We caught up with drummer Ben Maida from Thornhill during the band’s current North American headline tour. During our interview, we discussed how the tour has been going, their newly released album Bodies and their musical evolution.
How’s the US tour going so far?
It’s been great. Yeah, honestly. It’s kind of hard because we had to guess some of these markets, as it’s our first headline tour here. But I mean, a bunch of them have been super successful. We did 750 tickets in Baltimore in our first time, and 700 tickets in Chicago. A bunch of shows sold out months in advance. So, it’s been really cool to see the work we’ve been putting in supporting and then coming back at it like carrying over to headline shows. It’s super satisfying and just sums up the work we’ve been putting into the market. It’s really good to see.
How have fans been responding to the new album during the live shows? Have any tracks surprised you as fan-favourites?
It’s hard because we did before we came out here. We kind of do this thing now, where in Australia, we do a like preview tour. So, we’ll play the album in full before everyone hears it. So, it was interesting, seeing what the reactions were like, with people having no idea of what the songs were, and then hearing them live. I think Silver Swarm being the biggest surprise I would think, because it doesn’t really have a bunch of crazy parts or anything. But a lot of people have been really grasping onto that one, which is really cool. There’s a bunch of people that are like, “Oh, I haven’t heard the album, but I want to come and watch it live first and then go back and listen to it.” I was like, that’s a really cool way of like experiencing an album, because I think we definitely lean on the fact that we are a good live band. A lot more than other bands would. Whereas a lot of bands focus on other things. I feel we have a good reputation for being a real band. We don’t do the autotune like everyone does. We rely on being good at our instruments, which is kind of a little bit rare in today’s age. But yeah, people have seen that for sure.
We wrote the album with that in mind. The last album was such a bit of a divide in our fanbase, you know, with us writing it in Covid. Touring Heroine made us realise that we missed the heavy and the energy of playing heavier music. So that was kind of the only point that we had in mind coming into this, and that kind of helped translate to the songs, being heavier live to the crowd getting into it more. I think it was a bit of a natural progression, but it’s been really fun to see everyone getting onto it so quickly. Even though it’s really only been out for a month. So, it’s really cool to see people have these attachments to these songs for being out such a short time.
Your sound has clearly evolved over the years. How intentional has that evolution been, and what inspired the shift in direction from your earlier material?
Oh, man, I feel like it’s always been a natural progression. There’s never been anything like when we sit down to write, we really think of what kind of gap there is in the genre that we want to listen to, because we don’t really listen to a bunch of heavy music, but we enjoy playing it. So, we kind of bring out influences from, you know, a lot of pop, a lot of R&B. A lot of more jazzier things, rock and then bring those influences into the metal sound, which gives us a bit of an edge. I feel like there’s bands that people can compare us to, like Deftones and stuff, which is the classic one that I feel like. There’s not many bands that sound similar to we do because of that, which is really cool. We’re always gonna sound kind of different from one album to another.
Do you think it’s harder to break out of Australia and make it internationally because it’s a smaller country compared to places like the US?
I think it’s a hard one because I think you’re partially correct, because the bands that make it out of Australia are like the top of the top that consistently tour overseas. Bands like Ocean Grove, Make Them Suffer, Alpha Wolf, Northlane, Amity Affliction and Parkway Drive. These kinds of bands are the top of the top, not only in Australia, but in the genre. That’s the only reason why we make it outside of Australia. Otherwise, like for us, even to just get over here and travel around, plus visas, which are 25,000 US Dollars for three years. Plus, the flights and everything. If we account that into the cost, we’re probably like 70,000 US in the hole before we play a show. That’s why you see bands tour like overseas a couple of times and then fade out because it’s just too hard to keep up from a monetary standpoint.
But if you know, dig deep, keep coming back, keep hustling. The quicker you come back, the quicker you’ll reap the rewards. So, I feel like we’ve kind of broken through. If that’s a good way of putting it, in America for sure. Europe is definitely starting to. They’re a smidge behind. But definitely starting to understand what we’re about and who we are, and we can come back. Our next UK/Europe headline is in October/November and is 500 to 1000 cap. So, yeah, it’s really cool to see that we can take these steps up everywhere. It’s kind of fun because in Australia, we did 200 cap rooms. Then we did 400 cap rooms, and then 800, and then we did the 1,500. Now we’re doing 3,000, and it’s cool, seeing us do that overseas as well. It’s almost like we’re reliving the band all over again, which is kind of fun, like now with the knowledge, you know, touring expertise that we have. It’s really cool.
What does the album Bodies mean to you personally and creatively?
