Earlier this month our favorite Australian pop-punks surprised us a little bit with “Walk Over My Grave,” their first single since their debut LP. The track has the band sounding a little heavier and more aggressive than we’re used to, in addition to donning darker and angstier duds (Think Hot Topic, circa 2003.) “I think that we all lived through a very challenging time… and I think we fought a lot of anger, and I think we got to portray that through our music a bit. I also kind of got taken back to a lot of the emo music that I listened to when I was younger,” Yours Truly vocalist Mikaila Delgado tells me of the single, during a Zoom chat.
“I think that we never want to be predictable, and I think that’s why we came out with ‘Walk Over My Grave,’ and I think it shocked a few people that were very used to the sound on the album. I think that we just want people to never expect anything,” Mikaila says of Yours Truly, who have actually been in this boat before. Last July Yours Truly appeared on triple j’s Like A Version, where they kicked out a somewhat upbeat, skate-friendly rendition of Oasis’ “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” which Mikaila tells me was met with mixed reviews.
“We’d been talking about doing a Like A Version for so long and we’ve always enjoyed when a band did something that was like out of their genre or something like that, or that was like unexpected. I feel like when a band does something that you’re like, ‘Ugh, yeah, I can tell you like that song,’ it’s a bit boring. So, Oasis, is like still a band that we enjoy, but let’s take a song and do it differently, do it like if we had written the song what it would’ve sounded like. But lots of people didn’t like it [laughs].”
Last year also saw the release of Yours Truly’s first full-length, Self Care, which dropped in September. The album follows their three EPs and is filled with the kind of infectious, sugar-coated teen angst the aughts made famous. Mikaila tells me that the pandemic actually gave her and the band a great excuse to put more time and energy into the LP: “I discovered that this is my life and it gave us a little more determination to work harder, and because we were working on the album coming out, that’s kind of what I did during the pandemic… And when you’re not touring it gives you time to really dive into the smaller details and stuff like that. I’m kind of grateful we got to do that for the album.” She also tells me that the coverage the album got really hit her hard: “Getting to see the album in magazines like Rock Sound and ones like that was very big for us because I grew up having my walls covered with like Kerrang and Rock Sound posters, so seeing the album in those magazines, like seeing them review the album, was a big thing for us.”
When I ask Mikaila about the highlights of Yours Truly — who came together in 2016, after meeting on Facebook – she tells me that the album was the biggest highlight, but suggests that being on the road and playing live is something the band also really loves: “Since we couldn’t tour it, we got to do one one-off show in Sydney and getting to do that and actually seeing that in real life, just for a moment, was very cool… And also 2019 was such an amazing year for us. We got to like go to the US and we got to go to the UK, so I definitely always look back at that year and how much we got to do.” And when I ask what Yours Truly are most excited about for the immediate future, she tells me that touring is the first thing on their minds.
“We are wanting to go on tour. We have a tour lined up in the UK in a couple of months. So, whether the world allows that to happen or not… My fingers are crossed. I’m doing everything I possibly can to go. The boys and I are very determined to go. So, we’ll see what happens. And then we’ve got some festivals at the end of the year with like Northlane and a whole bunch of awesome bands in Australia so, for me, that’s just what I’m looking forward to at the moment.”
