Last year found Thornhill bodying some of the biggest audiences they’d ever played to — after all, the Australian alt-metal unit had been hand-picked by Sleep Token to open a run of sold-out U.S. arena shows throughout the fall.
Ahead of that North American run, vocalist Jacob Charlton told Revolver that the sensual, hypnagogic anthems on Thornhill’s latest album, 2025’s BODIES, were written “for the big stage,” and the reaction they got to those songs — as well as to the group’s tour-timed single, “Mercia” — was rapturous, or so the singer later found out. Charlton tends to shut his eyes while powering through his most dynamic vocal runs, but he realized after the fact by viewing fan-shot videos that the crowds responded with approval. For that matter, so did their headlining tour hosts, in which Charlton and the rest of Thornhill found a bunch of kindred spirits.
“[Sleep Token] was so lovely — so accommodating and thoughtful — and they gave a shit about what we do,” the singer tells Revolver more recently from Thornhill’s band van, as the rest of his group are loading up gear before hitting rehearsals to help them “sound better and be better” on their February Australian headline tour.
Charlton continues of Sleep Token: “We really got to talk, and we had a lot of similarities in our creative processes, and the reasons that we do it. It was really cool to see another like-minded band, and not be swallowed up by the hype of how larger-than-life they are right now.”
In particular, Thornhill connected with Sleep Token’s music-first approach, and the idea that no matter how popular a band becomes, “you don’t write for an audience, you write for yourself.” That drive has pushed both Sleep Token and Thornhill towards satisfying themselves with releases that are full of serious breakdowns, metal-edged chugging and monstrous screams, yet which remove the horse-blinders of a heavy-only aesthetic to make something new.
“A lot of the time, I think heavy bands are either scared to utilize their [other] influences… or they don’t really have any outside of the heavy genre,” Charlton notes. “Bands like Sleep Token, us and a bunch of other ones have such strong inspirations and ideas outside of our own genre. It makes your heavy sound different. I’ve talked to a lot of bands and a lot of fans about this, but the broader your taste is, the better your music is gonna be.”
With that in mind, Thornhill are paying it forward this spring with the launch of their “Mercia Tour” — which is proudly presented by Revolver. The Melbourne-bred headliners’ May North American trek has them teaming up with three other rising acts creating their own lane in the heavy scene: Pittsburgh metalcore bombardiers 156/Silence, grave-making Colorado rapcore crew Fox Lake and smooth-yet-heavy German genre-splicers Vianova, the last of whom contributed to Thornhill’s 2025 BODIES remix album, BODIES X.
The tour also finds the headliners releasing the “DEFINITIVE” vinyl edition of BODIES, complete with “Mercia” added as the album’s new closer. The LP will be available for purchase at the shows, while an exclusive “Cloudy Blue” colorway can be ordered now from Revolver’s shop.
Ahead of his band’s much-anticipated return to the U.S., Charlton discusses new music, influential horror flicks, gaming with fans, and more.
The last time we caught up with you, you were just getting home from location-scouting the “Mercia” video… How’s the reception been for the song since you put it out?
Jacob Charlton I haven’t really kept up-to-date with it… [but] it’s a weird one live.
BODIES is a very involved album. It’s very you and the audience, and everybody’s kind of doing something together. It’s got that energy. I think “Mercia” is where you take a step back… it’s about the performance of the song, which is just a different feeling. But I think the response has been good.
[“Mercia”] was what we always intended the BODIES album to end like. [Closing track] “For Now” was not enough for us. “For Now” was fine, but I think we wanted to end really big, in a similar way that [2022 album] Heroine did, or with similar song structures to “Hollywood,” where you don’t know what is coming, but it doesn’t leave you disinterested or bored. [“Mercia”] was kind of like, “Let’s just take it like a story, and let’s go in a bunch of different ways. I don’t want it to be a verse, a chorus, a verse, a chorus, a bridge and a breakdown.” [We really wanted] to roll with the waves of the song.
In terms of audience reaction and interaction, the “Mercia” video is interesting in that it subliminally suggests movements for the crowd — there’s that circle dance scene in a big field, for instance. Have you seen it play out that way in the crowd?
No, not yet, but people definitely throw hands for the breakdown. I think we just haven’t played it [enough]. We released it [ahead of the] Sleep Token [tour], so the Sleep Token crowd was obviously just starting to learn who we are. They were happy to just watch the performance — you know, most of those tickets were seated.
Then we went on our Euro tour, and I think people were singing it. It was more of a sing-along kind of thing. I almost don’t even remember… that feels like 16 years ago.
I think it will be interesting to go into the Australian and U.S. tours and see how it’s going to pan out live, because it’s such a hard song that it has to be fairly early in the set for me. I have to do a bunch of runs — it’s very demanding. I tend to close my eyes when I play the song, because I’m so focused on not being horrible. I don’t really get to see how it’s coming across, [but] I’ll definitely pay more attention.
What did you absorb from the general experience of touring with Sleep Token last fall?
I mean… it was incredible! I do think, actually, the response for “Mercia” on the Sleep Token tour was huge.
We can’t hear this stuff when we have our in-ears in — like, it’s dead quiet onstage for us, very hard to hear the crowd — but I’d [see] videos, and once I’d done the run you hear all the applause from the Sleep Token crowd being like, “Oh my god…” That was always really cool.
