Interview: Arlo McKinley on how personal upheaval shaped his new album

Like everyone else, Arlo McKinley’s plans were dealt an unexpected and painful blow by the onset of the global pandemic.

With an album (2020’s ‘Die Midwestern’) just released, the accompanying tour to promote the record was cancelled, whilst at the same time Arlo was also sadly dealing with personal loss. “It was a messy time”, he explains to Paul Gibson from his home in Cincinnati. “A bunch of madness, really! It just felt like the world was being taken over by my personal life. I felt like I had to get these things out of me”. The songs that came as a result of this catharsis were the catalyst for Arlo’s new release ‘This Mess We’re In’, the title a stark confirmation of the tumult he found himself surrounded by. “I write my records in little chapters, I’ll go away and live for a few months and then come back and pick the good, the bad, and the mostly ugly stories to write about. Once I had a couple of new songs together I knew that I was writing a record, and I knew what the central theme was going to be”. With the Ohio sun beating down, Arlo expands on the recording of the new album, choosing a nom de guerre, and a decisive meeting with a legendary singer-songwriter.

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