White Lung on the Journey to Their Final Album, Premonition

Jonah Krueger
·14 min read

The post White Lung on the Journey to Their Final Album, Premonition appeared first on Consequence.

On Friday (December 2nd), White Lung will make their anticipated return with Premonition. It’s the punk act’s first album since 2016’s Paradise, but the new material comes with bittersweet news for fans: Premonition will be the end of White Lung.

Premonition’s journey to see the light of day and the decision for it to be the band’s swan song are years in the making. The writing and recording process started back in 2017, not long after Paradise. But life unfolded, and the original 2020 release date proved to be, we’ll say, less than ideal, resulting in the project getting pushed. The elongated period of time between the album’s conception and its unveiling eventually cemented what the band had already begun to suspect; this is White Lung’s goodbye.

“When all this happened with the pandemic and everything, it kind of caused this unintentional hiatus that just felt organic and right for this to be goodbye,” vocalist Mish Barber-Way tells Consequence. “You know, sometimes you have to listen to the universe and what it’s giving you.”

And the universe was indeed sending its messages loud and clear, starting with Barber-Way learning of her first pregnancy during the initial days of recording.

“That’s a huge thing to find out in the middle of recording,” she says. “I literally found out in the studio with our producer Jesse [Gander], he was the first one to know. I took the test in the bathroom upstairs, you know, about to go sing.”

The news, expectedly, drastically changed the direction of Premonition and subsequently the band as a whole. What started out as a heavy, “borderline metal” set of songs, according to guitarist Keneth William, slowly embraced a more palpable sense of optimism and hope. Barber-Way pivoted from her usual tactics of writing angry lyrics she’d record with a bottle of whiskey in her hand to musing on her coming motherhood and tracking her vocals sober for the first time in her career.

All of which makes Premonition something of a beautiful dichotomy of a record, embodying both beginnings and endings, birth and death. Five albums (including records like Deep Fantasy, now a mainstay on all-time punk lists) and nearly 20 years in, White Lung is taking a definitive, poetic, and accomplished final victory lap.

“I’m just super happy that we got to put out a bunch of records that people liked and people got to come to the shows and have fun,” William says of White Lung’s tenure. “I think that’s really all that’s important about it.”

Listen to White Lung’s Premonition below, followed by the full interview with vocalist Mish Barber-Way and guitarist Kenneth William.

In regards to the writing and recording process of Premonition, it was the beginning of a new era of your life for you especially, Mish. Did the news of your pregnancy lend to imbuing the album with slightly more optimism than White Lung’s past records? Both lyrically and, for you, Kenneth, sonically?

Mish Barber-Way: I think that there is definitely optimism. And maybe I wasn’t feeling it as intentionally at the time, but I know that being a parent and being a mother has made me think about the world in a very different way. I think I spent a lot of my time in my twenties, wasteful time, being angry and anxious and not really living. You know, being a very angry person. It was hard for me to see a lot of hope in the future. I think that motherhood has made me change my perspective a lot. There’s been a lot of things that have happened in our family that have brought a bigger sense of happiness.

I don’t think those things were happening at that moment because when we wrote the record, I was just pregnant with my first child, and so I wasn’t experiencing those things that I’m talking about exactly now. But I think there was… I don’t know. It was a very exciting, raw time for me at least. It became all encompassing and it kind of just overtook everything that I was thinking about. And I think on past records too, especially with Paradise, I was definitely wrestling with a lot of ideas of wanting to be a parent and not really knowing where a lot of my sadness came from.

So now in retrospect, I see a lot of that, but at the time it was just… that’s a huge thing to find out in the middle of recording. I had sang a few songs before I found out that I was pregnant. And as I said, that news of this completely life changing event obviously dictated what I was gonna write about. And I also decided to be very vulnerable and just write really honestly.

