By Natalia Ningthoujam
New Delhi, Nov 10 (IANS): The American band Why Don't We performed their latest track Fallin at the MTV Europe Music Award 2020. Even though it was not in front of a live audience owing to pandemic restrictions, the band had fun being back on stage.
The group, which consists of Zach Herron, Jack Avery, Daniel Seavey, Corbyn Besson, and Jonah Marais, hit the stage with an instrument each and sang their new song. Like other performances, theirs was also pre-recorded.
"We made sure we were very safe and everyone got tested before the performance. It was so fun to get back on stage," Jonah told IANS.
"Fallin'" is their first song of 2020, and one can clearly notice that they sampled drums from Kanye West's "Black skinhead" track.
"When we were writing Fallin', we played that song and the sample just worked so well with the beat that Daniel was already working on. Our friend Jaycen who we worked with at the studio had the idea actually and we were so excited when Kanye and his team approved the sample to be used in our song," said Jonah.
The year started on an interesting note for the band that was formed in 2016. They chose to take a break from social media at the start of 2020. It was a collective idea on their part to take a step back and go dark on social media.
"We had just come off touring for three years straight and putting out music super consistently, and we felt we needed a moment to recuperate and decide how we wanted to move forward as a band. We really wanted to write and produce this music ourselves so the fans could feel even more connected to us and our music when we came back and we felt it was a step in the right direction towards becoming the band we've always wanted to be," said Zach.
The decision was "definitely nerve-wracking, especially because we had planned on being back so much earlier in the year".
"The timing of this pandemic wasn't great, but it was also ironic in the sense that we already were dark on social media and we luckily didn't have to cancel any tours or drop music at a time when the world wasn't ready. The silver lining, though, is that we wrote Fallin' and a couple of our other favourit songs from our album with the extra time we had! The reaction when we came back was insane as well! We're so thankful for the fans and their support after waiting so long and can't wait for them to hear the rest of this music," said Jonah.
Asked if every music artiste should take a break from social media once in a while for creative purpose, Jonah said: "I think it depends on their end goal! We needed the time to get back together with friends and family we hadn't seen in three years and to get out of everybody's faces for a second. Supply and demand!"
"In terms of mental health, I think it's great to take a break and focus on yourself. It also really gave us the time to dive deep into our musical craft and try out a bunch of stuff we haven't had the time to try! And we wrote what we feel is our best music because of it," he added.
Since their debut, they have released one studio album titled "8 Letters", and six extended plays.
"We have grown immensely as artistes and people! We were very young coming into this business and had no idea what was in store for us. It's been an amazing four years of travelling, meeting new people, writing music, and becoming closer as friends. It's been amazing to be so involved with this next project. We wrote everything ourselves for the first time. The music is so honest and true to us. I'm so excited for the world to hear these new songs," said Jonah.