Against the Current: "We're writing more than we expected"

"As soon as we hit these milestones, we're onto the next thing," starts Will Ferri. Just after Against The Current had finished playing Reading's Main Stage, the gang - Chrissy Costanza, Dan Gow and Will - were already huddled backstage, looking at videos of their performance and swapping notes. "We're not easy on ourselves," he adds, but those dreams of being the biggest band in the world, they're still burning bright. "Watching Muse last night, I realised okay, I'm ready to do that. We want to headline Reading & Leeds." "We recognise we had an amazing time, the crowd was great, and we're appreciative of them, but we're so much about what's next," continues Chrissy. "We're preparing for what's next in our heads already. This, this, this and this need to be worked on for next time ‘cos we just want to keep getting better. Yeah, that was a great set but let's make the next one even better." That attitude isn't just reserved for festival appearances or live shows though. It's a drive that pushes every aspect of their band forwards. It's what made their debut album ‘In Our Bones' such a varied collection of sparkling brilliance. From the relentless stomp of ‘Running With The Wild Things' through the reflective shimmer of ‘Roses' to the twinkling escape and sure-footed attack of ‘Wasteland', Against The Current are a band who wanted to be the best at whatever they put their name to. After a lot of time on the road, (there's a running joke in team ATC that they're always on a world tour because, well, they are), the band are now looking at album two. "It's going good. We're writing more than we expected, but I guess that's a good thing, right?" asks Will. For a while it looked like the band knew what album two would be, "then we started writing some more stuff, and now we're a little unsure. We had three-quarters of it done, then we wrote some more songs and suddenly, it's different." "It took a little while to shake off the dust of writing at first," continues Chrissy. "Then we started getting into it and realised we've been able to write these songs already." Wanting more, the band pushed through "and then we were able to write the songs that felt different for us. Now that we're there, what else can we get out of this?" "It's like stagnant water," reasons Will. "There's a valve that hasn't been opened for a little while so you gotta let it run and get the dirt out of it." In the clear, the band are feeling excited about what's to come. They feel comfortable with who they've become and the next, daunting steps. Taking to Instagram while in the studio, Chrissy explained that she'd been able to "work with someone who let my soul saturate both of the songs we worked on. She [Sarah Hudson, who's also worked with Katy Perry, Five Seconds of Summer and Dua Lipa] helped me write about [Chrissy's friend] Julius' death in a way that was so cathartic; I cried out of relief the moment I got home. For a moment, the pain had been relieved, and I had a little more understanding. She helped me write about the war in my head, with all of the little voices constantly telling me that I'm nothing. Once again. It was cathartic; I felt the weight drop off my shoulders. She was such an electric yet calming presence in the room and writing with her felt spiritual. The two songs we wrote together brought me so much peace and healing." It's a freedom that's dominated the work on album two. "It's been really cool. On ‘In Our Bones', we were just signed to Atlantic and Fueled By Ramen, and we were really put through the gauntlet of writing with all these amazing people. People that have written Justin Bieber and things like that. It was overwhelming, and there were times when I didn't really want to put too much of my input in because I thought these people knew best." "Too often I'd tell myself they're better, they know best, and sacrifice things that were of paramount importance to me. It left me questioning my power, and the validity of my feelings. Ultimately, our voice came through on that record. The songs that didn't have our voice on didn't ever make it very far for that reason." But this time, it's all them. "It's more, ‘Okay, this is what I want to say, and we don't want to write about what other people have to say. We want to write about what we have to say'." This record, "This is Against The Current's voice right now," so listen up. "It's down to confidence and experience. I'm only 22 years old, so I'm pretty much the same age as a lot of our fans," continues Chrissy. "We're dealing with the same things. We're insecure about the same things. It's a learning experience for both of us, for me to write about it and use our songs as an exercise to work through these things, and then to help other people get through these things as well."Taken from the December 2017 / January 2018 issue of Upset, order your copy below.