When not on tour and back home in Australia, Northlane's lead singer Marcus Bridge lives "between Sydney and Melbourne, where [his] girlfriend lives". "At home [in Sydney] I live with my grandparents, actually," he divulges. We're tipping Bridge's grandparents are extremely proud of him. "They're very, very cool," he enthuses. "At first they weren't sure about all this, like, heavy music kinda stuff, but since they've seen what we've been doing they've been very supportive." So have his grandparents ever attended a Northlane show? "My grandma has come once before," Bridge tells. Did Bridge supply grandma some earplugs? "Yeah, yeah, definitely," he laughs. "It's definitely very loud when we play so, yeah! You've gotta be careful."  

Northlane released Mesmer — their second album since Bridge joined the band in 2014, but fourth overall — in March of this year. It dropped out of nowhere, with no forewarning. A hint was provided by the band when a mysterious video popped up on YouTube and Northlane fans were sent into a tailspin. On what we now know as Mesmer's trailer, Bridge enlightens, "Well, that was an idea that Jon [Deiley, guitar] and Josh [Smith, guitar] had for a long time, I guess. Even before going into the studio to record Mesmer, they had this idea of creating something that if you were just a regular person listening to it you wouldn't immediately think, 'Oh, this is a metal band,' or whatever. Obviously you'd kind of be able to figure it out if you knew who the band was, but if it was just something you heard then it would just be, 'Oh, this is interesting,' so, yeah! I dunno, we wanted to do something kind of weird like that and not necessarily let on what we are teasing; just put something up there for people to talk about with no real idea of what it might be." 

Bowie and Beyonce led the way when it comes to releasing surprise material and we discuss the confidentiality agreements that must have been flying around their respective circles. "Absolutely!" Bridge laughs. "I was talking to a friend the other day, actually, and I was saying how any day now one of your favourite artists might drop a new album out of nowhere. You never know these days, it's quite a wild time."

The band and their team's careful planning even utilised this year's UNIFY Gathering where Northlane debuted a new song Intuition as a treat for fans. "We were kind of teasing it all weekend and there was posters around the festival just with a few lines from the song on it," Bridge recalls, before clarifying, "It was the chorus lyrics. There was just, 'Wander/Question/Find your obsession'… And no one had heard [the song] yet, or knew what it was going to be, so it went pretty crazy when we played it. It was pretty wild. For a new song you expect people to enjoy it, but not get into it so much just because they're not used to it." Bridge also praises "the vibe of UNIFY" for making Intuition "a highlight of the set" from his perspective. A live video of Northlane performing the song live at UNIFY Gathering then became the music video for Intuition, which was released the day after they performed. 

Intuition's opening lyrics could not be more relevant in these fucked-up times: "Why do we subscribe to a universal thread that weaves the fabric of our lives/Ask why without batting an eye we're so accepting/Question everything." Encouraging individuals to stand up in protest is a timely message and Bridge puts forward that since there's "a lot of awful stuff going on in the world, it's very easy to just be scared and not to do anything about it — kind of be too afraid to get amongst it". "In the end that's exactly what is gonna cause no change to happen," he laments of this cycle of fear. "So you definitely need to put yourself out there and, you know, try to talk to people and just understand it all." 

The recent R U OK? Day comes up in our conversation and Bridge reflects on why some of us struggle to speak up and seek help: "Some people just feel way too scared to do it just because they think people will look down on them or whatever it may be… People just need that help and sometimes you just need to pay close attention, and see them and see how they're doing; you can kinda tell a lot of the time. So, I dunno, it's just worth putting your hand out." 

When asked whether fans contact Northlane to share stories and let the band know how much their music has helped them through hard times, Bridge ponders, "there's definitely a few out there that have told us some very deep stories and all this awful stuff that's happened in their lives and I guess even just chatting to them — hearing their story — helps them a lot, which is a wild thing. And for our music to help them through whatever situation they might be going through is really, you know, a crazy responsibility. We've always tried to write music about positivity and self-improvement, and all the good that is in the world, so it's always good to see people getting in touch with that and trying to better themselves and just feel good."

On which bands played this role in his own formative years, Bridge singles out Underoath, Fall Out Boy, From First To Last, Panic! At The Disco and My Chemical Romance ("I liked a lot of emo stuff"). "There's definitely a lot of those bands from that era that I still really love and listen to a lot, but that kind of music very much helped me escape when I was young and long before I was playing music."'

There are some matchless demonstrations of vocal gymnastics during parts of another album track, Paragon, where Bridge effortlessly alternates between spoken word and demonic howls, and we're curious to hear how he pulls this section off live. "Um, for the most part I've learnt how to go between them pretty smoothly, I guess," he laughs. "You'd have to judge for yourself but, yeah! I believe you've gotta write stuff that you can sing, and that is within your range, so [I] always give it a go and always try and sing it as close to the record as I can. But it just takes a lot of practice of doing that kind of singing… It's a lot of work, but sometimes you miss, like, just a word or something but then you've got an extra breath to just do the rest of it - so there's all tricks and stuff."

He's gotten used to preserving his voice while on tour and Bridge shares, "Well, you've just gotta not go too crazy after the show,  and drink a lot of water, and always warm up and warm down when you've finished the show and all that so, yeah! I dunno, it can get a bit boring as well 'cause you kind of wanna go out and do what everybody else is doing, but you've gotta take care of your voice and make sure you get a lot of rest, you know? Boring stuff… All those little things definitely help when you're a week or two into a tour; you've just gotta make sure you're taking care of your voice 'cause it can just go at any time and then you're stuffed for another week or something."

A video of Bridge auditioning for Northlane 2.0 after their original singer Adrian Fitipaldes left the band has racked up the views on YouTube. "Even leading up to the audition period or whatever, when I was doing that, I didn't think I had a chance of becoming a part of this," he confesses, "and when it all went down I was just so shocked [laughs]. I guess I was the kind of guy they wanted and it, yeah, all worked out for me. So much crazy stuff has happened… It's all just an endless whirlwind of exciting times.

"We've just played so many crazy shows, you know, playing, like, dream festivals and stuff that you never thought you'd play in a million years! Like Download Festival — we've played that twice now, which is unbelievable."

So has Bridge had a chance to meet any of his heroes, say, backstage at Download Festival or at any of aforementioned "dream festivals"? "Every now and then there's a few bands that you run into and you just kind of wig out," he allows. "I'm the worst at that, like, there have been so many times when, you know, we've been around people that I really, really looked up to and listened to in the past so I just can't talk to them, or just freeze. If I somehow run into them and — I dunno, there's just been so many that I've just been weird around… I feel like half the time they just want to be treated normally as well [laughs] whereas you being weird is just making them feel weird, which isn't helping anyone. I've gotten better at it slowly, I think; just slowly getting more confident talking to 'em… Don't sorta put them on a pedestal or anything, that's the way I think."

Although Bridge admits stepping in to lead Northlane 2.0 has "been a big learning curve", it's also been "an exciting time" and "very, very fun". "We've definitely grown a lot since the album we'd done [Node] and, I dunno, this time I just feel we've all grown a lot as people, and as friends and as a group, and it made me more comfortable to, I guess, express myself a bit more personally," Bridge ponders of creating Mesmer. "I didn't wanna intrude too much when I came in, at first, and, you know, press my ideas onto what they've already created. But this time around we've definitely learned to write more as a group and just kind of think about every aspect of the music more thoroughly… We've learnt a lot in the last few years so I think that's what came out of Mesmer."