Songfacts®:

• The follow-up single to "Trouble's Coming," "Typhoons" continues Royal Blood's through-line between hard rock and dance music. The song is also the title track of the Sussex duo's third album.
  
  "We sort of stumbled on this sound, and it was immediately fun to play," frontman Mike Kerr said in a statement. "That's what sparked the creativity on the new album, the chasing of that feeling. It's weird, though – if you think back to 'Figure It Out,' it kind of contains the embryo of this album. We realized that we didn't have to completely destroy what we'd created so far; we just had to shift it, change it. On paper, it's a small reinvention. But when you hear it, it sounds so fresh."
• Lyrically, the song is about the depression and anxiety that sometimes overwhelms Kerr. He shared on social media: "Typhoons is what it sounds like to be truly lost in your own thoughts to a hellish extent but also about how dark spells, much like storms are not permanent. This song was one those special moments where the process didn't resemble writing whatsoever. More like being tethered to the earth, receiving holy lightning. Look after each other and crank this until you see smoke."
• Both Royal Blood's "Trouble's Coming" and "Typhoons" are about Kerr's anxieties, but while "Trouble's Coming" finds him in the depths of despair, "Typhoons" is a tad more hopeful, as Kerr acknowledges that in time, his depression will blow over.
• While crafting their new sound for Typhoons, Royal Blood received some help from Jack White in the form of a guitar pedal. "It was a Christmas present from Third Man Records," Kerr told Apple Music. "It was a pedal I was using already but a signature version. It's sick. For me, a pedal can be as inspiring as a new guitar or a new instrument because you don't how it's going to behave. It's on [the album] quite a lot."
• The Typhoons album has a loose concept running through it of being lost in your thoughts, and how overwhelming that can be. Kerr explained to NME that the subject matter of this song brought the record's themes together. "I think 'Typhoons' made it really clear that when a thought or an idea takes over, you are lost in that," he explained. "It does feel like it can go on forever, but it's also about knowing that it can't go on forever. It's not permanent - it can't be."
  
  "I think that's just part of being a human being," Kerr added. "I think everyone can get lost in their own mind, and they can have dark spells in their own mind. I've experienced them, you've experienced them; we all have. I wanted to write a song that recognized them, but was also uplifting and empowering - knowing that if you are going through that, it will end at some point. It will pass."
• The song came together after Royal Blood thought that they'd finished the album. Kerr explained that its impulsive danceability "exploded out of the speakers" and felt in keeping with the bombastic disco-rock sound of the rest of the record.
• The French visual artist Quentin Deronzier (Foals' "The Runner") directed the video. The clip sees Royal Blood playing the song amid a stormy London skyline and the pair rock out so hard they start a typhoon. Back in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down large-scale shows. Since then, Kerr and his bandmate Ben Thatcher have badly missed gigging and were glad of the opportunity to put on a performance.
  
  "It's pretty literal, but it was another way of demonstrating that violent and cyclical never-ending storm," said Kerr. "It also felt like a good excuse for us to be playing in the middle of it as well. Without live shows, it felt important to be performing and for us to at least feel like we could be a part of it."
• Typhoons debuted at #1 on the UK albums chart, outselling the rest of the Top Five combined. It was Royal Blood's third consecutive chart-topping album.