All We Are: "Although dark, the record is really about hope"

Drummer and vocalist Rich O’Flynn tells how with their new album 'Sunny Hills', Liverpudlian trio All We Are want listeners to know they’re not alone.

How has 2017 been treating you so far? Are you guys having a good year?

Yeah, it’s been all go really. We mastered the record in January, so we’ve just been doing the usual frantic organisational stuff around it to get it ready for the release. Apart from that and a few gigs we’ve not been up to much.

Tell us about the creation of your new album, ‘Sunny Hills’ - what was your starting point and what’s it about?

Shortly after the release of LP1, we had a record of songs pretty much ready to go. We went on a final writing session down in Margate where a friend of ours at PRAH foundation owns an old punk warehouse. We ended up writing there for a week and from the moment we started we were writing heavier, faster and more aggressive tunes. It was like a rebirth for us. After the week was done, we decided to scrap the previous songs and start again. That’s what you hear on 'Sunny Hills'. The record for us it’s a way of getting the darkness and anxiety out in the catharsis that we felt when we first started writing and playing these songs. The world is a pretty dark place right now, and we want to tell people that you’re not alone in it, so although dark, the record is really about hope. The road the warehouse was on was called ‘Sunny Hills’.

What topics do you most enjoy writing about?

Well with this record we decided to be painfully honest lyrically and with ever note and beat played. Drawing on darkness inside and without was definitely our inspiration this time around. We think the themes are pretty straight forward. With 'Burn It All Out' for example, we’re setting the tone for the record; it frames the catharsis and rebirth we’re talking about. “All your worries inside, all the panic within you, burn it all out”. Human is asking the big question, ‘what does it mean to be a human’. This was something at the forefront of our mind when writing this record, particularly in a world beginning to be divided by populism and a tragic refugee crisis. 'Animal' is about breaking out of walls, emotional or otherwise, that surround you, “I used to live with walls around me, I was living in a cage but not anymore.” So although drawing on things from within, we hope the songs are universal enough to resonate with anyone and give them something positive.