I mentioned this in our interview I did with Melissa, but I was writing sober for the first time, which was an incredible, amazing thing. I’m so happy and grateful for that. And that’s been like a big change in my life. It just brought out a lot of new feelings, and instead of masking any feelings with alcohol or inebriation and not dealing with them, I had to deal with them properly. Writing songs was a great way to do that. You know, it’s very easy to cloud and I think I spent a lot of my life clouding emotions that I couldn’t deal with and trying to push them away with alcohol and anger. And I’m very, I don’t wanna say regretful, but I definitely am trying to live in a different way because it’s not a happy place to be.

Also, the way these songs came just beautifully presented, and I just got to write on top of them, which is kind of what we did for Paradise. But there was a lot of time to work on them because we weren’t doing it in a short time in the studio. So there was a lot of thought that went into it and a lot of reflection.

Kenneth William: Obviously, I don’t have the window into Mish’s mind. I wasn’t aware of everything going on in her life when I was writing the music for it, because we live in different cities. That’s just kind of how we would work. Me and [drummer] Anne-Marie would work on stuff and put songs together, and then it would kind of be a canvas for a Mish to put her feelings on top of.

At the beginning, we kind of had ideas about where we wanted the album to go and we wanted to do something very true to the band. It definitely started off in a more borderline metal, very heavy and aggressive and angry way. And some of those songs are on the record. Some of them got dropped. But, once we found out the wonderful news, it did kind of change the direction that I started writing in because I wanted it to be true to how Mish felt.

So, I just kind of took things in a bit of a different direction and tried to, you know, make it a bit less depressing and angry and a little bit more hopeful sounding, which definitely came through for like the second half of the writing process.

Barber-Way: That’s how thoughtful Kenny is. What a thoughtful person.

I know you’ve been sitting on this album for a while now. You guys recorded years ago, and it’s only just now coming out. Is that a frustrating experience? Were you ever like, “We just gotta get this thing out!”?

William: I mean, sure it was kind of frustrating, but there were a lot of things going on in the world at the time. We were still planning on doing a tour around it and stuff, and obviously having a newborn and a mother in a van with me… I don’t know, it seemed like probably not the smartest thing to do. Then, of course, there’s shutdowns and everything, so there was never really a good time to do it. But at the same time, it is kind of nice. It feels like a time capsule that’s been kept secret from everybody and now it’s coming out. It’s nice to have that space from it at the same time too. So, it’s all good.

Does having so much time between the creation of a record and the release of it change your relationship with the songs? Do you hear it and wish there were things you did differently in hindsight?

William: I mean, yeah, definitely. There’s things I would change about it if I was writing it now.

Barber-Way: Obviously, sitting on this record for a long time and there being this dry break, and like Kenny said, there was so much stuff going on in the world. The original idea was to put this out in 2020, and then, well, what happened? You know? But now looking back, it’s like this really nice time capsule and every record is kinda like that.

You know, it’s like a weird time capsule of what you’re going through at that time. And, I also think that there’s always a little space between writing the album and when it actually comes out, but this was very drastic. This was years and years. I’ve had two children since then and we’ve all gone on and done other things in our lives and, and so much has changed.

I think we also knew that this was probably gonna be the last one. And, and I think it’s content wise, it’s the perfect exit.

I wanted to ask about the decision of labeling the record as the definitive last White Lung album. Why did you guys decide to have a clean, public ending instead of putting out the record and then just kind of quietly stop releasing new material?

William: I just kind of think it would be lame to not say that. When we would go around and play shows and stuff, people would always get mad at us when we didn’t do encores. And this is kind of like a nice encore, I think.

Barber-Way: Oh my gosh, Kenny, you’re so poetic. That’s perfect.

Did you guys go into Premonition knowing it would be the last one?

Barber-Way: Yeah, I remember it very specifically. Kenny, you maybe don’t remember this moment, but I remember us driving in the car together and we were talking about if Paradise was the last one, and we kind of felt like it wasn’t. So, we knew we were gonna definitely make one after it. And I know that we all, you know, we’re all getting older. We’ve always been a group that, yes, we’ve toured, but the joke with our booking agent was like, “They’re a punk band, but they don’t tour like one.” We’re not always on the road and we always kind of had other things going on in our lives.

