Interviews

Jonny Hawkins – Nothing More 'Exploring The Beating 'Heart' of Carnal, Spirituality and Turning Trauma Into Gold'

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Heavy Metal Wordsmith

Jun 27, 2024

7 min read

It’s been a packed last few years for Texas-born rock band Nothing More. After releasing their fourth record Spirits in 2022 and touring across the US, the UK and Europe, the group have released follow-up album Carnal – a powerful body of work – into the world today.

After sitting down with vocalist Jonny Hawkins for a heartfelt, raw and uplifting conversation, we had a laugh over it being very hot for Hawkins in Nashville, in stark contrast to the iciness in Sydney. Then, Hawkins turned reflective as he considered what the concept of ‘carnal’ means to him and within the context of the new record.

Carnal’s probably going to be second album of a trilogy, the first one being Spirits. When we released Spirits, I had worked on the Spirits test. It’s like a meta-personality test… That laid the groundwork conceptually for what we went into with Carnal, because we wanted to explore the opposite side of the spectrum of our nature. Spirits was a very dense, progressive and introspective look at our psyche, and our spiritual nature. With Carnal, we wanted to look more at the ugly truth, the primal side. We also wanted that to be reflected in the sonics of the album – they’re a little more aggressive sounding, immediate and visceral. The songs are written in a way that are a little less of a wandering journey like the Spirits album is.

The conversation then turned to ‘House on Sand’, a powerful track and single featuring I Prevail vocalist Eric Vanlerberghe. The tune focuses on the feeling of being stuck between listening to your inner voice and betraying it to go on a completely different path. When asked about when he personally felt like he was stuck in that place, Hawkins was quick to delve into his answer.

When we were writing Carnal, really the year leading up to it… That was the time period where I felt stuck. I had moved states from Texas to Louisiana to develop a six-and-a-half year romantic relationship I had at the time (her family was there and there were a lot of other reasons why I went there)… But I had uprooted my life. I’m sure many people have experienced the feeling where you go into something with good intentions, hopes and dreams, and then there are some realities that come to the surface that you weren’t expecting. As you navigate that process, there are these choices along the way and it was through multiple instances of that over the years where I felt like I was stuck and not on the right path or with the right person…

So in that process, that's where a lot of these songs [on Carnal] were born and a song like 'House on Sand' even... That was written when I felt like I was uprooting my life again for the third time and rebuilding. That concept is touched on a lot on this album.

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We mused further about the idea that it’s both the joyful times and periods of hardship that shape the people we are today. While wishing that he hadn’t gone through those trying experiences, Hawkins said that ultimately he felt happier, healthier and stronger than he’s ever been because of them. His outlook of turning those experiences into gold is reflected in Carnal‘s album artwork, which he dived deeper into.

On the front cover, there’s this human-like torso that’s cracked and pierced with arrows, and where the arrows are piercing there’s gold bleeding out… Through the album process, those wounds and bad experiences became the gold that I infused into these songs.

Our chat’s focus shifted back to ‘House on Sand‘, this time onto what Hawkins most respects about Vanlerberghe and what drew him to initially send him the track’s demo. The musician reflected back on a wonderful show he played with Disturbed and I Prevail in Switzerland last year.

After [the show], we had a really cool green room with a lot of space. So we ended up hanging out with them, just drinking beers and having a great time. When we got home, they were on the top of our list of people to reach out to for features. ‘House on Sand’ seemed to be the perfect fit for Eric with his heavy vocals. We initially wanted David [Draiman] on ‘Stuck’, and then as we gave it some more thought we changed our minds [and decided to have David on ‘Angel Song’]… I think it’s going to be a bigger song on radio and over here in the US he’s the rock radio darling. People would also get to hear his voice on something a little different, it’s more rock leaning than metal.

Mentioning ‘Angel Song’ sparked a question about Hawkins’ personal experiences with angels in his life. After pondering it for a moment, he grew very introspective.

As I’ve gotten older, maybe I conceptualise it differently than when I was young. I’ll give you a fun story though. When I was younger, my Mom would always tell me that I had four warrior-like angels with giant swords at each corner of my bed. Of course, she could’ve been making that up, but as a kid it felt really comforting… As I imagined these angelic figures, they would somehow keep the darkness away in my own mind and keep my own imagination in check. My mind was wild as a child.

I found it really fascinating as an adult to reflect back on that and how powerful it was. Even though that was a child-like experience, I think there’s some truth to that as an adult. There are these moments even after my Mom passed where it’s too much of a coincidence where the timing of when things got intercepted and I was protected in some way by something… Some people attribute those experiences to angels or God or whatever. I can’t say for certain, but I definitely can attest to having those experiences.

During the year I started the band, I had this dream about an angel coming into my classroom… I had this overwhelming sense of chills and this almost exploding feeling in my stomach, my soul.

As he spoke about his experiences and reconnected with a recurring sense from his past, Hawkins felt some of those chills rise within him. Then, after reflecting on some of the most animalistic-sounding songs from Carnal such as ‘House on Sand‘ and ‘Run for Your Life’, we turned the conversation to the album’s producer Drew Fulk and how Hawkins felt he elevated the band throughout the recording process.

He was someone that was first on our list of people to interview for the role of producer. Up until him, we had self-produced our albums. This time we wanted to bring someone in and speed up the process… At the end of our Zoom call [with him], we just knew he was the guy. He fit our dynamic really well, and his approach and personality works well with a group of four people like us, who are very opinionated and passionate about our parts of the songs. He’s very good with keeping it flowing, and listening while having insightful things to add to that process.

Hawkins was optimistic about working with Fulk on future releases.

Our chat wound down with some reflection on Hawkins’ journey as a vocalist – while starting out as a drummer since he was seven years old – which kicked off when he was 21. He also gave some insight into his self care routines for his voice while out on the road.

I thought that I couldn’t sing for a long time. I tried out for the choir at a small school, and I was one of two kids who didn’t make it. I had enough of a traumatic experience to have anxiety attacks when talking in front of groups of people. My Mom put me in a commercial audition as I was doing acting and stuff, and I was around seven. I just remember adults yelling at me and I couldn’t see them because it was dark and there were lights on me – I froze up… For some reason, it made me have these crazy panic attacks when I was older, so the drums were a safety blanket between me and the audience.

So singing seemed like a bad idea at first (laughs). It wasn’t until we had gone through five or so singers when I knew that somebody had to do something here. I felt like my future of being successful was on the line… I gave myself two years to get over my fears and learn this skill of singing. I did progress and really fell into a growth pattern where overtime it became clearer that I could do this… For a while I didn’t have the control or range, but sure enough I did [develop those] and it worked out.

I went through time periods where I wasn’t maintaining my voice or singing properly, but over time I got much more disciplined with vocal health. The number one thing on the hierarchy is sleep, so if I can manage and protect it, it gives my voice a chance to recover… I make sure to sleep eight to ten hours if I’m on the road. Often ten hours is what I need to fully recover. The other part is just staying really hydrated, and not taking medications that dry me out too much. For example, I learned the hard way – I get seasonal allergies – that a low dose of Claratyne will help get some of the phlegm building up on my vocal cords. But if I take like a Zyrtec-D, it’ll be so strong that it actually hurts my voice. I’ll lose the high end of my range, no matter how much water I drink.

I’ve learned little things like that along the way. Those are the main things aside from technique and getting better at the art of singing.

Interview by Genevieve Fellmoser

Carnal is out now. Stream it here

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