Windwaker On ‘smile, you’re on camera’
Australia’s genre-bending Windwaker are thrilled to announce their third album, smile, you’re on camera, will be out October 23 via Civilians & Fearless Records. To celebrate, the band have confirmed an Australian headline tour for October/ November. The run will see the band joined by special guests and first time visitors The Pretty Wild (US), as well as RinRin and DREGG. The tour will begin just a week after the release of smile, you’re on camera, a record that stands as the soundtrack to Windwaker’s journey since HYPERVIOLENCE. Described as their most honest release yet, smile, you’re on camera sees Windwaker channel the challenges and triumphs of the past few years. Lead vocalist Liam Guinane talks to Rob Lyon about the album and tour.
Must be really exciting for yourself, leading up to album number three. How are you managing that limbo phase, waiting for it to come out?
Oh, I think, I think we’re just excited for it to finally come out. We’ve been sitting on it for a while, and slowly drip‑feeding all the songs. I’m just excited for everyone to hear what we’ve been working on.
When it’s done do you reflect on it in your own mind wishing that you could of this or that or were you comfortable letting it go?
I think probably more the latter. I’ve let it go, and I feel like this album is one where we’ve really tried to execute the things we wished we’d done differently on previous releases. This time it feels more… I don’t want to say more authentic, because we always try to be true to ourselves, but it’s definitely a more fully realised project. We’ve been genuinely happy with how we approached this one.
The press release it says that you poured everything into it. Do you feel like you’ve put everything on the table, and there’s nothing left, like you’ve given it everything?
I still think there’s a lot left in the tank. It’s not like we’ve been creatively drained from this one, but we’ve worked out what we wanted to do differently on previous releases, and I feel like we’ve set ourselves on a path we’re really stoked about. We’re genuinely excited to get back into making more music again. The process has been a little different this time, and we’ve become a lot more comfortable with each other as a dynamic, who we are as a band, what we want to do, and what we want to sound like. We put a lot into this and tried to make it a really honest project, an honest assessment of where we’re at and where we’ve been over the last couple of years, learning from the previous records. It’s exciting.
So what’s changed about the process this time, in terms of how you went about it?
I think the main thing that comes to mind is that, in the past, we generally worked on demos and ideas individually, fleshing them out on our own. Then, when we’d come together on a writing retreat, we’d put all the ideas into a playlist, listen through, pick the one that perked our ears, and all get involved from there. This time around, we learned how to write songs and ideas from scratch together in the room, and it’s been a much more collaborative experience.
That shift really came from the time we spent working with other producers in LA. One of the songs that came out of that was closer, which is the only track on the album worked on with a producer outside the band. The rest is still very much us, but the skills we took from that experience were really important in shaping the rest of the record and making it a far more collaborative process overall.
do or die, for example, was a song we wrote without really having a plan going into it, we just started it together, and that’s been something really new for us. Another big shift was collaborating with artists outside the band. We’ve never really had a feature on a song before, so having click with Rin Rin, and another feature on the album as well, was a refreshing change. Writing with people outside the band has been a really energising part of this process, and it’s definitely something we’re keen to explore more in the future.
Were those collaborators obvious choices to you, or was that chance meetings or something like that, whether it was at a gig or a festival somewhere, that you say, oh, how about it?
Yeah, it was a little bit of both. The people who ended up on the album were friends of ours. Rin Rin, for example, has worked with Chris, our drummer and producer, for quite a number of years, so she was an obvious choice. She brings a certain youthfulness to the way she writes, and there’s a lot of overlap in influences and in what she’s trying to achieve with her music and what we’re trying to achieve with ours. We did scout for some collaborations that never ended up happening, but I’m still hopeful that we can come back to those people in the future and do something different. A lot of the features on this album came from people already in our circle, people we felt comfortable with. That chemistry is the most important thing for us. Being the first time we were collaborating with artists outside the band, we wanted to keep it a little safer and work with people who were familiar to us.
But was it clear in your own mind, in terms of what you actually wanted to do or take this album sonically?
It wasn’t at first. I have to be honest, when we started writing, we were just putting songs together and seeing what stuck. That’s when tracks like victory lap came together. But as we got further into the process, the themes started to take shape, and I realised it was becoming another time‑capsule album. I like to see our projects as chapters in our careers and our lives, a snapshot of where we’re at. I’ve always liked the idea of a concept album or something with a clear story, but this one isn’t really a linear narrative. It’s more of a timestamp, what we were thinking about, where we were, and what was influencing us. Sonically, we wanted to lean a little more analogue and a little less digital, to put it plainly. I don’t know if we planned that from the start; I think it just came out of the shift in our process and the experimentation in the song writing. We also looked at our previous records and worked out what we liked about them and what we wanted to do differently. It proved to us that we still have a lot more to say, and that our influences this time around were evolving. In the end, it all really came from the process more than anything else.
Who do you look up to in terms of your inspiration, and how much do they actually influence the album this time?
As a band, we’re very eclectic and very different, so what I might say isn’t necessarily what the others would list. For me, individually, I look at people like Robert Smith and The Cure, one of my all‑time favourite bands. Jeff Buckley is someone I always come back to as a songwriter. I also listen to a lot of R&B and hip‑hop; I love Frank Ocean and Childish Gambino. For this album, we were looking at a lot of more modern releases. I was listening to the last Leon Thomas album a lot. We were also taking influence from bands like Wargasm, and even bands we’d been touring with, like The Plot In You. The boys often cite bands like I Prevail and Wage War when it comes to that pop‑metal crossover or the more commercial heavy side of things.
