ALL GOOD THINGS // To Those Who Wait

Amidst the chaos surrounding us, LA rockers All Good Things have triumphed with their uplifting brand of epic rock.

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Despite initial doubts on whether they’d even a band, the five-piece prevailed and now have dropped their Better Noise Music debut, A Hope in Hell. In support, the band are currently embarking on a massive US run with the legendary P.O.D. We were lucky enough to grab frontman Dan Murphy from the road, and we got chatting about what inspired the LP and the band’s plans for the rest of the year.

Hysteria: Hi Dan! Where are we catching you from today?

We are en-route to the Kentucky State Fair in Louisville. We have a show tomorrow.

Congratulations on the new album! What’s life been like for the band since it dropped?

Thanks, we appreciate it! We were counting down the days until it dropped. We’ve been on the road and played six shows to kick off the tour. We’ve been trying different setlists every night and switching in some new songs. The feedback we’ve been getting from fans and the live crowd has been positive.

You’ve spoken about how much the fans power this band, so how did they help shape this record?

They were definitely part of the waiting process. They’ve been pushing us for a few years to put out some new music. This record was supposed to come out a year and a half ago, but because of COVID, they’ve had to sit and wait patiently. Lyrically, we’ve definitely drawn inspiration from the fans through their messages and everything. Part of the reason we continued as a band was the messages we’d get from everyone about how our music helped them through hard times. That’s always been something special about our band.

Where’d you draw the inspiration for the apocalyptic theme from?

A lot of it was the imagery uploaded online and things like anime music videos. But we’ve always been drawn towards that futuristic, post-apocalyptic vibe. Songs like Sirens lean into that direction. We found a really cool artist to bring our concept to life, and he’s done a bunch of custom artwork for like nine of the tracks on the record.

We gave him the idea of building this world around different scenes in the city. It’s been fun to expand on that imagery and see what he can come up with. Playing around with art and lyrics has been fun, and so has gravitating towards the cinematic side of things.

Part of the reason we continued as a band was the messages we’d get from everyone about how our music helped them through hard times.
[ Dan Murphy ]

We love how uplifting this record is. Tell us about why bringing that vibe across was so important for the band.

If we look at the album cover, we chose it because we love the idea of the girl sitting in the classroom with the whole world crashing around her. Despite the lack of hope, there’s still a flower growing on her desk, and she’s still focused on what she loves most. It’s kind of like finding beauty in an ugly place. We had to push ourselves through the writing and waiting process. At one point, we weren’t even sure the record would come out. Songs like Hold On and Push Me Down are ones that motivated us through the whole process and kept us patient.

You’ve got a few collaborations on this album. What were those experiences like?

Craig’s been awesome. We got introduced to him fairly recently; he was the newest collaboration for the record. That came together through the record label, a few names were passed around, and he was interested in jumping on! Unfortunately, we haven’t had the chance to meet him in person. Everything’s been done over Zoom. We actually filmed its awesome music video a few weeks back, he was a part of it, and he crushed it! He was hilarious as a newscaster. I’ve been a fan of his for a while, so it was cool to hear his voice layered with mine.

Hollywood Undead was again through the label. We were searching for the perfect addition to take our biggest song to the next level. They threw their own bridge on it with no instructions and sent it back to us. It was a super easy collaboration, and it’s been received well. We were lucky to have them on board.

Do it Now with Hyro the Hero was the last song we finished on the record. We kept going back to it. Andrew (Bojanic, guitar/vocals) came up with the intro, and I kept bugging him, saying the song needed to come to life. We kept trying to rewrite it and kept failing. We eventually got it to a point where we were happy, but we thought the bridge needed more energy. We thought about Hyro. He’s a natural talent. We actually got to work with him in person. He just went behind the microphone and threw it behind the bridge in two minutes. It was epic. He did a few takes, and we called it good. He crushed it. He’s super easy to work with and has great energy.

In terms of the band, could you collaborate in person?

We all live really close to each other in Los Angeles. Andrew and Liz (Hooper, bass/keyboard/vocals) have a studio at their place where we do the majority of our work. It’s pretty much always just been us self-recording and producing there, and that’s the same way we did this record. It was nice because we could throw the kitchen sink at every song and go back and fix things. We had a lot of fun recording it.

What else can we expect to see from the band this year?

We just started on a seven-week tour with P.O.D. We hope to put out some more singles and music videos before our tour with Starset kicks off. That’s another full US tour, and it’ll kick off in November. We hope to stay on the road as long as COVID will let us. Ideally, next year, we want to get overseas. We have two Australians in the band, so we’d love to get down there and play the Good Things festival.

We always joke about playing Good Things. We think it’d be really confusing for people but awesome at the same time. We’ve only heard good things about Australia, so we can’t wait to get down there, explore and see everything our bandmates have been hyping up. I also can’t wait to check out Dan Murphys, the liquor store with my name.