Soccer Mommy

Soccer Mommy is one of the stand-out singer/songwriters to emerge over the last half decade. She was born Sophia Allison and raised in Nashville, Tennessee where she started playing guitar at six years-old.

Sophia started posting her songs on Bandcamp in 2015 under the name Soccer Mommy the summer before moving to New York to study the music business at NYU. Two years later she dropped out after signing her first record deal with Fat Possum.

Since then she has released four albums and toured with artists like Vampire Weekend, Phoebe Bridgers and Mitski. Soccer Mommy’s latest album Evergreen is a reflection on grief and loneliness, and was described recently by Pitchfork as the, “most laid back and pastoral music of her career.”

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite Soccer Mommy songs HERE.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Soccer Mommy is one of the standout singer songwriters to
merge over the last half decade. She was born Sophia
Allison and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, where she started playing
guitar at six years old. Sophia started posting her songs
on band camp in twenty fifteen under the name soccer
Mommy the summer before moving to New York to study
music business at NYU. Two years later, she dropped out

(00:41):
after signing her first record deal with Fat Possum. Since then,
she has released four albums and toured with artists like
Vampire Weekend, Phoebe Bridgers, and Mitski. Soccer Mommy's latest album, Evergreen,
is a reflection on grief and loneliness, and was described
recently by Pitchfork as the most laid back and pastoral
music of her career. This is broken record liner notes

(01:06):
for the digital age. I'm justin Ritchman. Here's Bruce Alum
with Soccer Mommy.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
You've got name, You've got to face all these things.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
I don't know Send James, It's Slyes Sun. You've got
a name. You've been with me? Where Argon Hashi faces

(02:01):
on a no.

Speaker 5 (02:04):
Sles Bsnoyay, it's so makes.

Speaker 4 (02:13):
Sense based the lever.

Speaker 6 (02:20):
Fheard not the chance had ask her though, I'll ask you.

Speaker 4 (02:41):
I've got a name, You've got a big sho.

Speaker 7 (02:52):
Out of careny thing, and.

Speaker 8 (02:57):
I ne.

Speaker 4 (03:03):
N escape from.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Gibbert say linn if I moed.

Speaker 5 (03:23):
Bosing, It's makes sense. Bosnoid leve fhard not the chance.

Speaker 4 (03:38):
Side give th bosing. It can't forget boss, like.

Speaker 9 (03:50):
The things on itself, for had not the chance side
tell the thing.

Speaker 4 (04:04):
A sell the thing.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Okay, that's the first it's the first grade song. Well
actually it's the first song and the first grade song
off your new album. So, Sophie Allison soccer mommy, thank
you so much for coming in. Yeah, thanks for having me,
your total trooper. You come in, you pick up the guitar,
I need some reverb, and then you just sit down
and play. That was no muss, no fuss.

Speaker 8 (04:50):
It's always easier alone without it, without a band with you.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
Oh really, yeah, they're bringing you down.

Speaker 8 (04:55):
Well no, it's obviously I love playing with them, but
it's it's simpler. Yeah, you know, it's more straightforward. Everything
I write is just guitar and vocals. While I'm writing it,
So it's just like playing its simplest form.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Okay. For the guitar players out there who were saying, wow,
how'd she get that sound? What was your tuning?

Speaker 8 (05:13):
It's open D. It's da D F sharp ad.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Oh okay, so like dad, dad, but you turn down
the F sharp exactly? Do you write a lot in that?

Speaker 8 (05:22):
I do? Actually, I use it a lot. I mostly
use that open A, which is e A C sharp
eae and standard.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
When did you, cause you started playing very young, when
did the different tunings come in?

Speaker 8 (05:37):
That wasn't until like soccer mommy, pretty much until I
started writing songs for that. I think it was probably
about when I was like nineteen or twenty. I think
it's just a really good way if you've been playing
guitar for a long time and you kind of know
the neck a bit, you know chord shapes to take
all of that knowledge out of your hands a little

(05:58):
bit and to kind of erase that, like you can
get a little bit like formulaic. I think sometimes when
you know where to go next, and it definitely takes
that away.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
Does it take a lot of rethinking or is it
the sort of thing you find a chord, you find
a good sound and then you move it up and
down the neck a little bit.

