at the start of the year sort of over the summer and we just got back in touch with what excited us when we were young. I feel like there\u2019s this whole concept of returning to the child and what\u2019s it like to have childlike wonder and childlike excitement about music again, so we\u2019re playing riffs and ripping melodies and it\u2019s fun again. Not that it wasn\u2019t fun on the last record, but it was a lot more of a serious polished record and it needed to be because we took a step outside of our little world and we really pushed ourselves to write a different style record and that was important to us at the time because we didn\u2019t want to repeat the past, and we toured on \u2018The Other Side\u2019 for three years so we were a bit burnt out from playing head banging, jumping music we were just ready to say hey we\u2019re not teenagers anymore and that\u2019s what this was. Now I feel it\u2019s not even about being a teenager it\u2019s about being a child and it\u2019s like lets run wild, what would a kid do? Definitely being a lot more experimental which is something I\u2019ve always wanted to do and the direction I want to take Tonight Alive in from here on.<\/p>\n

What about inspiration? What\u2019s been helping with the new music and the songs?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ve kind of been on this journey the last couple of years learning about psychology and higher consciousness and I think things like becoming a vegan kind of changed the way my mind works and I\u2019ve always been quite health conscious and these things just started affecting me in different ways. So I\u2019m definitely talking about relatable topics, but I\u2019m also going into a bit of social commentary about where we are as humans and what we\u2019re doing to the world and ourselves and that\u2019s exciting because it\u2019s always been important to me to say something worth saying and there\u2019s only a handful of songs that I think I\u2019ve skipped out on that opportunity over the years. Examples might be a song like \u2018Lonely Girl\u2019 which is really fun and it\u2019s certainly relatable to have an ex best friend and you know to be wronged in that way but at this point in my life it\u2019s not important to me to talk about that anymore.<\/p>\n

So obviously things change over time, but what would you say is the one thing that\u2019s stayed the same over your time together in Tonight Alive?<\/strong>
\nOur relationships, I don\u2019t think they\u2019ve changed very much, the dynamic of the band is very much the same as when we were young, we\u2019re all different people but we\u2019re very much connected and for some reason you can\u2019t pull us apart, we miss each other when we go home from tour and we\u2019re apart for a few days and it\u2019s like \u201chey man, what are you doing? *laughs*\u201d because we\u2019re not used to being any further than a room or a cubicle or a wall away from each other.\u00a0 So our relationship with each other has kept us very much united and especially the moments where we\u2019re challenged and tests are put in front of us and pressures are put upon us and those are the moments that we really see our unity rise and I kind of love that. I don\u2019t think anything can really scare us or shake us anymore because I\u2019ve seen it happen enough when we rise and we put our feet down and we say no or we find our way through things together. So that\u2019s our strong front there.<\/p>\n

Over your career you\u2019ve done a lot so far but is there anything that tops your list of things to do you haven\u2019t yet had the chance to do?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019d like to start our own festival *laughs* I know it\u2019s very ambitious and maybe we\u2019ll go back and read this and go whatever happened to that idea and that may be the case but I either want to open my own venue or start my own festival and do it in Australia, do it in Sydney and just see where that takes us and give Aussie bands a shot and local artists and food outlets and things like that and just promote a really healthy community for young people, all people but I think it\u2019s especially important for young people to have a safe place where they can express themselves freely. I think there\u2019s just so fewer places to do that from when I was growing up and maybe it\u2019s because I\u2019m not that age anymore that I don\u2019t see it but I think a festival with only a few international bands but mainly local bands and just a creative environment for people that would really make me happy. Or one of my other ideas was the venue was to have it like an after school program where people can come and do homework or practise in a rehearsal space and it also has a venue attached to it which is an interchangeable size, but it has a large stage so that everyone that plays there can play on a professional stage with lights and good sound and a lot of space to perform, but the room size is interchangeable so anybody can play there. So that\u2019s a big idea that\u2019s gonna take a lot of support and backing but we\u2019ll see what happens, that would really top things off for me.<\/p>\n

So what does the rest of the year have in store for you?<\/strong>
\nYou\u2019re pretty much looking at it to be honest, because after making this record we\u2019re gonna set it up, so we\u2019ll be making videos and getting the creative side together so that we can package it and put it out for people, so we\u2019re all gonna go our separate ways for a little bit to different corners of the world and work on our own projects and things like that, but really it\u2019s all about the preparation for the future which really isn\u2019t that far away. So you can expect some announcements in the next few months that will point towards the New Year, very early New Year.<\/p>\n

Lastly let\u2019s look ahead to the future, finish this sentence for me by the end of 2017 Tonight Alive wants to\u2026<\/strong>
\n*laughs* What do we want to do? *laughs* I learnt the term Magnum Opus the other day, so by the end of 2017 we want to have created our Magnum Opus *laughs* you know maybe the Magnum Opus will have a part two in the future but I certainly feel like it\u2019s heading in that direction if that\u2019s not too much of an arrogant thing to say, I think it\u2019s good to be proud of your work. Yeah I just feel very present in what we\u2019re creating right now, I don\u2019t feel like it\u2019s two years old already, we only finished writing the record a couple of weeks ago so it\u2019s very fresh.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BACK TO BEGINNINGS TOUR DATES:<\/strong>
\nwith special guests THE BEAUTIFUL\u00a0MONUMENT<\/p>\n

THE BASEMENT, CANBERRA<\/strong>
\nTUESDAY\u00a0OCTOBER 31<\/p>\n

UNI BAR, WOLLONGONG<\/strong>
\nWEDNESDAY\u00a0NOVEMBER 1<\/p>\n

OXFORD ART FACTORY, SYDNEY<\/strong>
\nTHURSDAY NOVEMBER 2<\/p>\n

CAMBRIDGE HOTEL, NEWCASTLE<\/strong>
\nFRIDAY\u00a0NOVEMBER 3<\/p>\n

THE ZOO, BRISBANE<\/strong>
\nSATURDAY\u00a0NOVEMBER 4<\/p>\n

FOWLERS LIVE, ADELAIDE<\/strong>
\nTHURSDAY\u00a0NOVEMBER 9\u00a0 (all ages)<\/p>\n

CORNER HOTEL, MELBOURNE<\/strong>
\nFRIDAY\u00a0NOVEMBER 10<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TICKETS ON SALE<\/strong>
\n12PM THURSDAY JUNE 8<\/strong><\/p>\n

My Live Nation pre-sale:<\/strong>
\n10am June 7 until 10am June 8<\/strong><\/p>\n

For complete tour and ticketing\u00a0information, visit:<\/strong>
\ntonightalive.com<\/a><\/strong>
\nunfdcentral.com<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>&<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>livenation.com.au<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Essential Information<\/strong><\/h2>\n

From: <\/strong>Sydney, Australia<\/p>\n

Band members:<\/strong>\u00a0 Jenna McDougall \u2013 Vocals, Jake Hardy \u2013 Guitar, Whakaio Taahi \u2013 Guitar \/ Vocals, Cam Adler- Bass, Matt Best- Drums<\/p>\n

Website:<\/strong> \u00a0http:\/\/www.tonightalive.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Forthcoming Release:<\/strong> Coming 2017\u2026 (UNFD \/ Hopeless Records)<\/p>\n