Following a formidable year of touring, in celebration of 2024’s first three Vol. EPs, 2025 has begun in similarly stellar fashion for Ohio’s visionary quartet, The Plot In You. On Monday announcing their return to Australia in January 2026, lead singer Landon Tewers joined Spotlight Report to discuss friendship, music and the final chapter of the series.
SR: Good morning Landon, thank you so much for speaking with SPOTLIGHT REPORT today. With so many places I could begin congratulations, I thought perhaps we’d start with the announcement that THE PLOT IN YOU will be returning to Australia in January 2026!
LT: Yeah, it’s crazy; I’m excited!
I think the last time we were there it was 2021, or ‘22, I think, so it’s been a long time.
SR: Ooh, close! In terms of headline tour, it was for Swan Song in 2022, but most recently you were here for the 2023 GOOD THINGS festival.
LT: Oh, of course!
SR: No strangers to our shores, I actually first saw TPIY perform in 2013 for the Could You Watch Your Children Burn tour.
LT: That’s crazy, wow!
SR: Highly prolific tourists in Australia, there were two visits prior to this, in 2011 & 2012. Incredibly bold, being that these massive journeys came off the back of your debut, First Born, and it really encapsulates the persona of TPIY.
LT: Yeah, it was 2011, another lifetime ago and thank you.
SR: This time around, TPIY will be joined by long-time friends, FIT FOR A KING, who will be visiting for the first time since 2022, and I think I might have first seen perform in 2013, also.
LT: That actually might have been with us, I’m pretty sure our second time out there was with them.
SR: Oh my gosh, yes, at Lion Arts – not that you’d remember that amongst all the venues you’ve played around the world!
LT: Yeah (both laughing)
SR: Exciting enough to see FFAK in the press release, your North American tour compatriots, BOUNDARIES, and Australia’s adopted ‘heavy metal boyband’, BANKS ARCADE complete the bill. Even a cursory glance at TPIY’s history shows benevolence in selecting each tour’s accompanists. How mindful or (pardon the pun) plotted is that choice?
LT: Honestly, these days especially, we’re very hands on with choosing the bands we take out, which is why you’ll see a lot of the same names; we like hanging out with them and that’s almost more important than anything else.
Banks Arcade especially, they did a headliner with us in the States and it was their first time there, and they were just maniacs; some of the craziest people we’ve ever met, and we just went “We gotta make sure we tour with them again”. This was a perfect opportunity.
Fit we’ve been touring with since 2011 or 2012, we did our very first tour with them and have remained friends all this time, and, as you said, we just did a tour with Boundaries in the States.
Again, maniacs, just absolute crazy people, which is the vibe we like, especially on tour. It can be so mundane, so we like to invite along people with a lot of character.
We want them to entertain us essentially! (laughing)
SR: Under the very broad umbrella of ‘metalcore’, which of course encompasses a diverse spectrum of sound, it’s exciting times at the moment, and there exists a massive talent pool from which you can draw.
LT: Definitely.
SR: That said, it is noticeable – TPIY are selective in choosing supports that compliment the aesthetic of each location, and I really wanted to acknowledge that.
LT: Absolutely, thank you.
SR: Refocusing on yourselves, 2024 was a year spent touring relentlessly across the northern hemisphere in celebration of TPIY’s Vol. 1-3 EP anthology. From researching my review of Vol. 3, you’re quoted as saying that the series will be completed by Vol. 4 in 2025. Is this still the intention, and when might audiences expect the final instalment?
LT: Well, I have one last song to finish – I think it’s honestly only three lines in one verse – and then it’s completely done!
SR: Oh my gosh!
LT: I’ve been working on it really hard the last couple of months, but we’ve been touring so much that, like, I was having to write in bits and pieces. That made it hard, on tour and on a bus, because there are people constantly coming in and out; you can’t lock in time, so I became creative with the times I knew people would be off.
That being said, it is pretty much all done and I actually have to turn it in by the end of the week, so, I’d say it’ll come out in the next 3-4 months.
