“In art, you are offering everything that you can say, anything you can give”: Inside the purity of YONAKA’s new album, Until You’re Satisfied

It’s May 2019, and Bring Me The Horizon’s ambitious All Points East all-dayer is underway, with everyone from Employed To Serve to IDLES taking over London’s sun-soaked Victoria Park. On the West Stage, YONAKA are celebrating the manic release day of their debut album, Don’t Wait ’Til Tomorrow, with their third set in 24 hours.

“I thought I was actually gonna [throw up] onstage,” winces guitarist George Edwards, remembering the hangover battle following the first gig at Heaven. “I lost my necklace in the crowd, on the muddy floor… I can't even recall what it was like [releasing] Don’t Wait ’Til Tomorrow.”

“There was so much going on that it clouded it,” agrees vocalist Theresa Jarvis. But, now seven years down the line, the mayhem surrounding YONAKA’s debut feels like a lifetime away from where they find themselves today. Visibly relaxed while they chat to Kerrang! in Shoreditch’s Strongroom Studios, the Brighton trio have taken it upon themselves to become their own pacemakers.

Having swapped sprinting for long-distance running, the finish line for their second album Until You’re Satisfied is finally here. Steadfast in the belief that they wouldn’t rush into a sophomore slump, 2021’s Seize The Power mixtape and 2023’s Welcome To My House EP bridged the gap. Nevertheless, despite the constantly changing landscape, the album arguably remains king in alternative music. And YONAKA wanted to treat that reality with respect.

“An album is so much bigger to me now,” reflects Theresa. “Growing up, I was like, ’Give me the hits,’ and I'm not like that anymore. Trench by twenty one pilots, that's a massive comfort album for me. Grace by Jeff Buckley, Back To Black by Amy Winehouse, I could go on and on…”

“I first got into music through MTV and Kerrang!,” continues bassist Alex Crosby, “but they became my favourite bands from absorbing a longer amount of material. Listening to albums made me really fall in love with bands.”

Believe us, YONAKA tried to make album two. Around Welcome To My House, a two-month writing escape to the States failed to produce anything fruitful, only accelerating the conclusion that their magic couldn’t be forced. With a precedent of frenzied alt.rock that could juggle gnarly riffs and Theresa’s rap flows just as easily as mahoosive BMTH-level choruses, the key to YONAKA’s next step came from leaning into their triangular kinship.

“The magic is where it's so natural and honest that you get in the room, it fires out really quickly, and you don't really have to talk about what you're going to make that day,” explains Theresa. “It’s a feeling, a natural instinct.”

“In the creation of this record, we were all fully in harmony,” adds George.

“We weren't taking any outside voices in with us, and we really locked in,” continues Theresa. “It was focus.”

Written in isolation, recorded at ICP Studio in Brussels, and largely self-produced, Until You’re Satisfied oozes with confidence. From the stadium-sized Eat You Alive to the way Problems bolts from the jump, there’s a sense that every song has been pumped full of adrenaline and muscle. Even the more tender moments, including the euphoric ballad Best Of Me, come across bolder and braver than anything they’ve penned before.

The title is not a play on the sky-high bar YONAKA set themselves, but a piece of the puzzle Theresa unravels across the album.

“What will give me satisfaction? Will you bring me satisfaction? Will I bring you satisfaction?” she mulls over. “It's really an all-rounder and an offering. In art, you are offering everything that you can say, anything you can give, and you're giving it out to the people that you love, constantly hoping to be loved back and taken in.

“Don’t Wait ’Til Tomorrow was way more inward, it was basically a diary of how I was feeling mentally. With Seize The Power, I started feeling better and stronger. It's been a massive mental health journey through lyricism in the music. There's one song aimed at that, but the rest of it is touching on living and just being. Being in love, falling out of love, your friends and your relationships.”

That one song, At The Beach, packs a driving rhythm while a candid Theresa admits, ‘It feels I’m the only one / Dancing through the storm / Facing it head on.’ Nevertheless, this blissful indie-rock anthem paints a picture of hope, where the grass is greener, as the frontwoman defiantly concludes, ‘If anyone needs me I’ll be at the beach.’

“It was so special and prominent. I like that we had one song that was [related] to mental health, because it never goes away. You just learn different skills and different ways to live with it. I've lived next to the beach my whole life… it's a place of comfort and calm. I love the idea of dancing on the beach and letting everything go.”

“What do I visualise?” George asks himself. “Rage-dancing, in the rain, on the seafront. Baggy jumper, and it's soaked to fuck…”

Then there’s Cruel, which marauds from a Bad Omens-esque beat to a hazy ’90s bridge, and actually made it to the final four for the UK’s Eurovision entry last year. Although that whole experience was “crazy”, a combination of unsolicited suggestions to change the lyrics and the fact that YONAKA would have to fund their own entry meant it wasn’t to be.

“Our fans were putting YONAKA’s name in the Eurovision forums,” reveals Theresa. “The people who host it at the BBC were like, ‘We hadn't heard of you until we saw your name popping up all over the forum, so we thought we'd contact you.’ That was the win in itself!”

In both that anecdote and the process beneath Until You’re Satisfied, the purity in YONAKA’s present-day mentality is laid bare. Heading into their second decade as a band, they’ve left the burnout and progression obsession in the past, finding beauty in just existing. Much like exercising for Alex or meditating for Theresa, YONAKA can be the vehicle that helps ground them in the moment.

“We used to overdo it quite a lot,” admits George, who reached the stage where he “couldn’t bear” listening to Don’t Wait ’Til Tomorrow around its release. “We've now gotten to a point of [maturity] that we're like, ‘Maybe not today. Let's see how we feel.’ We're a lot more considerate of each other's feelings and needs… our ducks are pretty in a row right now.”

Name-checking Glastonbury, Japan and Latin America as the only remaining tangible things they’re desperate to achieve, YONAKA are going to treat the release of Until You’re Satisfied the same way they did its creation: by biding their time. After all, it’s an album rooted in emotions that Theresa has spent years experiencing and sitting with. Or, in her words, “growing up, learning and living”.

“You're supposed to just start writing new music again, and I'm not really ready to do that,” she concludes. “I really want to revel in this album for a minute, and I know that could be a bad idea in the future, because maybe we don't have anything else, but I really feel inclined to sit with it this time.

“You've done a good job when someone can feel like it's written for them – ‘This person's talking to me’ – and when we manage to do that, I feel really accomplished. Like I say, I have my comfort albums that I go to when I need a pick-me-up, something to make me feel okay. I'd love for this album to be that for some people.”

Until You’re Satisfied is out now via Distiller.

Read this next:

• “The thought of not doing this anymore became f*cking terrifying”: Why YONAKA are stronger than ever
• YONAKA: “If I can share my experience and someone hears it and understands, that’s a big deal for me”
  
• YONAKA’s Theresa Jarvis: Social media is making us ill