Speaker 8 (06:19):
Yeah, it's kind of you have to rethink a lot,
but you do find things that I think in open
a for example, if I were to play like a
dominant seven chord just anywhere on the neck pretty much,
if I were to play that kind of shape, it
would be a minor chord, just randomly found that out.
But you just kind of you mess around until you

(06:40):
find something that sounds like a chord, sounds recognizable, and
then yeah, you can put it, put it anywhere, and
just have to maybe work around open strings sounding a
little funky and try to stay away from those if
it's not working.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
I've read somewhere your father was a neuroscientist.

Speaker 8 (06:58):
He is a neuroscientist.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
What does he study.

Speaker 8 (07:01):
I have no clue he does. He was, like, I know,
he was studying amphibians when I was younger. I think
he just runs like a lab for college students now,
so he's not doing anything crazy, you know, it's just
kind of lab work.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
I think he would have some he would have some
thoughts on open tunings and how you it sort of
rearranges your neural pathways all that.

Speaker 8 (07:26):
Yeah, I think it really does. It completely makes you
relearn that which you know, and like chord shapes, you know,
you have these new chord shapes that if you were
to blame in standard, it's like mush.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
How did that change your song writing?

Speaker 8 (07:43):
I think it just gave me more space to be inspired. Honestly.
I still write in standard too sometimes, but it's a
lot easier to come up with something new and fresh
and something that triggers something new in your brain, you know,
melodically or just kind of vibe wise, if you don't

(08:04):
have such a set idea of what you're going to
do and what you can.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
Do, does it become a little more almost subconscious what
you're doing.

Speaker 8 (08:13):
Yeah, you're just looking for sound, honestly, like when you're
doing an open tuning and you don't know chords, You're
just looking for something that sounds cool, and you're just
like putting your hands in places kind of guessing and
if something sounds weird and you can just move your
finger over a thread, move it up a thread, down
a fret, see if that changes anything. And then once

(08:35):
you get those, yeah, those kind of shapes, you can
get a little bit more normal with what you're expecting
to do and chord progressions and all that. But it
definitely is something that kind of unleashes this freedom in
the same way that people can write amazing music without
understanding an instrument at all. It's like you can kind
of get a freedom out.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Of it, and some people, if they learn an instrument too,
will feel a little constricted.

Speaker 10 (09:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
Yeah, but you've got a lot of and you always
have in your music. You've got a lot of really
sort of harmonic moves in your songs. Do you write,
is it the harmony come first and then the melody?

Speaker 8 (09:16):
It's always chords first. Yeah, it's always always guitar chords,
not necessarily the entire song written out, but I kind
of find a chord progression or something and start working
off of that with like lyrical and melodic ideas. Those
lyrics and melody usually kind of form together. The lyrics

(09:37):
maybe take a little longer. She tweaked a little bit,
but I try to make sure those are intertwined, because
I think that cadence and everything is really important.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
You have a I think it's in the song change.
I think you've got a nice I think you've got
a nice key change right at the end of the chorus,
which I can't I can't quite remember what the aggression was.

Speaker 8 (10:00):
I don't know what the key change goes. I wish
I could tell you, because it's in a crazy tuning,
so I have basically no idea what I'm playing. It's in.
It's like a Joni Mitchell tuning that I that I saw,
but it's I think it's dac fa fa D. I
think dak fad.

Speaker 4 (10:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (10:23):
That sounds like something definitely strange.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
It's a very deep holl you're going into if you're
doing Joni Mitchell tune. Yeah, yeah, what did you just
hear one of her songs and start looking them up?

Speaker 8 (10:32):
No? I think Actually my guitar player, Julian, who's my partner,
who had tuned one of the guitars in our house
to it.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
Oh, okay.

Speaker 8 (10:39):
Sometimes we'll just give me one and say try this
and if I can't. If I don't find something in
a minute, I'm like, I don't like this one. If
I find like a really pretty sounding chord, I'm like, ooh.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Interesting, You've also and I'm not I don't remember the song.
You've got a lot of boro chords and songs you
go to a lot of miners. When people that expect
a major one song, you've got a really nice walk
up from like the minor sixth, the flat six flat
seventh to the tonic, which is really unexpected. Songs are
full of you know, in an era where most songs

(11:13):
we hear have like four chords, Yeah, yours are always surprising.

