The Dublin four-piece band, Inhaler, exposes the generation's yearning for love through their debut album It Won't Always Be Like This. The philosophy of music and life showcased in this remarkable record, both in the lyrics and rhythm, demonstrated how this world won't always be like this. What do they think of life? They think, "It means energy and excitement and dry ice and sweat."
People who like music occasionally dream of performing on the stage or singing in karaoke with friends to enjoy life and music at the same time. No matter if tangibly or intangibly, directly or indirectly, while our soul still burns with the fire of youth, we can compose a touching melody to symbolise that we only live once.
"Music can't be rated on a scale." - Elijah Hewson
When the pandemic started affecting our world, most people thought it wouldn’t go on too long. However, people’s expectation of returning to normality didn't fit with reality. Consequently, the virus created a pause in our life, and especially in the music industry. In the period of stillness, musicians started thinking about how to break through. Therefore, discussing the value of music versus lyrics, Elijah Hewson, the vocalist of Inhaler, said, "I think music because obviously the lyrics are very important, I think they go hand in hand. It can't really… Music can't be rated on a scale."
Indeed, music can't be divided into lyrics, and melody. However, being mindful of the audience's feedback, isn't this also an important thing to consider for Inhaler?
"The way our bands worked is I guess that our earliest songs we wrote were kind of the simplest and I don't think that's a bad thing. I think that's kind of the way things happened in our band. I think as we got older, we listened to more music and we kinda wanted to experiment more and go down different avenues when we were writing. So, I think some maybe of the earlier stuff has probably been the easiest to catch onto for our fans because I guess they are pop songs as well. I mean, yeah, they are just simple songs. I mean a song like Ice Cream Sundae was a good kind of starting point for people because for us with that song it was really like this is a super poppy song it's not going to mean too much, it's not going to mean too little, it's just going to exist." Robert Keating
'Relieved to be honest that it's out in the world and it's not our little secret anymore. ' - Josh Jenkinson
Inhaler's debut album It Won't Always Be Like This achieved success in the Irish Albums Chart and UK Albums Chart. It reached its peak when it was just released. Commenting on the success of this album, guitarist Josh Jenkinson said: "Relieved to be honest that it's out in the world and it's not our little secret anymore. "
This answer is very touching. Perhaps it's how the Irish see things, full of humour and sarcasm. Elijah Hewson added "We are definitely not serious. I think it can come across as the weird thing about Irish people is that like it's a very specific way of communicating. I think it can be explained as like a lot of people don't get the humour and it's almost like we are sarcastic a lot of the time and I think especially the Americans find it quite hard to understand. We try to keep things light hearted so we don't have to deal with the truth." This answer might make people smile, it seems that only Irish people can understand the essence of this humour.
The pandemic is getting solved step by step and the global coverage of vaccines has gradually increased. Therefore, the music industry is on the road to recovery and many gigs have begun. Regarding the charm and vitality of live music, Inhaler must know about this better than others. So, have they seen their audience crying at their concerts? Elijah said: "I've seen a few old men cry but not teenage girls. Just the old men at our gates like to cry for some reason. (laughs) but I don't know because yeah maybe we've never seen it. We've been away from gigs for like two years. Our fanbase has developed a lot over lockdown and we haven't actually seen it in person so, not before. So, I don't know. It will be interesting to see what happens when we go back and there are people crying. Hopefully they won't be, hopefully they will be having a good time not a bad time."
TEXT/ Dylan Tang
PHOTOGRAPHY/ Dan Kenny
