Windwaker on Sacrifice, Vulnerability and When To Turn Back

Aussie metalcore tempest Windwaker will release their third album smile, you’re on camera this Friday 23 October, before they batter The Gov on Sunday 1 November. It's their biggest Australian tour to date and they have the lineup to match the occasion, with support from The Pretty Wild (US) making their Australia debut, fresh new Fearless Records labelmate RinRin and metal, hardcore, rap hybrids DREGG. 

2026 has been a year filled with firsts for Windwaker as they continued to ride the success of their second album HYPERVIOLENCE (2024). They toured Europe for the first time, experienced their first co-headlined tour in the US, crossed triple j's Like A Version off the bucket list and were part of the gargantuan lineup at Ohio's Sonic Temple alongside My Chemical Romance, Bring Me The Horizon and TOOL. 

Vocalist Liam Guinane believes it's been one of Windwaker's best years yet, but it's also been one of the hardest. With new opportunities come new challenges, including the pressure to deliver an album that lives up to the breakthrough that was HYPERVIOLENCE, create and deliver a live show to an elite level and to build on the momentum of being one of Australia’s most exciting exports. 

To add to these challenges, after two years of consistent and demanding touring, core Windwaker member, synths, samples and production manager Connor Robins has temporarily stepped away from touring to prioritise his health. This resulted in the band pulling out of October's inaugural Hellbound Cruise to dedicate time to their touring and production setup, ensuring the rest of the year's shows are delivered. 

"It's forced the rest of us to kind of step into that role a little bit more and understand how the technology behind the stage works," Guinane explains, smiling on camera despite the unexpected changes just before the tour begins.  

"So this is gonna give us a little bit more time to understand and get our heads around it, so we can actually put on shows without him. We've always had a bit of a DIY philosophy and ethos. We've always been a self-produced band, we never really worked with producers outside, like it's always been Chris [Lalic], our drummer, who's recorded us, and we've always liked to have control over the things that we do.” 

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smile, you're on camera is the culmination of the slow-burn journey Windwaker have been on for the past 10 years. It highlights challenges, triumphs and the weight of time and growth. It uncovered vulnerabilities and honesty within the band as they've become more comfortable as a unit over time. 

"Having that time together usually involves a lot of touring and that requires time away from families, relationships, sometimes an income. I'm 30 now, so I was in my late 20s when we were writing [smile, you're on camera] and thinking about the sort of societal things. Only in a few more years' time we really should be thinking about settling down and having families. You make these considerations about your relationships." 

These life moments have been constantly put on hold due to the commitment required to tour the world and follow this dream. Windwaker address these themes head-on in the song 'Burn', which encapsulates their experience of juggling everything life throws at you. 

"You're in a kitchen and you're at a stove top and you've got all these pots that are boiling and one's setting on fire, so then you've got to put that out, but then as you've put that fire out, then another one's happening. It's kind of this pressure that's bubbling more in your personal life, rather than the pressure of, like, say, following up a record. 

"It's required a lot of sacrifice as well and reflecting on that and wondering how much more sacrifice is required. Or do you turn back and go back out the tunnel that you're moving further into?"

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Guinane's own journey hasn't been straightforward. In 2019, Guinane sacrificed his role in Windwaker and officially parted ways with the band to put more time into his other project, Reside. He eventually turned back and found himself returning home to Windwaker in 2022. This time as lead vocalist. It's been four years since he took the helm as frontman and his nerves still ebb and flow. 

"I definitely feel more confident and settled in the role compared to when I first joined. But you know, there's also been times within the writing of this album where I've had that self-doubt, and I've not really felt like 'the man' or the person that I want to be. I think that's also where some of the songs come from.

"A song like 'DNA', I think it embodies the part of me that wants to be this kind of really confident and commanding person, or persona. And then there's the other part where it's just like, 'well, I just can't seem to get this right', my brain, I'm telling myself these things and it's wearing me down. I think that in itself was a thing that was hard to come to terms with and be open about with my bandmates. 

"It was like, 'I don't feel like this person that I want to be, but I'm not getting it right'," Guinane continues.  

"I mean, I’m certainly past that point, I've since done things that will have helped with my mental health or wellbeing, looking after myself a lot more and going to the gym. Going out and meeting fans as well, I think for a while there I was sort of creating that separation a little bit and therefore wasn't feeling like the reassurance that people love what we do."

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One of the things Windwaker discussed going into smile you’re on camera was wanting to do more collaborations. It's not something the band has done previously, and as a result they experimented on two tracks, 'Click' featuring fellow genre-bender RinRin - who Lalic produces music for - and 'Loser' featuring Mikaila Delgado of Aussie pop-punk staples Yours Truly. 

"With 'Click', [RinRin] came in for a few days. It wasn't a case of we've written a part for her and she's just recording it. She was there from the bare bones, writing the music from scratch. The song 'Click', for example, I wanted the title to be 'smile, you're on camera', that was the original title for it, but we decided to make it more snappy. I knew that I had this idea about those signs in front of shopfront windows that say 'smile, you're on camera', and just kind of thinking [about] this idea of our privacy just being sold and tech companies knowing everything about us and having no privacy these days and the paranoia that's associated with that. I knew that with Rin, she'd be able to pull from her own experiences and match that feeling of paranoia."

Windwaker enjoyed working with RinRin so much that she ended up coming back to a later writing week to work on more songs together. One of these songs was 'Loser'.

"It was cool, because we were just allowing ourselves to have these individual experiences and come together to make something that was universally relatable. So the reason why we got Mikaila instead of getting someone like Rin again was that Mikaila's been a good friend of ours for probably close to 10 years now. She's got an incredible voice and she brings a certain attitude to the way that she sings. 

"When we asked her to come on to the track, she said yes and we were super excited about it. She just smashed it out in a night with us and Rin was there as well, and we were just all in the room together bouncing off each other and it was a really, really good energy. I think we really want to collaborate a lot more in the future because we've had such a positive experience this time around."

smile, you’re on camera is out Friday 23 October via Civilians/Fearless Records. Pre-order/save here. Catch Windwaker performing at The Gov on Sunday 1 November. Tickets on sale at thegov.com.au.