Speaker 8 (11:18):
Yeah. I love chords and I love you know, surprising
changes that make you like kind of feel it. I
guess when it comes to a point in a song
and there's a strange chord and you're like, WHOA interesting.
I think that was something that used to be used
a lot more in particularly in pop music, Like even
when I was growing up. I think there's a lot

(11:39):
of really sneaky stuff going on in pop music. You
don't see it as much now, I don't think, but
I think you can still make things that are catchy
and you know, poppy, so to speak, and have those
kind of things start in there and it's kind of
like being sneakily kind of crazy in the middle of

(11:59):
a song that's right like pop.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
And you know, you give people a little like you said,
you got a jolt when you find those things, So
of course it gives the listeners that too.

Speaker 8 (12:11):
Yeah, it's I mean it feels good when you hear
people do that. I mean you look at like Nirvana
even for example, and you hear these kind of sometimes
slightly off chord progressions that are really satisfying with the
melodies and everything, and I think it inspires something a
little different, a little more exciting.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
Sometimes I hear quite a bit of Elliott Smith and
you're playing too, But I don't know if.

Speaker 8 (12:35):
That's I love Elliot Smith.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
Okay, yeah, so I'm not You're not going to stare
at me blankly.

Speaker 8 (12:40):
Like what, No, I love Elliott Smith?

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Okay, Yeah, I think a lot of the major mindor
borrowed chords he does that a lot. I hear that
in you, and that's Beatles, I guess ultimately. But yeah, okay,
we're really nerding out on chords, So maybe we should
back up. The new album is Evergreen. Tell me about
how it came about.

Speaker 8 (13:01):
Yeah, I mean, it's a long process writing an album.
I pretty much started right after the last album came out,
So summer twenty twenty two is when I really started
getting into it. Changes, which you brought up earlier, is
a little older. Actually, I wrote that during making the
last album and said this is not gonna fit and

(13:23):
kind of kept it for later.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
Now, are you the kind of writer who I'm sitting
down every day, you know, pencil, paper in hand, guitar
at the ready, to write for three hours.

Speaker 8 (13:33):
I'm really not. I don't actually usually write anything down.
I don't kind of log anything. If I'm gonna log it,
it's gonna be like a quick demo that I just
have kind of done, and that's that's done.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
You use your phone.

Speaker 8 (13:47):
Uh no, I'll usually I have like a tape machine,
like I have like a four track task am like
a porta studio that I'll use and I'll just put
one mic and ta yeah, oh and I'll do yep.
I make tapes of my demos.

Speaker 11 (14:03):
I like it.

Speaker 8 (14:04):
I think I'm a very scattered person. I put them
into the computer obviously after where. But I like having
knowing that there's just a pile of like physical tapes
of all my stuff that I could go back to
if I lost something or anything like that.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
But I didn't know you could even still buy those.

Speaker 4 (14:24):
Yeah, you can.

Speaker 8 (14:24):
You can buy cassettes. Yeah. No.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
I even the old task because it.

Speaker 8 (14:29):
Was oh yeah, no, there there, it was a used one.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
It's not new, Yeah, because famously that's what Springsteen did Nebraska.

Speaker 8 (14:36):
Yep, yeah, I'm from I mean, I'm from Nashville, so
there's a lot of that stuff floating around. I feel
like that's kind of something that a lot of people
had and nobody wants anymore in Nashville, so you can
you'll find a lot of those.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yeah, So what spurred the writing of this album.

Speaker 8 (14:54):
Most of the songs are about just a loss that
I had in my life and kind of going through
that process. They're not all about that, but there's a
lot of that in the record, and I think that
was really what kicks did you know? It's it's time
to write about something different. I think every album, even

(15:14):
if there's similarities, you know, you have all these themes
and these ideas that you're stuck on for a while,
and it takes time after the album is finished being
made to kind of get your head off of writing
more stuff that fits with this idea and move on
to something new, even sonically, like just kind of what

(15:36):
kind of vibe you're wanting? And em was the first
song that I wrote for this album, and I think
it really felt like fresh and new compared to what
I had been doing, and it was very clear to
me what I was going to be doing for the
next little bit of time.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
Was it a conscious thought, I've got to write about
this loss.

Speaker 8 (15:55):
No, Honestly, I don't think writing is ever conscious for me.
I think, you know, I sit around, I play guitar,
and I don't really like to trying to think of
how to the nicest word to put it, but I
just like, I don't want to sit around and shred
or learn other riffs or do stuff like that. I

(16:16):
don't really do that. I just sit around and I
play chords, and if I find something I like, I
start writing a song with it. And I think the
music inspires the you know, the theme of the song,
the ideas behind the song, you get from music itself.
You get a feeling and you can move off of that.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
And you mentioned the sound on this album, and for
people who haven't heard your previous album sometimes forever they should.
First of all, thanks, but it's a very lush album
with a lot of studio effects, a lot of production.
This one is is lush, but in a different way.
It's got beautiful string arrangements, and I don't know how

(16:57):
much you had to do with those particularly, but it
feels a little more austere, a little more direct maybe
than the previous album. What was the feeling you wanted
from the record?

