Dublin’s Gurriers have returned with their impressive sophomore album, Nobody Is Coming To Save You. The Irish five-piece have been one of our most-listened-to artists since their 2024 debut, and are set to join an epic Laneway Festival lineup in 2027. With Australian sideshows supporting Fontaines D.C. also on the horizon, we caught up with frontman Dan Hoff to discuss crafting the band’s new cinematic album alongside IDLES’ Mark Bowen.

How does it feel to have your album out in the world?

It feels surreal. I think it's one of those things that you plan for and work for months and months, and then it takes up such a big part of your life. Then when it's out, it feels like this release. In a good way. And then when you have to then have the anticipation of how people are gonna listen to it or react to it, yeah. So there is this almost up and down kind of moods and emotions of how things are going to go. But if you believe in the album 100%, nothing really phases you. And that's how I feel, and I know the lads feel that way as well.

You've had a pretty crazy few years since the debut album. How do you think that you have evolved as a songwriter and a musician on this new album?

I think I've been evolving in a way where it's more introspective and cathartic for my own issues. I would label them as weaknesses that I hold to myself. I genuinely felt like I was putting a mirror to myself and allowing other people to speculate and dictate by listening to the album, which is quite a daunting experience and something that while making the album I had the choice or the opportunity not to, do. But I think it was a process that I found very therapeutic and quite enlightening, and would love to experience again.

What's your songwriting process like? Are you writing away from the rest of the guys? Are you in a studio?

Definitely a little bit of both. I tend to write poems a lot. With the poems, I would get one line sometimes, which I think is just as important as having a full finished piece that you're happy with. Even if it's one line, that one line is really good, you can put that into a melody for a song. I think for me personally when it comes to songwriting the melody is always the most important thing.

It has to be not just a catchy melody, but a melody that I feel quite attached to. I'll go through 20, 30 different melodies with the lads and the music. I don't write any music. I'm only learning how to play guitar this year. I'm more so using it as a tool to take ideas and words out of me that I didn't expect were there.

So it's a super collaborative process.

Oh, yeah. Always.

Did you have a clear intention going into this record or did it just flow and happen?

There's definitely a clear intention to evolve and make the sound more expansive and emotional, for sure. Even in a cinematic way. It's one of those things that we went in to expecting the process and the kind of experience of what it is to make your sophomore record. You need it to be above the first one, but also you don't want to alienate anyone who listened to the first record. We wanted to show a statement of intent again, especially with getting like Mark Bone and Lauren Humphreys and Chris Bullard involved.

How did Mark help shape the sound this time?

He definitely helped with the tone, the tones and the atmosphere and the mood for a lot of the music, which was really important. There was one day where I think Mark [McCormick, in the band] had this guitar lick for one of the songs, and he played in one of the takes, it didn't sound right, and he was like, “Oh, I made a mistake there and I made a mistake here.” And Bowen was like, "Yeah, but no one knows you made a mistake, and that sounds sick.” The imperfections aren't a negative thing.

That’s so liberating. I love what you have said about this album being more personal, but that doesn’t mean it has to be less political. You’re responding to the state of the world. I really enjoy talking to artists who do that with their music. What do you hope that people take from listening to this album and listening to your lyrics?

I hope they see where the dots connect from personal to the political. Some songs are about my mental health and some are about how I feel let down by people around me, by the system, by schools. There’s also a bad relationship with alcohol, based off personal choices. I think there is this other argument that everything is political, and being an artist, being someone who wants to go out of the means of most common work and whatever, is being politically against the system, unless you are part of the system. I do find even going to a gig and letting yourself loose for an hour as an audience is political. It’s like that that quote that I keep using from the album is "We bury our friends in the morning, we protest in the afternoon, and we dance all night.” When my girlfriend told me about that it really changed my perspective, because I funnily enough did say the next album was going to be completely personal, and she said, well everything is political.

Which artists who are like overtly political in what they do are you inspired by? In terms of their songwriting?

I would say definitely Mark Bowen and Idles over the years. Not even just the music, just the way they speak about being in a band and mental health and how not to take it for granted. I think growing up it was Bob Dylan. I know he's quite cliche at times but his lyrics really speak to you. Especially, when he was singing with Joan Baez. And Rage Against the Machine is definitely one of those bands that have that kind of attitude. The Clash, too, with Rock Against Racism. I think all of the work that U2 has done in the past as well. I think if you have a voice you should use it. We can't make any regime change, but maybe we can just let you forget about the shit world for a bit. It’s like how people get mixed up with our song Approachable. It's tongue in cheek. I've had people come up to us who we wouldn't have been at all on the same political page and saying, "I love that song. It really speaks to me."

How does that make you feel?

