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Interview: Anberlin on The Final Tour
/ June 18, 2014
After almost 15 years together, 7 albums, and a collection of matching tats, Florida band Anberlin are about to begin the Australian leg of The Final Tour.
Announcing their intention to calls it quits in late 2013, fans have had a little while to grieve (and no doubt play their back-catalogue on repeat), here drummer Nathan Young sat down with The Connect Press opening up about the end, and their final album ‘Lowborn’:
Why did you decide to call it quits?
Tonnes of reasons but we just felt like it was time. We’ve always discussed how [Anberlin] would end, and it was a tough decision to know when to call it, but we’d said everything we wanted to say, and done all the music we wanted to do, so we felt like we’d go out when people still care and still like us.
The new album ‘Lowborn’ comes out July 22, you could’ve finished without ‘one last release’, why did you decide to leave fans with this final album?
That question was something that came up, especially because ‘Vital’ was so well received, and fans really loved it. The question was “should we just go out on ‘Vital’?”, but it didn’t feel right. We wanted to give it one more go, and make one last record together. It was such a unique opportunity to write with that mindset of “hey this is our last record, so we can kind of do what we want and go for it”. We wanted to push ourselves, we wanted to work hard, and put out a record that would still sound like a progression whether we’re ending or not.
I imagine there’s a lot of pressure when you consider putting out a final record, how did you decide what to include on ‘Lowborn’?
Obviously there was pressure, and we thought about that. Ours fans will have decided what they wanted to hear, what they want it to sound like, and be, but we had to ignore that. We had to know we’re not going to make everyone happy, we’re never going to put out a record that everyone likes, and when we decided to just make a record for us…not having a label saying “you’ve got to have this or that”…and we just went for it, it was tonnes of fun to have that mindset of doing whatever we wanted.
We’re not going to put some kind of record that’s un-listenable – the songs that we put out are still going to have those ‘Anberlin moments’ that would resemble previous albums, but we weren’t having to think about it. We just thought “what would be cool for this song?” and wrote it.
‘Lowborn’ is a milestone for ‘Anberlin’, are there some key ideas you’re trying to get across?
I think lyrically Stephen definitely talks about the end in different parts, but it’s the last record to say what we want, and what he wants, and I think that he did a good job on it. There are different songs that [delve] into our thoughts about the end and where we’re all at personally and together as a band, but I think really we just wanted to show progression, and not wrap up in a boring way just because it was our last. We wanted [Lowborn] to come out as if we weren’t ending.
What do you think the legacy of Anberlin will be?
Hopefully just positivity and that we’ve been able to connect with fans. It feels like we just had such a connection with people through our songs and through our live shows and through us as dudes, so for me if that’s the kind of thing that people remember that would be ideal…to look back on [us] and hold [us] in such respect.
I think this year is going to be constant “thankyou’s” and constant gratitude. I mean we’re just so thankful. We could only have been doing all this if people cared, we’ll never stop saying it.
Anberlin hit Australia on The Final Tour in September, details are on their website now.
