Yours Truly Share 5 Things That Inspired New Album, 'TOXIC'

Sydney alt-rock trio Yours Truly have just loosed their sophomore album, TOXIC. Arriving four years after their debut LP Self Care, the record sees the band extend further beyond their pop-punk roots, enlisting Ocean Grove‘s Sam Bassal to produce and Spiritbox architect Dan Braunstein to mix, as the band delve into grittier sonic textures and darker lyrical subject matter.

To celebrate the record’s release and their forthcoming live shows warming up Aussie arenas for Thirty Seconds To Mars this September, Yours Truly frontwoman Mikaila Delgado and guitarist Teddie Winder-Haron popped by to run us through 5 things that inspired TOXIC. Read their words down below.

Yours Truly – ‘Back 2 U’

1. BOOST JUICE

Mikaila Delgado: I would absolutely have to say that Boost Juice was an inspiration behind this album. I drank a Boost Juice almost every single day when I recorded the album. For some reason I just thought it would make me sing better. It probably didn’t, but in my head I was like, “if I have a Boost Juice, I will absolutely sing better”. It was usually a chocolate/banana/coconut one with a vegan protein powder. It was delicious, but for some reason in my head, if I wasn’t hitting the note in the moment, I would be like, “I need a Boost Juice break!”. And off I’d go!

2. AGAINST THE ODDS

Teddie Winder-Haron: I think what inspired me the most was both of us coming out the other side with an album, and just pushing through all of the shit that we had to get through to get things happening again. I think that’s the most inspiring part for me, knowing that no matter how shit you think things are, and how much you think maybe things aren’t working anymore – if you just keep going, it’ll be fine. I wasn’t there to record with Sam [Bassal] because I was quite unwell at the time, but afterwards when we got it back and heard it in full, it was a really cool moment to know we made it out the other side.

3. IMOGEN HEAP

Mikaila: When I started tracking the record, when we were still writing the record and when we first started working with Sam, he showed me a lot of Imogen Heap stuff, and all of her projects. I had never really listened to her stuff much before, but it was a cool inspiration because the person that ended up producing the album initially showed me her stuff. And when I got into tracking the album, I was able to talk to Sam about it. That was really cool, vocally all of the vocoder stuff, and Sam was inspired too. Imogen Heap’s stuff is so beautiful, She actually even had a drum ‘n’ bass project, that was also an extra inspiration behind TOXIC.

4. SPIRITBOX

Mikaila: Another inspiration for me with TOXIC was Spiritbox, I had really gotten into them, and that fact is made even better because we got to work with [producer] Dan Braunstein on TOXIC. He’s obviously such a big part of Spiritbox, so it was an awesome meeting point.

5. ANIME

Mikaila: Lastly, I’d just finished watching Death Note while we were on tour and just as we were making the decisions to continue as a band. Also on that tour, we watched your name. which is my favourite film ever. The soundtrack for your name. is so good, it’s all pop punk. And that’s why I wanted the artwork for TOXIC to have an anime theme because we obviously watched a lot of it around the time we were making the album, it definitely played a big part in that cover art.