Exclusive: Against The Current Share Details On ‘In Our Bones’ US Tour

Pop/rock trio Against The Current – comprised of Chrissy Costanza, Dan Gow and Will Ferri – are gearing up for their In Our Bones US Tour, kicking off this month! After a whirlwind year with the release of their debut album of the same name, Warped Tour and a stint overseas, the band are on the verge of the peak of their careers and there’s no stopping them now. I had the honor of sitting down with the band at Fueled By Ramen headquarters in NYC to talk all things tour, what they want fans to take away from their music, and of course, that record we all love.

What were the most exciting aspects of putting out the record that you didn’t anticipate when you started?

Chrissy: This is kind of a weird one and I guess kind of specific to people in bands, I guess? We had a weird situation where we were touring so much off of just two EPs, which is so weird because we were basically headlining off two EPs, which is pretty uncommon. So I think something that was really exciting for us that, maybe a lot of bands don’t even understand this feeling, is just the fact that we were finally able to play with our set and create a different set with a certain dynamic to it by giving the set itself a different personality, like for the tour specifically, and not just use the same 10 songs and figure out what order they flow best in. We were able to define what we wanted the set to feel like.

A lot of bands tend to unfortunately get pigeonholed into one specific genre, but you guys seem to transcend that. Did you have a specific sound in mind for In Our Bones?

Will: Thank you! Maybe we should’ve! *laughs* I don’t know. We learned a lot doing this record and we’ll probably do things a little differently in the future. But no, we didn’t really have much of an idea. We kind of just wanted to go in and write some catchy songs and see what happened.

Chrissy: I think we definitely knew where we were coming from already off of our EPs.

Dan: Yeah, we weren’t going in as a metal band! *laughs* We weren’t going to change everything we’ve ever known or anything. We just wanted to build off of what we started with our two EPs.

Chrissy: Yeah, and play with different sounds. One of my favorite stories off the record is that “Forget Me Now” actually started off as an R&B song and it’s probably the most pop song on the record. So we just wanted to have that creative freedom because sometimes when you define it too much, you get trapped in a box. Like, you’ll start writing a song and all of a sudden you’re like, “OK this doesn’t sound like us so let’s just stop here.” If we had stopped there when “Forget Me Now” didn’t really sound like Against The Current it would have never been what it is now. We like to just go with the flow, I guess…which is against our name but, yeah. *laughs*

There’s a lot of lyrical honesty on the record – from “Wasteland” to “Demons” etc. Would you say the writing process was cathartic for you?

Chrissy: Yes! Cathartic but also exhausting! It got to the point where it was like, cathartic to a sense where I didn’t have any emotions left some days. I was just like, “Well, they’re all there and I’m too tired to even feel anything right now.” But yeah, everyone expresses themselves differently. For us, it’s through music and for me personally it’s through lyrics. I’ve loved writing since I was little. I used to write stories. I definitely thought I was going to write books. I wrote a couple of children’s books when I was like 11 when I was a child myself!

Dan: Books for children by children!

Chrissy: *laughs* They never came out and I had some really good ideas but they never came to fruition. One day I’ll write a children’s book! But yeah, writing is just how I get everything out. I’m bad with speaking. I ramble a lot. Dan loves to tell me that I’m rambling!

The US tour kicks off this month! After being overseas and on Warped Tour this summer, what can fans look forward to this time around?

Dan: Well it’s the first time we got to really slow down parts of the set with these new songs. We stepped up the production on this tour so it’s a lot of fun.

Chrissy: Yeah the production in and of itself is something fans haven’t seen yet. They’ve never experienced these songs off the record with production so that should be really cool.

Will: Odds are, we’re probably playing your favorite song. We’re playing most of the songs off the new record.

Chrissy: We still have only so many songs, even with a full-length album.

The response to you guys has been massive! Have you had any moments yet where you’re like, “Whoa, is this really happening?”

Dan: Yeah, a bunch! *laughs*

Chrissy: I feel like the moments where it’s like, “Whoa, is this really happening” are always the ones that you don’t expect to be those moments and the ones you expect to be those moments aren’t the ones that are, which is weird! For example, we played our biggest show ever in London and it was 2,000 people at Shepherd’s Bush. It was beautiful and amazing and just an incredible feeling but then our last show was in Paris and it was 500 people in the tiniest club. It was definitely illegal for that many people to be in that basement; definitely some kind of fire hazard. It was so packed, it looked like Fight Club in there and the stage was pretty small but it was amazing and it was one of those feelings where it was just like, there was such an energy in the room where we were like, “OK there’s something here.” It was crazy.

Yeah, I mean you see it firsthand on social media with who’s following you guys but then once you see it for yourself in person, I imagine it’s pretty eye-opening!

Chrissy: Absolutely!

What do you hope your fans take away from your live show or just your music in general?

Will: Hopefully it just inspires them to do something that they love as much as we love music. Just kind of that idea of putting every fiber of yourself into something you believe in while leading them to a journey to something bigger and greater than any of us or any single person.

Chrissy: When a fan comes to our show we want them to leave feeling like it was a cathartic experience for them. There’s the good and the bad and the emotional songs really hit the emotional points. Happy songs might make them feel some things to the point where it’s like, even after the emotional stuff is over in the set, we want them to feel relieved and so much better than when they walked in. From our music in general, we’ve always fought the idea that we had to fit into a box or fit into a certain category. Not for the sake of just fighting it or not wanting to be like anyone else but for the sake of wanting to be us. So we want our fans to be able to do that too. We want them to follow whatever their path may be. Whatever is genuine and true to them and not feel like they have to change or fit a mold or fit everyone else’s ideas or standards. Every path, every career, every corner of the universe has its precedents and our whole mantra has been about fighting precedents and creating our own path and own way of doing things. We want them to know that they can do that too and it is possible to come out on top that way.

Find tour dates and tickets here!

In Our Bones is available now here.