But it’s really a mixed bag. Connor was really into the latest Ninajiravchi record. Chris is always into K‑pop and country, he’s listening to Morgan Wallen and Blackpink, so it’s hard to pin down when I get asked these questions. As an individual, I listen to a lot of the more artsy, melancholy stuff, things that really get you in your feelings. One more influence that was different for me this time was Stray From The Path, more from the political messaging side, bringing some of that into our music a bit more, and putting it at the forefront rather than leaving it in the background.
From the studio perspective, did it all go to plan, and did you really feel challenged working your way through it?
Yeah, I think there were definitely challenges at times. With the way we work, we have to move really quickly. We often only have a limited amount of time together, because we book these writing retreats in five‑to‑seven‑day bursts, and we did that five or six times over the course of thirteen or fourteen months. So a lot of it happens in the room, in a really short space of time. We tried to let go of overthinking, going back over things and reiterating ideas again and again. We still did that a little, but most of the time we tried to trust our instincts and work with whatever came to us first in those moments and, like I said, that came with challenges. There were times in LA where, even though the experience was really valuable later on with the skills we learned, I had internal freak outs because I’d hit a block and didn’t know what I wanted to write about that day. But it was a good thing in the end. Even if it felt rough in the moment, you take those skills with you, and there are lessons in those experiences. I think it all went to plan, it resulted in what it needed to be. I’m very proud of it, and I still listen to it with the perspective of someone hearing it for the first time. It still feels like exactly what it needs to be for us right now.
How you feel about the album, has that changed at all? Are you still just as proud, or even more satisfied, given that you’ve had that time to sit on it for a little while?
I think I feel the same, if not more proud. It definitely hasn’t gone the other way where I’m wishing I’d done things differently. As time’s gone on, I still feel like it holds up, it wasn’t just something that felt right in the moment. It’s good. And even the way we’ve sequenced the singles, I feel really confident about starting with songs like Victory Lap and Click to set the tone.
Then you have a song like closer, which is admittedly a more laid‑back, radio‑rock track by comparison. Seeing the reactions online, mostly positive, but with some people wanting something different because we’re such an eclectic band, made following it with do or die feel right. It reassures people that it’s still a heavy record for the most part and for the songs we haven’t released yet, I think they’ll serve a similar purpose: giving everyone something they want, while still satisfying our artistic integrity and the fulfilment we get from making the music we make.
Are you excited to take the album on tour, and are you looking to pretty much try and play the entire album?
We definitely discussed that, and I would like to. I’d love to do a front‑to‑back concept set. But for this upcoming tour, because it starts a week after the album drops, we’ve decided to include a few more older tracks and fan favourites, just to balance it out a bit more. The other consideration was that if we don’t play some tracks from the new album now, we’ll have a few up our sleeve to roll out later. I’m really excited to play the new songs, but there’s a level of restraint I have to have, knowing that in due time we’ll get to play all of them live. For these next runs of shows after the album drops, we’re going to play a good portion of the new material, most of the set will be new stuff, but we’ve still decided to keep some favourites in there and give people what they want.
It’s a killer bill with awesome supports with The Pretty Wild, RinRin and Dregg…
Absolutely. They’re pretty wild, like, they’re pretty good. They are! We met them, actually, when we did Sonic Temple this year, they happened to be playing the same day, and they’d just gotten off stage after we’d played, and we were like, hey, we’re really excited to be touring with you, and we love what they do as well. They occupy a very similar kind of mission statement, in a way, in the way that they make the music. They’re also quite eclectic. So we’re really stoked to be bringing them out for the first time to Australia. RinRin was an obvious one for us, it made a lot of sense, and it gives a chance to actually perform some of these songs with her. Dregg have also been really long‑time friends of ours, they’re label mates as well, and we’ve had a lot of fun playing shows with them in the past. So yeah, I’m really, really happy with this line-up for Australia.
Bigger venues this time as well, playing The Gov here in Adelaide. Won’t be like the Uni Bar where your gear crapped out last time!
Yes, if we can finally redeem ourselves and not have any power outages or anything like that. It’s simultaneously really exciting and kind of scary to think about having to move that many tickets. But I get the ticket reports every few days — or once a week at this point — and it’s all very steadily moving. Gradually the rooms are filling up, which is great. So by the time we get there, I’m hoping they’ll all be sell outs and we’ll be playing to full rooms of excited fans. After the Australian tour, the end of this year, we’ll be on tour with Beartooth, Don Broco, and Magnolia Park. I love it. We’ll be there for six weeks, playing some pretty big rooms as well, and we’re really excited about that one. After that, start of next year will be in Europe with Bury Tomorrow and Stick To Your Guns. We’ve got some other things that are in the works at the moment as well, overseas, which we’re really excited about. It’s like another sort of bucket list thing that we can be touring as frequently as we are. Then hopefully a little bit more in Australia as well. I know we’ll only have just toured in October, but we’re definitely still hoping to satisfy our own territory in that sense, and just grow. I’m hoping that this record will open new listeners up to what we do, and it’ll present us in a way that feels really accurate to what we want to be, how we want to be perceived.
Interview By Rob Lyon
smile, you’re on camera, will be available Friday 23 October via Civilians/Fearless Records. Available to pre-order on vinyl and CD here.
Don’t miss Windwaker on their biggest Australian headline run to date. Tickets on sale now via Destroy All Lines…