Speaker 8 (17:09):
I wanted that, honestly. I wanted it to feel direct.
I think it being something really personal. I found that
the last album was not unpersonal, but it wasn't as
personal as some of my work has been in the past.
And writing this album just felt like when I was
I don't know, seventeen and writing songs to put on

(17:30):
band camp, and it was very tender and intimate in
a way that was a little bit uncomfortable. Like at
that point in time, I didn't really want to share
music with people. I knew I might post it on Twitter,
but I was not gonna publicize it.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
This is when you were seventeen.

Speaker 8 (17:45):
Yeah, when I was first starting like soccer mommy stuff
and posting on band camp, it was very it was
kind of secretive and private because it felt really personal.
And it felt like that again, you know, it felt
really really straightforward and personal, and the songs themselves, I
just wanted it to be like that at the center,

(18:06):
that really basic stripped back version like what I just played.
I wanted that to be at the core of everything
for every song, and there to be you know, accompaniment
around it to help it blossom a bit. But I
wanted to feel, yeah, just like light and airy and
remind me of music that makes me feel like lifted

(18:27):
and you know, feel emotional, but like light, like I'm
riding the wind a little bit, which for me is
like Emmy Lou Harris, Joni Mitchell, like that kind of
stuff I listen to all the time when I'm feeling
that way, or like Jankly like pop stuff that really
just kind of you can feel it it feels so light.

(18:51):
So the strings were part of that idea. I did
not arrange the strings. The person who played the strings
arranged the shrings and did an amazing job off of
like notes. You know, yeah, I really I wanted strings
and flute in particular on the record really really bad,
and I was very specific about that because I think

(19:11):
it's part of what pulled it together sonically. I think
if there had been since or like melotrons and things
like that, it would have just not had the same
feeling to it. It really needed to be that like
organic kind of sound that's a little bit imperfect. And
Ben the producer found a flute player and found Raven

(19:33):
who did the strings, who's in the UK, and he's amazing.

Speaker 9 (19:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
There, and there's very you know, particularly Evergreen, which is
the last song, has a very different string sound. I'm
not sure it's even a solo string, but it's violin.
But it's it's got really lovely textures throughout.

Speaker 8 (19:53):
Yeah, it's a haunting. I think we had mentioned like
Johnny Greenwood type of thing, and he really took to it.
It just sounds, you know, a little eerie, a little haunting.
Those kind of stretches between chords, I think really bring
it to life.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
We'll be right back with more from Soccer Mommy after
the break. We're back with Soccer Mommy.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
So let's go back before you press send on band
camp or upload. I guess you're born in Switzerland, right,
but you grew up Nashville, Nashville, okay, and your was
your family musical?

Speaker 8 (20:35):
You know, My parents are not super musical. My dad
does play guitars as like a hobby. My grandma was
a pianist, but I didn't really know her, so I
definitely didn't get it from family, you know, forcing me
to do it or anything. I was kind of the
first one in the family when I was really young
to be like, I want to play music, and then

(20:57):
all my siblings kind of did too.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
Are you where are you in the family order?

Speaker 8 (21:01):
I'm middle, I have an older sister and I have
a younger brother.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
Okay, And then what was there a particular song or
memory you have of music growing up that piqued your interest?

Speaker 8 (21:14):
Yeah, I don't. I don't even know what started it,
to be honest, I know that the first music that
I was listening to was like my dad's CD collection,
which was, like, we all really liked The Who and Springsteen,
so he had CDs of that, like greatest Hits that
we would listen to a lot. And I always really
loved Springsteen. I still do love Springsteen.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
Do you love Springsteen from your music?

Speaker 9 (21:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (21:37):
I know it's not it's not exactly an obvious pull,
but I think he's just such an amazing songwriter. Honestly,
I think he for something that's kind of like macho, like,
kind of like greaser manly energy. A lot of the time,
his lyrics can be so beautiful. I think they paint
such vivid pictures in my mind of like stuff that

(22:01):
just reflects I think American you know, small town not
even small town, but just not big city type of life,
like just certain like normalcies that really, you know, paint
a beautiful picture.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
Was there a song in particular that that you liked
of his?

