Thornhill: “It’s about getting as much as we can get. In 10 years’ time, we want to be a household name”

“I hate it when people ask me what one of my songs is about.”

A twitch of frustration flickers over Jacob Charlton’s normally untroubled face.

“I hate it. It makes my blood boil. It just feels so lazy. If you want to find out what a song means, you should read the lyrics for yourself!”

Thankfully, Thornhill’s otherwise charming frontman is not objecting to Kerrang!’s line of questioning. Well past his bedtime at home in Melbourne, near the end of an extended Christmas break, Jacob is actually explaining why another publication’s request for his track-by-track breakdown of last year’s ARIA-winning third album BODIES saw him cheekily feeding the lyric sheet into ChatGPT. Yes, really.

“We’ve actually done that twice,” he grins. “The first time, I was being a bit of a baby. We got the request through late and I was already out helping my mum move house, so Cage [bassist Nick Sjogren] sent the answers off for me. The second time, I did it as a joke. I’m absolutely against every facet of AI, but I did find it funny to see this computer try to explain what I’d written, which is never really on that surface level of, ‘I love this person,’ or, ‘I hate that thing,’ and has me creating a lot of my own metaphors. So many of our songs were only even named when I found out what they meant after finishing them. I always go back to an old David Bowie interview I saw where he talks about how artists would rather talk about the process. There’s so much more interesting stuff in the nitty-gritty of creation than in the final outcome.”

Ten years since they started out as school kids in Melbourne, Jacob and his bandmates – Cage, guitarist Ethan McCann and drummer Ben Maida – have more than earned the right to unpack their music on their terms. After the shady promise of 2019 debut album The Dark Pool and the bold, widescreen vision of 2022’s follow-up Heroine, BODIES confirmed Thornhill as one of the most important acts in modern heavy music.

As important as it is to let their art stand on its own terms, though, Jacob is a born storyteller, and away from the songs there is much to discuss.

Part of that is the minutiae of human experience. Heroine, for instance, was created under the heavy shadow of Jacob’s parents “splitting up, selling the house and putting [his] dog down”. More broadly, coming of age in the wake of COVID is reflected in the pent-up horniness and blissful release of their last two records, chiming with fans like his younger brother, who spent his 17th and 18th birthdays under strict lockdown. Then there’s the confidence found from bringing together fashion, dance and unconventional sonic influences like R&B that have made them scene leaders in heavy music’s seductive new world order.

So, why exactly did Thornhill opt to go against the metallic grain?

“Probably because people said it’s what we shouldn’t do,” Jacob winks. “It’s the whole teen angst thing. The more people diss a certain approach, the more you want to throw yourself into it. We like to do our own videos. We like to do our own clothing. We like to be as involved with every step of the process as possible. The music that I grew up listening to – ’90s stuff, grunge, Nirvana and Silverchair, even Gorillaz and Jeff Buckley – was all about deep, experimental characters and bands. If you want to make interesting heavy music, you shouldn’t listen to heavy music. You need to draw influence from somewhere else. Those influences show through in something that’s uniquely you.”

“How do I feel about being seen as the frontman of a sexy alt.metal band?” Jacob ponders aloud, playfully rolling another pressing question over in his head. “I definitely don’t hate being known for that…”

Far more than just a smouldering gaze and a gyrating set of hips, his persona is less to do with seduction than wholly expressing his vision. Elvis Presley and Justin Timberlake are rarely name-checked in K!, but it’s those superstars’ hypnotic model that Jacob follows.

“It’s about their strength of character,” he explains. “It’s about how they move to their own music in a way only they could. I always say there’s more to being a vocalist than hitting the notes. It’s about who you are, the way that you sing, what you’re singing about and how you reflect it in the way you move. It comes down to the story you’re trying to tell. I’ve drawn on inspiration from them to find who I am.

“BODIES was where I began to figure it out – becoming a unique character, figuring out what that character would do. There’s not much ‘identity’ as the frontman of a heavy band beyond being an angry guy at the front who screams, who can maybe sing, with the odd punch or kick thrown in. I wanted more than that. I wanted to be able to move in a way that isn’t a thing in this genre. I remember looking up YouTube videos on how to dance, but I could only find videos of women dancing – so that’s what I learned. That’s how I move my hips.”

Jacob wasn’t always wired this way. Looking back he grew up as an “extroverted introvert”, happy to socialise but needing time to recharge afterwards. School wasn’t really his thing. Neither was sport. He was in the choir, and was a surfer for a while, but mostly he was just happy grinding away on the fringes as a skater kid.