I’m incredibly stoked for it; to me, I think it’s the best out of all of them. I feel like it’s really refined, and I had so much time to pick it apart and rework it piece by piece. I’m really excited and really proud of it.
SR: I’m so sorry, I literally just yelled with excitement at that; I’m a very expressive person.
LT: You’re all good, it’s great; I love it.
SR: It’s so exciting to hear you enjoy this volume the most, especially with it being created under such an interesting dichotomy. It’s the contradiction of having only fragmented time at your disposal but then opening the opportunity to be so pinpoint in how you use it to your benefit.
LT: Oh, absolutely, I definitely find with projects where I’m given a hard deadline, I’m almost never as happy with the end product. As opposed to when I’m offered to “just do it when you want to do it, we just want it when you think it’s ready.”
Whenever I hear those words, I’m like, “Thank god, just leave me alone” (laughing).
SR: Still on the Vol. series, there were ruminations of a compendium once all parts had been celebrated on their own merits. Pardon my amateur ear, however, what strikes me about Vol. 1-3 is the completeness of each three-track arc. If amalgamation is still the goal, would that ideally be chronologically kept, or rearranged to establish a new ebb and flow?
LT: We’ve actually been talking about that a bit, and I think we need to have further discussions on the subject.
I personally wouldn’t mind them staying in the order they’re in, because it might feel strange in any other, but, then again, once I’ve heard them all laid out in one folder, with the ability to flip things around, maybe I’ll change my mind.
I think that’s the thinking at the moment, but, you know what? At any moment that could change. Even in terms of choosing artwork, we take up to the very last moment and we change our mind a lot.
SR: Well, you’re the artist, that’s your prerogative!
LT: We’re fortunate that we have a label that allows us to do that kind of stuff. Not everyone would be okay with that (laughs).
SR: No, but I think TPIY has established the reputation as a band that pushes themselves and genre boundaries, for example, with every release. You expand and evolve but also succeed; it mightn’t be the easiest thing in the world for a record label to manage such a diverse group, but it would make life a hell of a lot more interesting.
LT: Thank you, I totally agree.
SR: To finish sillily, can I assume you’ve heard of the game ‘fuck, marry, kill’?
LT: Oh yeah (laughing).
SR: I had considered asking for your allocations for the Australian support acts, but, not to be quite as brutal or crass, may we adapt? Choosing any alternative you’d like, how would you categorise Vol. 1-3, and is there a metaphor that teases the tone of Vol. 4?
LT: Ooh, that’s a good one.
The first, I would say, would be ‘pain’; second, ‘fear’ or maybe ‘regret’ too, and the third one is kind of more like ‘frustration’. The new one, that’s a culmination of all but with a sensibility of ‘hope’.
SR: Oh wow, I don’t know if my current precondition is giving me a sixth sense, but all morning I’ve been sitting with the word ‘hope’ stuck in my head. I wondered where it fit, but maybe that’s just me, as I’m ever hopeful, especially when it comes to TPIY.
I literally screamed when I heard the news you were coming, can’t wait for Vol. 4, and am so thankful for your time today.
LT: Hell yeah, absolutely no problem; thank you.
THE PLOT IN YOU AUSTRALIA 2026 TOUR
WITH SPECIAL GUESTS
FIT FOR A KING (USA)
BOUNDARIES (USA)
BANKS ARCADE
TOUR DATES:
WEDNESDAY 21 JANUARY 2026 – METROPOLIS, FREMANTLE 18+
FRIDAY 23 JANUARY 2026 – HINDLEY ST MUSIC HALL, ADELAIDE LIC AA
SATURDAY 24 JANUARY 2026 – CHELSEA HEIGHTS HOTEL, CHELSEA HEIGHTS 18+
SUNDAY 25 JANUARY 2026 – THE FORUM, MELBOURNE 18+
WEDNESDAY 28 JANUARY 2026 – ENMORE THEATRE, SYDNEY LIC AA
FRIDAY 30 JANUARY – FORTITUDE MUSIC HALL, BRISBANE LIC AA
Tickets on sale now: destroyalllines.com