Well, we blocked out a little time last year in between our touring schedule to write with Sam from Ocean Grove. He was a big influence on us from kids. We used to go to Ocean Grove shows, and they were always a big influence on us, and we love the image that they have and how themselves they were. So, that was really something we grasped onto pretty early. If you’re gonna do this, you gotta be yourself. So, we kind of had that mojo going into every album, let alone, this one even more so. What do we actually want to do because we were at The Dark Pool, and we didn’t know what we were doing when we kind of struck lightning with that one. Then Heroine was written in Covid. So, it wasn’t really a great representation of who we were. Then Bodies, this is the first time we have the experience, we know what we wanted to write, and we’ve been able to take our time and execute the way we wanted. It’s been cool having as much thought going into this album as we did and learning the things that we did. Writing this, going into the next one, and then everyone should just naturally improve one after the other.
Are there any lyrical or musical callbacks on Bodies to Heroine or The Dark Pool?
Yeah, there is a bunch Jacob had that was like, I think really there was five songs that stemmed from oh my god, the original song was, I think, the original was Blue Velvet, and then really that kind of the original demo became parts from Arkangel, and parts from Valentine, and parts from Under The Knife. There’s the callbacks. Then, the lyrical interpretation is like with Silver Swarm and Revolver throughout the album. There’s a bunch of mixed songs, which kind of just show a throwback to where the demo came from. Which is really kind of fun because we’re like, oh, I remember that part of this demo, which was in that song, but this other chorus, made, you know, Under The Knife, for example. So, it was kind of fun, seeing how songs start. Then how you pick them apart and break them down and then build them back up. One song became multiple over a span of albums.
So, it was pretty interesting how that worked because we’ve never really had that before. Where we use multiple ideas from multiple albums, it’s kind of like we write the demos and then that was the demos from that time. Bodies, we went back on a bunch of older demos we were writing from 2021. I think that was the earliest one that we used for Bodies. It’s been fun because we really, I mean, after Heroine, it showed that, you know, a lot of people didn’t really love it, but we still became a bigger band from it. I mean, not that being the point, but there was a lot of divisiveness and people that didn’t enjoy it. I mean, it goes to show that we can kind of do whatever we want. That’s almost more fulfilling than the size of the band that we are, because at the end of the day, if we gotta play 100 shows a year and we’re not having a good time playing the songs that we wrote, I don’t really see a point in doing it.
How do you balance emotional vulnerability in your lyrics with maintaining a sense of mystery or privacy?
It’s hard, because I know it was kind of written with the intention that a lot of these lyrics could be very relatable back to how we experience life and what our partners, you know, kind of see when we’re on tour. Some of them are kind of a homage to them, especially in Only Ever You, which is a lot more of a personal song. There’s a bunch of lyrics in there that are written per se for our partners. But yeah, it is hard to balance sometimes because you can get too emotional and kind of alienate people. I think it’s a nice balance of relatability with the listener, and the meaning is still there without it being like we’re pouring our hearts out, and it’s almost too much to listen to sometimes.
Has your relationship with your music changed since earlier releases like Butterfly?
I mean, we’ve just gotten older, and we’ve learned a lot of things, and there’s never like an end game with music. There’s always things to learn. There’s always different sounds you can try, and I mean, yeah, there’s definitely moments where we would look back and be like, I wish I didn’t do that, or I wish I changed this or thought of that. But that’s kind of the beauty of the future sounds, because yeah, we could have changed a bunch of those things from Butterfly in 2018. But that’s not gonna make us change and think forward for newer music. Same thing with Bodies, there’s already a handful of things that we would love to change and love to alter to our taste, or maybe we’ve heard it too many times, or whatever. But I think that’s kind of the beauty that it kind of captures a snapshot of our lives at a certain point in time, and then we can learn from that and grow from that. You know, put that towards our next release, and then learn things from that one and put it towards the following one. It’s always a revolving door of if you gave us too much time. We would not put out an album ever, and then it’s almost like the deadlines there to help you put the pen down at the end of the exam. Be like, all right, finish. Whatever you have is whatever you have. Yeah, it’s just like we could sit here for years and change bodies and the mix and re-record parts and everything. But it wouldn’t be the same. It’s kind of meant to be a little bit raw and a little bit rough around the edges. What you see is what you get, which has always been our motto. Kind of our way of being, it’s like we are what we are, and it’s kind of like it is what it is.