Coinciding with Thornhill’s explosive growth, two major turning points cemented the self-confidence to become the man we meet today. The first was a major “gym moment” over COVID, emphasising the overlap between physical and mental wellbeing and preparing his body for the rigours of living life on the road. The other was opening up to love. Though he’d always seen himself as a lone wolf prepared to give everything to the band, meeting actress Miranda Turbitt while making the video for Heroine’s lead single Hollywood changed all that.

“Having her support and love and faithfulness is like an extra push to keep doing what I’m doing and feel confidence in it,” he says, still visibly smitten. “It also gives me someone else to do it for.”

Inadvertently, dating someone in the industry has reinvigorated a love of film which feeds back into Thornhill. Listing his all-time favourites is telling. Studio Ghibli’s Princess Mononoke was one of the first movies he watched with Miranda (aka Maz), Gene Kelly’s Singin’ In The Rain showcases a convergence of music and aesthetic, while Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s Sin City deepened an understanding of lighting and atmosphere. Jacob’s bandmates have long joked about him being a “closet theatre kid”. As the band grow bigger and bolder, that theatrical ambition is less and less under wraps.

“I talk to my girlfriend a lot about developing that onstage character,” he reveals. “The moments that I like most are when I’m out of my comfort zone. I wanted to work out, wear make-up and experiment. I wanted to dance in a music video, so I did in Casanova. Part of that is about being 28 now, realising that I’m an adult and can do the things I want to. But it feels like that character and the real me are almost identical at this point – like I was manifesting the person I needed to be.”

Australia is having a moment right now. From Amyl And The Sniffers to Speed, the land down under is overloaded with heavy bands headed to the top. Thornhill are proud of their home country, and growing relationships with heroes who blazed their trail. NSW bruisers Northlane and Melbourne producer Running Touch, for instance, contributed to the band’s trippy BODIES X remix LP. Schoolyard idols Ocean Grove, meanwhile, opened for them on European and North American tours in 2025 – and even reconvened with the boys for a recent camping trip.

While Jacob is happy to acknowledge that Thornhill share attributes with their successful antipodean peers, they’re less a part of the Aussie new wave than of a worldwide reinvention of heavy music.

“Thornhill operates with more of a global worldview,” Jacob nods. “There is that Australian work ethic about wanting to get off this island. It makes you that DIY band to be able to afford to get visas and fly out. A big percentage of why we’re hands-on creators was saving money and keeping control. Beyond that, we’re just trying to do our own thing and rip it until it stops.”

BODIES X’s other musical collaborators emphasise the universal approach. The Plot In You frontman Landon Tewers puts his drum’n’bass flavoured spin on Revolver. Meanwhile, ethereal London crew Zetra hauntingly re-work under the knife, and South Korean rockers Daybreak drop exhilarating dubstep on TONGUES.

“It was interesting to see how some songwriters handled it different to others. They would be very careful asking what they could change, whereas others just came back with a completely different song,” Jacob remembers with a laugh. “[Fans] seemed kind of mad at it because it wasn’t heavy or there weren’t many new songs, but it was so cool to explore our community of peers while having fun.”

No experience has prepared Thornhill to take on the world better than joining Sleep Token on the masked mysterios’ mammoth Even In Arcadia arena tour in America, however. Entering the ever-more fantastical world of Vessel and company could have been daunting. Instead, it galvanised them. Even without the OTT theatrics of the headliners, the band were able to connect to tens of thousands of fans, offering their own flavour of cutting-edge cool without ever feeling “untouchable”. And the headliners’ own stratospheric rise is proof that, with a little luck, the world is potentially anyone’s for the taking.

“Mostly, it helped us learn to play better,” Jacob shrugs casually. “We’re a group of four guys who’ve known each other since high school. We’ve made mistakes, and we’ve learned together. We’ve stuck by each other better than most bands and we’re better for it. It’s as simple as the more reps we’ve put in the more we understand what our strengths and weaknesses are.”

Don’t dare mistake that calmness and calculation for any lack of assuredness or ambition, mind you.

“It’s about getting as much as we can get,” he signs off with a wicked smile. “In 10 years’ time, we want to be a household name.”

Bet against them and prepare to get stung.

This interview originally appeared in the spring 2026 issue. Thornhill appear at Download Festival next month.

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