But yeah… that entire tour was incredible. We were very welcomed into that audience and fan base, and I think it’s done wonders for the band.
We’re nearing a year on from the release of BODIES, and almost a half year now since you released “Mercia.” Are you working on any new music at the moment?
I’ve started writing a lot for a new record. I don’t think I could stop if I tried. I don’t know if it’s undiagnosed ADHD or whatever, but I’ve really been cooking.
I talk to my girlfriend about this a lot, but in the off-season — once you’ve finished a record — you need to chill for a bit. And then you reabsorb as much as you can [by] listening to new music and watching new movies. Like, we’re trying to go and see a movie a week… or five a week!
We’re trying to find what the next vibe is, or what the next atmosphere is, or what we want to say that we didn’t say previously. We are definitely in the process of doing that, but now that we’re about to be on tour for three months, I think that’ll probably go out the window soon.
What are some films you’ve been drawn to lately?
We just went and watched Hamnet, and I absolutely cried my eyes out. That was an insanely beautiful movie in every way. We’re also trying to watch all the Oscar-nominated movies, like One Battle After Another.
I recently watched [2017’s] The Killing of a Sacred Deer again, which was a beautiful movie — so quirky and cool. And I rewatched Hereditary, because I had a scene idea for a song and I wanted to see if I was jacking it from the movie or not.
Did it have to do with someone banging their head against the ceiling?
No, no… it was [more about] climbing through a roof. I think I can get away with it if we end up doing it.
What was the most recent album to make you cry the same way you had during Hamnet?
I don’t reckon I’ve cried to music, really. But in saying that, I think the sickest album [that’s come out in 2026] is Puma Blue’s Croak Dream.
How did you go about picking the bands for this upcoming U.S. tour?
I think we were looking at energy. When you’re still on the come-up, you’re looking for bands that are doing their own thing. And friends, because Vianova did the BODIES X [remix of] “DIESEL.”
Vianova is doing something crazy that just they are doing, and Fox Lake is so tough, and 156 is such a fucking tight band. I think it’s such a good introduction to this big overall sound that everybody has.
How did you first connect with Vianova?
I think that was more of [Thornhill drummer Ben] Maida’s thing, because he’s always got his ear to the ground with bands. I don’t really listen to heavy music, to be honest, unless I’m at the gym. He’s normally the one in the chat like, “This band’s cool.” I have to give the credit to him on that one.
Do you think both bands could somehow recreate the remix magic of “DIESEL” onstage?
That could be fun, but with how hectic we’re going with our timecode, our set list and all the lights and stuff, I don’t know if we have too much room to breathe for something like that right now.
One thing you’re offering to fans through the VIP packages on this tour is the chance to play Mario Kart with the band. What’s the story behind that?
[Charlton pulls out his Nintendo Switch] I’m already ready to go. [Laughs] But how did it even come about? Somebody on tour had a Switch, and we played Mario Kart.
On tour, you just have so much downtime. And for us, being from Australia, we spend most of our time at an airport or on a plane. So, we eventually all had a Switch.
I was always decent at Mario Kart, and then we went on tour with the Plot in You, and those guys are the most insane Mario Kart players ever. All of the band and their crew had Switches, and they would do these big races.
We try and give Switches to the crew whenever we can, [and] everybody just got really, really good. So good, in fact, that we just absolutely rinse each other. After a show, you cool down, you load out, you have your showers, you get changed for bed, and everybody’s like, “Let’s Kart!” And you spend two hours before bed just ruining each other at that game.
So, we were like, “It’d be really fun to involve our fans with it,” because anybody can play Mario Kart. It’s not really about winning or losing, it’s just fun to play with your friends. And I think we want VIP to feel like we’re just some fucking guys. Like, we’re not this big entity to be nervous about. We’re just four idiots that want to have fun and play games.
It’s a really cool way to ground the whole experience. I feel like VIP can be a little shaky at the start, and the last thing that we want is for people to feel like they spent a lot of money, got a signed poster, shook our hands and [then we] bailed. We want you to walk away actually feeling like you got to know who we are, as much as we can.
Do you have a particular character you always pick?
All four of us have our character and our Kart, yeah.
Who’s yours, and what’s the psychological profile behind that pick?
I’m the Villager boy. I just think he looks like me! He’s cool, and he has a really funny horn, and [his Kart has] a good weight, for the way I drive.
…This is so nerdy, but I’m a zippy, speedy guy. And he just looks tough. He’s got a cool fit on.
How about the other folks?
I know Maids is Rose Gold Peach. Cage [a.k.a. bassist Nick Sjogren] plays as the Inkling Girl — what a shit fucking pick — and then [guitarist] Ethan [McCann] plays as Tanooki Mario.
If the analogy works, here, what’s the blue shell in the Thornhill set — the one song that just annihilates the crowd?
“nerv.”
Why?
It’s the first song we’d ever written where we thought we actually wrote a good song. And it was the first time we were like, “Oh yeah, this is it. This is the Thornhill sound, this is what we are, this is everything that we can give.”
I think we found a lot of character, a lot of atmosphere and a lot of movement in the writing [of “nerv”]. Ethan and I really collaborated on that song more than we had in the past.
We’re the biggest haters of our own band, but I swear to God, it’s the first song I think we were incredibly proud of, and we feel that onstage when the crowd is responding so insanely to it. And we’re right there with them. It’s really cool.