We’re honest live, and we’re trying to add more personality to who we are as people in the band. Things like that to kind of push that rawness, because I feel it’s really cool. All these bands coming up are so polished and perfect, you’ve got to do this, and you’ve got to do that. But really, it’s like you can run the band however you like. There’s no correct way of, you know, running a business. If your way works, and you’re happy and content with what you’re doing, then I think that’s just as successful as you know, being profitable or something like that. Especially the states where we are, where, you know, we don’t make money, but it’s enough to where we’re not out of pocket to do this. It’s kind of unbelievable to get to this point. But hopefully, another 20 years of being in a band, we’ll see.
Which artists outside your genre do you draw inspiration from, either musically or lyrically?
Oh, man, musically, there’s so many, I mean, like lately, I would say, or I mean based off Bodies, I would say a lot of SZA. A lot of like Tyler, The Creator, The Voids, Joey Valence & Brae, they’re a big one. Action Bronson, like there’s a lot of like cooler R&B and hip-hop artists that had a lot more influence with the bounciness of Bodies, I think, especially with the flow of the vocals. I feel like that was definitely a lot more present that it was influenced by. You know, people like Joey Valence & Brae, Playboi Carti and stuff like that, where it has a bit more rapyness, but not in a like cringe way. It’s real, like it’s intended, and it’s what we wanted to do, not like, oh, we need to put a rap part in this rap part of the song.
If you could swap bodies with any band or musician for a day, who would it be and why?
Oh, I mean, a pretty easy answer would be Radiohead. Just the absolute epitome of creativity, doing what you want and being like Thom Yorke or inside the brain of any of those guys would be kind of surreal. They’re a pretty big one, I think, across the board for us. I feel like you gotta reach the larger-than-life ones. I feel those are the ones that are really crazy. So, I’d say, yeah, Radiohead, for sure. I think maybe Red Hot Chilli Peppers for Ethan. If I were having a guess, maybe. I mean, Deftones are the obvious one, but I feel it wouldn’t be different enough to where it would be cool. Queens Of The Stone Age would be really cool, or someone like it would be crazy to be Black Eyed Peas back in the day, or Justin Timberlake. Someone from the 2000s pop era would be really fun.
If Thornhill had a signature dish or drink on a tour-themed menu, what would it be called and what’s in it?
I mean, we’ve always spoken about it when we are financially stable enough or actually making good money. We would love to open in the morning, it would be a café vibe, and then it would turn into like a pizza and wine bar by night, and it would just be us four working. The more we talk about it, the more we want it to become a reality. So, I feel like it would be some kind of pizza and wine combination. I feel like that would be the peak. We could do it our way and we can do it really fun and bougie.
What does the future look like for Thornhill? Can fans expect to see you at any UK festivals soon, especially after Download and RADAR in 2023?
Oh, I think, I mean, nothing like locked in next year for festivals and stuff. But we would love to. I think we’re trying to come back for festival season next year after the album’s been out. Then we’re going to be headlining this year in October, November, which will be really fun. But yeah, the festivals will probably happen next year, so it should be really cool. But we’re bringing one of the bands that’s on this US line-up to Europe, we’ll say that much. I can give you that much.
If each member of Thornhill were a type of snack, who would be what, and why?
Oh, a snack! I think Jacob would be beef jerky. I think Ethan would be a peanut butter pretzel. I think Nick would be a peanut butter M&M. Oh man, I would be, man a snack. I’m not really a snack guy. I would say a green kiwi fruit. I love green kiwi fruit, that’s a snack. I don’t really have any fun snacks, but I love fruit. That’s my choice.
Thornhill‘s new album BODIES is out now via UNFD, available to stream or purchase HERE.
See Thornhill live, with support from Ocean Grove and Bloom, at one of the following dates:
October 2025
Fri 17th – STUTTGART, DE – Im Wizemann
Sat 18th – AARAU, CH – Kiff
Tue 21st – HANNOVER, DE – Musik Zentrum
Wed 22nd – HAMBURG, DE – Kent Club
Thu 23rd – BERLIN, DE – Hole 44
Fri 24th – PRAGUE, CZ – Futurim
Sat 25th – WIEN, AT – Flex
Mon 27th – MÜNCHEN, DE – Backstage
Tue 28th – NÜRNBERG, DE – Hirsch
Wed 29th – FRANKFURT, DE – Das Bett
Thu 30th – UTRECHT, NL – De Helling
November 2025
Sat 1st – PARIS, FR – Backstage By The Mill
Sun 2nd – ANTWERP, BE – Zappa
Tue 4th – GLASGOW, UK – Slay
Wed 5th – NOTTINGHAM, UK – Rescue Rooms
Thu 6th – LEEDS, UK – Stylus
Fri 7th – MANCHESTER, UK – Rebellion
Sat 8th – WOLVERHAMPTON, UK – KK’s Steel Mill
Sun 9th – LONDON, UK – O2 Islington Academy
