Irish rock band Inhaler, consisting of Elijah Hewson (vocals/guitar), Robert Keating (bass), Josh Jenkinson (guitar) and Ryan McMahon (drums), released their third studio album “Open Wide” on February 7, 2025 via Polydor Records.
This marks their first album in two years since the 2023 album “Cuts & Bruises”.
The album comprises 13 songs. The band returned to the rehearsal space in Dublin, where they first began playing together in as teenagers, and wrote 30 songs for the album in six months.
And then, they recorded the album with producer Tom Hull, aka Kid Harpoon at RAK Studios in London.
The band told BBC Radio 1 about the album, “This was the first time we actually had that kind of ideal scenario where we just took six months off and just the four of us just hung out for ages and music. I think that felt like a big success for us. We got a lot of joy out of just like, slowing down and just being together and writing music together.”
They said of working with Kid Harpoon, “It was just a great experience for us to kind of throw ourselves into the deep end and work with someone like Tom. Because he's just done so many amazing records, and he's got such a great perspective on pop music. He wanted us to really know exactly what we wanted. And that's something in the past that maybe we've not been invested. We're being honest, he was just really good guide.”
The band lead singer Elijah Hewson said, “When I listen to the album, I hear us finding a new perspective on our music and our lives. I think that's what this album is to us. It's not an exit but an entry. These were songs we needed to hear at this point in our lives, so we made them ourselves. It was in every sense a complete labour of love. We hope you feel that and maybe hear some laughter spilling onto the mics somewhere too.”
Guitarit Josh Jenkinson told Apple Music, “It was the first time we've been able to do that in years. As soon as the second album was finished, we were already writing music.”
Bassist Robert Keating added, “From the earliest days, we knew that we were going to try and do something a bit different for this one.”
The band explained track-by-track for the album via Apple Music.
“Eddie in the Darkness” Elijah Hewson: “With our last two albums we've opened with a big massive guitar chord or a keyboard riff, and so choosing this as the first track was flipping that on its head. Also, this was one of the first songs that we were all super excited about, so it felt really natural to open with it.”
Ryan McMahon: “Someone said to us that it sounds like they're walking in on us playing in a room together, so it felt like a nice nod to us being back playing together in a room for the first time since we were 17 with no gigs on the horizon or anything like that.”
“Billy (Yeah Yeah Yeah)” Elijah Hewson: “It's weird, we had this first-name thing on this album that kept happening on the demos. It was a complete accident. Billy, Eddie…there was one called 'James' that got cut. A lot of these songs are like conversations with people that you're witnessing, which was a different approach to the lyrics than on the first two albums, which felt more personal and introspective. I guess I learned that from Bruce Springsteen, who's a writer I really appreciate. He jokes about it, he writes all these songs about working in a steel mill but he's never worked a day in his life!”
“Your House” Elijah Hewson: “We struggled with the instrumentation on 'Your House' for a while but, once we got that, it all just clicked. We stripped a bunch of stuff out and put that synth in and we were like, 'OK, this is a hit!'”
Ryan McMahon: “We were worried that it sounded a bit too much like ELO for ages but once Tom [Hull, producer] got his hands on it, it just worked.”
“A Question of You” Ryan McMahon: “It's quite in-your-face pop that one, which we were a bit nervous about initially. But as time went on and we played it and we listened to it more and more, we just thought, 'Fuck all that, it's a good song!' We're not scared to have that ambition. We might have reservations here and there about certain things, but we're not worried to use joy as a defiant thing in our music.”
“Even Though” Elijah Hewson: “There's quite a broad scope sonically and stylistically on the album. There's a lot of different things going on, but there's a certain sound and groove that runs through all the songs, which you can really hear on 'Even Though.' I'm really happy about how it all came together. This song is a little bit more personal, it was from direct experience. That was a bit of an outlier for me, lyrically.”
“Again” Elijah Hewson: “I really found a new appreciation for writing lyrics on this album. On the first album, it was a bit like, 'Oh shit, I've got to write lyrics now…' On the second one, I started to get more into it, and on this one, I really felt like I was at a place where I was having fun with it. That allowed me to be a bit more like, 'Let's write about a character, let's set the scene…' 'Again' felt like you were writing it on somebody's shoulder, kind of peering around.”
“Open Wide” Ryan McMahon: “This was a bit of a happy surprise. It was from a demo that we made in like 2021. We all really loved the sound of the demo. It kept grabbing our attention and we kept saying, 'OK, we'll come round to that eventually…'”
Elijah Hewson: “It was like a house track on the demo. Who knows where it came from? I wasn't feeling that it would go on this album because it felt so sonically different, but now it's one of my favorite ones. I'm really proud of it.”
“All I Got Is You” Elijah Hewson: “This one was the last piece of the puzzle. We wrote it just after the second album, but it was one of the last songs we recorded for this record. It's our nod to The Smiths and that '80s world. We don't often get to represent that in our music, so it's a nice thing to do. Plus, it's really fun to play.”
Robert Keating: “I remember ages ago thinking that it sounded a bit like a Harry Styles song—then we ended up working with Harry Styles' producer on it!”
“Still Young” Robert Keating: “'Still Young' feels like the dark horse on the album. Sometimes when you're writing songs, you can overlook the simple songs. I don't mean simple in a bad way, but like there's no bells or whistles on it—it's just a great song. Once we got a choir on it and did one or two things, it felt so big. It was always doing its job, so we really didn't have to work too much on it.”
“The Charms” Ryan McMahon: “There's almost a country undertone to that song. I guess in the storytelling element to it, the chorus sounds like you can imagine a guy singing it in a bar. It's kind of poppy, but it's also not, if that makes sense.”
“X-Ray” Ryan McMahon: “On the demo it sounded quite a lot like The Cure. We kept a lot of the stuff that we loved about the demo in. There's a keyboard that stayed and the chorus was this really cool middle eight on the early demo. It was kind of like Frankenstein. We had to chop and stitch stuff together and see what worked. It feels quite experimental within the record. With all the recording techniques that we used for the album, this one feels more on experimental side.”
“Concrete” Elijah Hewson: “It definitely goes to a darker level, 'Concrete.' We'll always write love songs. I think almost every song is a love song in some kind of weird, obscure way. We were thinking about the idea of something that you walk into willingly knowing that it's going to hurt you in the end. The idea that, if you love something, you're putting yourself out there. You're basically asking to be hurt. You're opening yourself up to that danger. I think that's a realistic picture of love. It's not all daisies and flowery dresses.”
“Little Things” Josh Jenkinson: “'Little Things' is the sort of song we would have normally opened an album with which is exactly why we put it at the end.”
Elijah Hewson: “It's a big strong point to leave it on. We didn't want to wimp out at the end of the record. It was interesting to do what we would do at the beginning of our old albums at the end of this one. I love how it feels at the end. I really do.”