And when all this happened with the pandemic and everything, it kind of caused this unintentional hiatus that just felt organic and right for this to be goodbye. You know, sometimes you have to listen to the universe and what it’s giving you. And so, we knew this would probably be the last one, and it really was solidified with the way everything unfolded, things that were completely out of our control. And sometimes you just gotta listen to that.

There’s also something, I’ll say, sexy about a five-album discography.

William: I agree, it’s a good number. I have a hard time thinking of anyone who’s made more than five good albums. It’s usually the limit.

Barber-Way: Yeah. That’s the other thing too, right? It just felt like this was the right goodbye. There is a shelf life with a band. Some bands, there isn’t. You can play forever, but that’s when you’re at a phase of where it’s your entire career, you know, it’s how you make your money. But to be a little realistic and to be honest, when we started this band, I never even dreamed it would get to the point that it did. So, I’m grateful for every single moment that we’ve had. And you just have to know when it’s time to say goodbye.

 

Any plans for a farewell tour?

Barber-Way: There’s no plans yet. I mean, look, this is the other thing that’s funny. These songs, we’ve never played them all in a room together. They’ve never been played like that. And we haven’t played together since, I don’t know, 2018 or 2017. A very, very long time. I mean, we’re at the end of 2022 right now, you know?

I would love to do some goodbye shows, and if we can get it together and do it, then that would be great, but we’re still kind of figuring that out. There’s no concrete plans right now, but we haven’t said, “No, there’s never gonna be a goodbye show.” So we’ll see what happens. I’m in this phase right now of just trying to accept things and see how things unfold instead of forcing my will onto everything. Sometimes we just have to let things unfold.

Now that it’s coming to an end, are there any particular moments or memories that come to mind when you look back?

Barber-Way: That’s hard to pin down. Playing Fuji Rock in Japan. That was such an incredible experience. I mean, it was a million degrees. There were so many people. It was such a great, beautiful experience. I’m really proud of this record [too]. When I look back, it’s strange that it’s only coming out for other people to hear five years after we’ve completed it. Like the last song “Winter,” that’s probably one of the longest songs we’ve ever written. And that’s great, you know, we’re not known for long songs.

I don’t look back with any regrets about anything. I love everything that we’ve gotten to do, and I’m really happy and grateful for it. You never know when a band’s gonna end. You never know when it’s gonna pick up. You never know what’s gonna happen. You start it because you wanna play music because you love music, and sometimes it becomes a little more than you ever thought. It becomes more of a career. I never envisioned that happening for myself. Kenny, did you?

William: No, I mean, I, I honestly don’t think any of us thought about it that much. Things just kept happening to us. I’m just super happy that we got to put out a bunch of records that people liked and people got to come to the shows and have fun. I think that’s really all that’s important about it.

Barber-Way: You don’t even realize what’s going on at the time. And so it is a very beautiful thing to be able to sit and kind of look back and be like, “That was my twenties and that was great, that was awesome.”

Barber-Way: Yeah, and when Kenny joined the band and everything, I remember when he first came and we all played together. The first song that Kenny wrote with us, which was “Atlanta,” it’s like you were saying before, each album is — at least for me writing lyrics — it’s like this weird little journal that I have of my entire life. And some of it you look back and you’re like, “Oh my God, what a mess that it was.” But it’s also a great reminder of how far you’ve come and what’s gone on and how you’ve changed and grown.

I’m just happy I got to play with Kenny and Anne-Marie for so many years. Kenny’s an incredible guitar player. I couldn’t have asked for someone better to be writing songs that I could put all my insane and crazy thoughts onto.

Premonition Artwork:

White Lung premonition artwork
White Lung premonition artwork

White Lung on the Journey to Their Final Album, Premonition
Jonah Krueger

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