Hoobastank have toured India for the second time this year. The band’s lead singer Doug Robb says that inspiration comes from all over — even the birth of his first child
How was your experience in Shillong in June this yearIJ What do you expect this timeIJ
It was quite an adventure thing, getting there and the show itself had a couple of technical issues. However, despite the rain there were 15,000 people and it was a lot of fun. I am not sure what to expect this time really. I just want everyone present at the show to have fun. I want them to cut loose and enjoy the music and energy.
What have you been off the hook for a longIJ
We’ve been very busy since The Reason album was released. We toured for almost two years for its promotions. We released more full length albums under Island Def Jam, Every Man For Himself and Fornever and toured the world extensively for those albums. Then we released Fight or Flight, our fifth album, under a new label Open E Entertainment and we’ve been busy promoting it as well.
When Flight or Fight came in 2012, everybody took it as your comeback album. However, for you what was itIJ
I guess we never saw it as a comeback album. It’s an album like any other we’ve done. We hope it is as successful as others. We think this album represents a change in our band philosophy — not much, but a little.
Who or what inspires you as a musicianIJ What led to your latest albumIJ
Fight or Flight is the first album we’ve written as a four-piece band all together since The Reason. The two albums in between were written as a three-piece and recorded with a studio session bass player. Now that Jesse Charland has been in the band for four years, it was refreshing to be able to write all together. I think the songs are more complete this way.
Inspiration comes from all over — it’s unpredictable. The birth of my first child was a big inspiration in the emotions of a lot of the songs.
When you wrote The Reason, did you ever think it would become such a huge hitIJ
Never in a million years did I think it was going to be a huge hit. No one did really. It was just like catching lightning in a bottle. When I hear it today it makes me think about how much this song changed my life. It’s pretty amazing.
Has The Reason set a certain slab for your future work and do you feel the pressure to write more such hitsIJ Do you think any song from your latest album can beat its popularityIJ
You always want all your songs to be hits but that’s never the case unless you’re Katy Perry, I guess. We’ve felt the pressure to write similar songs but we’ve always felt it is impossible.
We didn’t try to write a hit when we wrote The Reason. It just happened and there were also lots of other factors beyond our control that contributed to its success. The best we can do now is to write songs we love and hopefully everyone else will love them too.
I’m not sure if there’s a song in Fight or Flight that could be as big as The Reason. That’s not really the point. One of our favourite songs on the album though is Slow Down. I hope someday the world will have the opportunity to listen to it.
A lot must have changed in 20 years. How much has the band evolvedIJ
The journey has been indescribable. This band is a part of me more than anything. I’ve been doing it for half my life really. It’s paved the way for how my adult life has turned out being. We’ve probably changed as people over the last 20 years as much as anyone would. At our core, we are still the same kids who started back in 1994 just playing music for fun. We’re just twice as old now. I think we’ve all become so much better at what we do individually. How could one notIJ
The short answer is that we have learnt to appreciate how lucky we are to be doing what we love to do and earn a our living from that. Travelling the world many times over has helped put life in perspective for me. The journey has been tough at times but what journeys aren’t. It has been more fascinating than anything else.
What’s up next after this tourIJ
We haven’t officially started working on a new album but there is new music on the table that is being worked on. I’m not sure exactly what it will sound like yet but probably like Hoobastank.