Speaker 8 (22:20):
I've always loved I'm on Fire. When I was younger,
I loved thunder Road. I still love that one. I
think the entire like opening lyrical part of that song
is absolutely amazing. But yeah, it was a lot of hits,
so it was like the hit boring in the USA,
you know, hearing that kind of stuff. Hungry Heart was great,

(22:41):
but but yeah, I always loved that kind of stuff.
I think that was the first thing that really made
me love music that in like early two thousand's pop
from I was like five or six years old, so
that kind of stuff was really big.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
And what was what was your first instrument?

Speaker 8 (22:58):
Guitar?

Speaker 1 (22:59):
It was okay, yeah, And did you take lessons or
did you just sit down with one?

Speaker 8 (23:03):
One day I sat started with me sitting down with one.
I had gone to a like charity concert for my
brother's preschool and gotten a toy guitar, and I played
that a lot. It sounded awful, and after enough time
my parents were like, okay, let's get like, you know,
a little baby who's to guitar? And I just loved it.

(23:26):
So I took lessons for a lot of my life,
you know, just casually took guitar lessons and just always
really liked it. But particularly for the songwriting. I liked
writing songs on it more than anything.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
What were your first songs like?

Speaker 8 (23:44):
My first song was called what the heck Is a Cowgirl?
And it was, you know, pretty much just a chorus
and me shrumming a open guitar with no chords basically,
but it was mostly nonsense, I would say. I by
the time I was like, I guess, like seven or eight,

(24:07):
I started playing with one of my friends who lived nearby,
like across the street and was a drummer, and we
were both very very young, but we would play songs
together that were kind of like pop rock.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
I guess was there a moment where you thought, I
think this is more I want to do something, This
could be my life.

Speaker 8 (24:28):
I always wanted to do it. I think I can't
remember a time where I didn't want to make music
for a living. But I think I gave it up
like the dream a little bit when I was probably
like maybe like sixteen. I think I just kind of
reached a point where I was like, what are the
odds of this just becoming like a career for me?

(24:49):
I just like to play music, and I just got
a little bit realistic about it and decided, you know,
I'm not going to go to college for music. I'm
not going to do that. I'm just gonna go for
a normal thing. And honestly, it wasn't depressing as it sounds, but.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
You're making it sound pretty.

Speaker 8 (25:09):
I think it was just it was just like I
can play music for the rest of my life, no
matter what. Like I can do this for myself regardless.
And around the time that I was graduating from high school,
I particularly was like, I'm going to start recording my
songs in a really basic way and putting them on
band camp just for me, just for fun, because it's

(25:31):
something I like doing, it's something I want to work at.
And there was no expectation of, you know, it becoming
what it eventually did. But I think that was good.
I didn't. I think it can be very defeating if
you if you really want to do something and you
really care about you know, music, and you're like dying
to do it for your life, and you get old enough,

(25:51):
we get to reach a point where you say, this
is not going to be more than, you know, just
a hobby and something that I love doing. It's I'm
gonna have to work at something else.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
You thought you'd get the disappointment out of the way early, Yeah, like.

Speaker 8 (26:05):
Crush it before. Like I'm not gonna like spend years
of my life hoping crush it. Crush it early, you know,
and then if it happens great, it doesn't mean you
have to stop. I think that you know, being realistic
about it. I think it is to an extent. I think,
you know, being real about your chances at success. It's

(26:30):
not about whether you're good it's something it's not. It's
just about if something you have to say is of
the moment, honestly, and it's it's a little bit of
luck and it's a lot of hard work. You can
do all that hard work and still be saying, you know,
I need to get a job.

Speaker 4 (26:47):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
But then what what was the impulse to put stuff
up on band camp?

Speaker 8 (26:52):
I think it was just for fun. Honestly, I got
like a back to the task that point. I was
not in a band. I've never really been in a
band besides my very young two piece childhood band. But
I just wanted to, you know, I was writing songs
and I got for I think for Christmas or something.

(27:13):
My dad gave me one of the Porta Studio task
ams that is digital, which makes it really easy to
transfer to using the tape one because they're very similar,
but it's a digital one, which those are really great.
They have like internal mics and them, so you can
just record with it onto there and go for it.
You can sing into the into the thing, you can

(27:35):
pop it in front.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Of your You could have done all that just with
garage band though, or yeah you could.

