More about: Inhaler

It’s a good time to be in an alternative band in Dublin. It’s a good time to be in an alternative band anywhere, seeing the latest trend of guitar albums taking over the album charts across the UK and Ireland. With Fontaines D.C., The Murder Capital and Pillow Queens as their contemporaries, Inhaler have gigged their way to being one of the hottest new bands around. Their upcoming first album, It Won’t Always Be Like This, is already being hailed as a Strokes-level debut and Inhaler are set for a meteoric rise to the top. Speaking to them over Zoom, Eli Hewson, Robert Keating, Josh Jenkinson and Ryan McMahon are probably the four coolest people you could have on a videocall right now.

It Won't Always Be Like This is a pretty poignant album title for the times we’re living in, especially considering the song was first released in 2019. “It meant the same thing back then, but I think now it has a lot more gravitas around it,” says Eli, adding that once the pandemic hit, there was no other title choice. As we inch closer and closer to normal life, the words have appeared in a Dublin city mural and throughout RTE news articles; but there are other interpretations, too, of course. “Some people will maybe say, ‘yeah, it might get worse, pal”.

The pandemic is an impossible subject to avoid for any band that’s been working over the last year and a half, and they reveal that without such a period of upheaval, we could be looking at a very different record. “I think it maybe would have felt more like a compilation of singles rather than an album… when the pandemic happened, you just have time to slow down and think about it as a project rather than a compilation of singles”.

Like so many others, Inhaler have discovered the unique challenges that come with working from home: “One of the funny things about writing songs over lockdown is a lot of the time you weren’t able to be with each other. We were working on Zoom and there’s a delay so you can’t play the guitar with somebody because you’re off rhythm. So, we ended up writing a lot of songs that were actually really difficult for us to play, when we actually got in the room and tried to do it. But we’ve gotten to a good place now, we’ve rehearsed our asses off for the last two months”.

“That shouldn’t discourage people from buying tickets”, Ryan adds hastily. And it’s true. Their work ethic is enviable, and their recent working environment isn’t going to change that.

As is standard for a band releasing their debut album, we’ve heard a few of the songs before – at least in some form. “[when re-recording ‘It Won’t Always Be Like This’] I think we wanted to more so capture that live excitement that we experienced when we were playing it and with it being the title of the album I think we wanted to reshape it in a way that it matched that”. They also cite ‘Slide Out The Window’ as a track that will surprise, and hopefully delight their listeners: “Particularly where it is on the album, it comes third so it’s after these two somewhat anthemic sounding rock songs, so it’s gonna catch people out but it’s one of our favourite songs. We love that one so hopefully the same goes for our fans.”.

What isn’t standard, however, is the musical climate they’re stepping into with It Won’t Always Be Like This. Half of this year’s UK Number 1 Albums have come from guitar bands, and the trend shows no signs of slowing down. Ryan talks about how encouraging it is for alternative bands to see their peers succeed like this, highlighting Wolf Alice’s recent Number 1 as a prime example (“Play The Greatest Hits is one I can’t wait to hear live”). Eli sees a connection between the chaos we’re all experiencing and the escapism we’re all turning to: “I think guitar music has always been the antidote. They say The Beatles were born out of the ashes of WWII and their whole message is peace and love. With every downturn in history there’s always some sort of renaissance. So maybe that’s what we’re in.”

Considering that this is the longest break from live music they’ve taken since the ages of 0-14, Inhaler has obviously been a massive part of their lives for a long time. So, with more experience than most under their belts, what has changed since they began? The short answer is “facial hair”. The long answer: “we’re not that different to what we were when we were 17, we’re still as weird and wacky when we’re off camera. Luckily, we’ve become better musicians and we have a better understanding of music and we’ve become better songwriters. We’re really grateful to have gotten to a point now where we have a really solid fanbase behind us, with us on the journey”.

But they very nearly took a very different path, and their alternative career plans covered everything from chef or gymnast to Eli’s former dream of being a butcher. The pivotal moment came just after they left school: “We decided that year after we finished our Leaving Cert it was like, let’s just give the band our full attention for a year and see what we can make of it. And luckily by the end we were picking up the pace and we had a lot of confidence to say let’s dive straight into this and just give it all our attention”. Thankfully, they had the unparalleled Dublin music scene to come up in, and Eli explains that “in Dublin it definitely seems like people want you to succeed. Other bands want to help you out, no one’s trying to get a step ahead it’s a pretty nice community”.

It's a good thing that they took that year to focus on the band. Now we have a band gearing up for the release of their astronomical debut album, with years of gigging under their belts and a dedicated fanbase around the world – the whole package. But there’s no time to rest, as they’re already setting their sights on album 2: “We’ve had stuff we knew wasn’t going to be on the first album because it was so mental. Now we’re really getting into the meat of it and really thinking about it as a project”.

It Won't Always Be Like This arrives 9 July via Polydor.

More about: Inhaler