Australian band Tonight Alive formed down under in Australia in 2008. Comprised of vocalist Jenna McDougall, guitarist Jake Hardy, bassist Cameron Adler, and drummer Matt Best, the band has gifted the alt-rock community with four full-length studio albums so far, including their latest January 2018 LP, Underworld.
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As Warped Tour veterans, our host, Ryan J. Downey, caught up with the band's lead singer McDougall at the first day of this year's festivities in Pomona, Calif., on June 21, where she dished on the "evolution" of performing at the revered summer festival, the advice she would share with her younger self and why the Warped Tour community has been so important during its 20-year run.
So you have obviously done the Warped Tour before. Is it bittersweet knowing this is the last time?
A little bit. I think it's going to become a little bit more painful as we get into it, recreating that bond and feeling it again. It's been a pretty life-changing tour for us. This is our fourth time.
I was going to ask you if you could sum up Warped Tour in one word, and I suppose life-changing, it's hyphenated, that counts.
I feel like evolution. It just gives you a chance to embody what you want to embody and be who you want to be. You get to put that in practice every single day and really manifest your highest devotion to yourself, highest devotion to your band. I love it.
What was your impression of Warped Tour growing up, obviously not growing up in America. Was it just something you always inspired to like, "I want to be on that someday, I want to go to that someday"?
We did, absolutely. We grew up in Australia, and its so far removed from everything. Every band we loved was American and all we wanted to do was become an international touring band. I remember being 14 and watching YouTube videos of Rufio. They were one of our favorite bands growing up and we got to tour with them in the following years. … We were really young when we heard about Warped and we never got to be fans of the festival. We are fans of the festival, but we see it from a different perspective. We see it from the inside out or outside in.
This is your fourth Warped Tour. What do you wish that you would have known the first time that you know now, the fourth time, that makes your life easier out here?
Maybe not even totally related, but just in general, what I wish I knew when I was younger is that I don't have to try. You just be. Just be who you are and you emit a frequency, you put out a signature and people will pick up on it or they won't. And that's OK. It's not a reflection of your worthiness or your ability to be interesting or your skills or anything like that. It's not a reflection of that. It's just a reflection of whether you resonate with people. I think I always tried to perfect and control how people would receive me or our band. And now it's just amazing we get to come back this many times. I'm just happy to be here and play the music we know people love now. We don't have to project anything. So I think that comes with age as well as experience.
I want to ask you, we're asking everybody that's here, if you could say anything to Kevin [Lyman] and those who run Warped Tour, given it's the last time, a thank you or anything like that.
Everything I could say, they know. This has been a life-changing experience for me. It's given me a chance to cultivate a sense of sense, a sense of identity, a sense of connecting with people and figuring out what matters to me. I love the fact that it's six weeks long. I'm sure in the past it has been longer, but the fact that you get to do this everyday, it really challenges you and tests you. It wants you to know if this is important enough. And it is. And it creates passion and it feeds your fire and that's the opportunity that they put in front of us as artists but also that they put in front of kids as well, to come to a place where that energy of being an outcast and a rebel and an anti-conformist is amplified, and the safety. There's a bubble that surrounds us and it pulls us all in. I just feel for the people that live in one city and only get to see this once a year, and we get to do it 36 times a year.
It's a place where all of us outsiders can come together and belong somewhere.
One-hundred percent. I don't want that to go away. But we'll find other places.
People will always find community in music, and music like Tonight Alive. Thanks for talking to us!
Thank you!