It makes me feel like I'm doing my due diligence, I think. It's supposed to do that. The whole point of the end of the song with the unapproachable call and response is the willingness that people can be led into following someone just because they tell you to. Which is a funny moment in the live show when I tell everyone what to sing back to me.

So how has the live show evolved now that you can include these new songs in the setlist?

So when we supported Inhaler last year, it was the first time we played in quite big rooms, and we were so grateful to be able to play with the lads in those spaces. They definitely gave us an opportunity that we didn't think we were going to get that soon.

So there was this conversation that Mark in the band was having with us, and he was saying, "Look we wrote these songs on the first album to play in rooms of 200 people. Sweaty rooms where it's a basement, or whatever. Now, how do we reach the people at the back and the people  upstairs in the theatres and stuff? How do we get our old songs to do that? And going forward, how do we write music that is still in the vein of us but still reaches the people at the back as?” I think he noticed at some of the gigs in the Inhaler shows, people were having  different experiences. We think of everything. We don't just think "Oh, let's plug in and play.” We think how can we expand this? How can we make it more of an experience? How can we make it more interactive with the audience? We're so obsessed with music and we're so obsessed with how it ticks, and how the industry ticks in a creative way. It’s always been creative for us. We don't really think about the monetary or finance as much.

That's probably why it works.

I would say so. It truly is art before commerce with us.

Is there a song that you're particularly proud of of writing on this new record?

Crybaby, for sure. The last song on the album. It's very introspective and again, it's about my relationship with alcohol. I was listening to a lot of Humbug [Arctic Monkeys album] at the time. It’s my favourite album of theirs.

That’s so funny, I was listening to that album today.

Oh, really? No way. There was something about that album… something that just resonated with me in a lot of how it sounds. Something about how experimental it was for them. They went in just going, ”We put all of our belief into this. This is why we're going to put this out there." It's not their most accessible record, but it's their best. When I heard Crybaby, I just, it just reminded me of Humbug, with the guitars and the tone. There is a lot of that in it, and I was just very taken aback by what the lads had written [for the instrumental].

I was like, “Okay, if I'm writing lyrics to this, I want my lyrics to be my best. I always had “she's the view" written down somewhere, and I'm pretty sure Tori [my partner] said it about her sister in an Instagram post years ago, and I thought that was such a beautiful line. I was drawn by that line for years, and it was just always in the back of my head for years and years. And there's a lyric at the end which I really like as well, which is, ‘I could find you anywhere’, which is something Tori's sister wrote in a poem. So Tori wrote 'she's the view’ for her sister. And ‘I would find you anywhere’ is what her sister wrote in a poem, and I took both (with their blessings). I asked them. There are lyrics about Tori, but ultimately, it’s a song that is about alcohol and how it unfortunately can ruin your life.

I love when a lyric is so simple to say out loud but can hold so much weight. Which other artists are you excited about right now?

I'd say most of them are Irish. I'm so excited about Madra Salach. Possibly one of the most emotionally rewarding bands I've ever experienced. They're acoustic folk with mix of influences from Neutral Milk Hotel to the Dubliners. They do covers of other Irish bands that wouldn't be very well known outside of Ireland and parts of Europe. But they're killing it at the moment. They're on their UK tour and they’ve completely sold it out in some thousand cap rooms.They haven't released an album. I'm very good friends with them. I want them to prosper. And then I love a band called Babysat that are quite Paramore-esque, coming out of Ireland. There's this singer who unfortunately I would say is underrated and goes under the radar, her name is Toshín, she reminds me of Aretha Franklin. Her voice is insane.There's so much coming out of Ireland right now, and it's because Fontaines D.C. and Gilla Band and stuff have opened floodgates for us.

Do you know who I'm so obsessed with? I listen to them literally every day and they’re from Ireland. NewDad.

I love those guys. They're amazing. They're friends of ours as well.

Speaking of Fontaines, you're coming to Australia. You're playing Laneway and opening for the guys in Perth and Adelaide. Have you played with them before?

Not yet. It’s funny, one of my old bands supported the Fontaines when they were called The Fontaines. I supported them years ago, and it was in The Workman's Club. I  have utmost respect for them. They're really nice, down-to-earth people, and I think them giving this opportunity for us to play in Australia is really incredible.

What else is next for you?

We're getting ready now to go on our tour. That's the next thing for us. And then I would assume a very busy 2027. I do find it fun to be able to break up the tour in a way where you’re starting to write. I's not as easy as when we're just in a room together. Your time is limited in a way, but we find ways to make it work. We turn one of the hotel rooms into a studio and write. Ben is always writing in the van on his laptop and I'm always trying to pick up things from people speaking while on tour or a certain phrase or whatever. But I think this time I think we're gonna go into it a lot more aware and be like, "Okay, we need to write”. I'd say while on this upcoming tour we will be very creative again.