Speaker 8 (27:40):
But I like working on not a computer. I don't
really like. I don't know why something about the computer.
There's too many options of things to do to something.
I'm like, let's just get the raw sound sounding pretty,
you know, pretty good. Let's see if we can make
it away that we like to hear it and deal
with it, because I think I get I get crazy

(28:02):
if I start pulling up eques and all this stuff.
I start losing my mind.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
See it's nice. Having scarcity is good.

Speaker 8 (28:09):
Yeah, I think so. I mean at the time, I
just wanted to get the songs in a place where
somebody could listen to them, not in this you know,
produced type of space. I just wanted to do something
really simple, pop them up and kind of have them
for me, like, you know, these songs are more than
just something I played for a while and then never

(28:30):
thought of again after a couple of years.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
How many tracks would be on those early.

Speaker 8 (28:36):
I'd usually pop like four or five onto a drop,
so to speak. I deleted a lot of them at
this point, but I kept up some of the stuff
where I was like a little bit more, had been
doing it a little more and was a little more
proud of it, and kind of felt like, oh, I'm
going to put up like something that feels more like

(28:58):
an EP or something rather than just throwing things up
really quick, because I would turn it around. I'd record something,
you know, put it into the computer and just throw
it on the internet, just because I was like excited
about it, I guess. But yeah, once people were listening,
I was like, let's get that old stuff hid in
a way.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
The early years you only have early years. Of course
you're twenty six, so twenty seven.

Speaker 8 (29:24):
Well getting up there.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
Yeah, you're early. You're over it now.

Speaker 6 (29:29):
You know.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
One of the great things about listening to all your music,
but this record particularly, is you know, there are those
writers who the guitar is a vehicle for their songs.
Like I need to say something, guitar or a piano
is the way to do it. And then there are
people who just like guitar sounds and who the sound
of it kind of drives them. And a lot of

(29:51):
the bands I grew up listening to, like, particularly Well
Ram the Smiths particularly, fall into that category. They just
they clearly just love the sound of a guitar and
that's what drives the sort of songs. When did you
get your first electric I think I.

Speaker 8 (30:08):
Was even or eight. I got one of those baby
strats you may have seen. I had a baby strat,
And yeah, honestly, I prefer electric in the long run.
I write with acoustic though usually just because you know,
I'm just sitting there playing guitar. It's easier to hear
things with an acoustic but I do, just I do

(30:29):
love the sounds. I think that if you're going to
go in the studio and record something. Why not be
particular about everything, every sound you're making, everything that you're recording,
and you can make something simple and also put a
lot of thought and effort into the sounds of everything.
And that's like you only get to do that every
couple of years, go in and record, Like you got

(30:50):
to make the most of it.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
Now, are you? Are you the kind that that fiddles
with you have to have absolutely the right pedal and
this isn't quite right you know that has all the
kind of paraphernalia that goes with it.

Speaker 8 (31:04):
Oh yeah, definitely. I think that you've got to get
into that kind of stuff really, Like, you know, there
there are some sounds that, like even on this album,
for example, like electric guitar sounds. A lot of my
rhythm tracks are very simple. It's just like through a
old like twin amp and it's got some reverb on it.

(31:24):
But when you're getting down to you know, more out
front like riffs and lines and you know, textures and
all this kind of stuff, you've got to take your
time on it because you're never just gonna pop on
your pedal and get something that's the most inspiring thing
in the world. You have to keep changing things and
messing with things and make sure you're throughout an album

(31:47):
that you have an idea for how you want everything
to sound. But you also have to change things song
to song. You can't just you know, set up all
the settings and record something. Otherwise it's every song is
gonna have the same sound to it.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
Is there anything new you used on this album that
you found particularly.

Speaker 8 (32:05):
Exciting, Yeah, there was a lot of There's a lot
of news. It was a new studio, so all of
the like outboard gear is basically new. We did a
lot of stuff with the Aged three thousand. I'm pretty
sure we used a lot of stuff off of that.
I was using a von Gone pedal called Ultra Shear

(32:26):
a lot just for really simple like REAVERB you know,
vibrato type sounds. That's really nice. It sounds very spring
like and it's really pretty. So was that there was
a lot of H nine's in the studio that were happening.
So there's a lot of that, a lot of H
nine chorus going on between everybody, but mostly Julian I

(32:51):
would say.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
Hello, you didn't you play all? You played all the
guitars on this record, not all of them.

Speaker 8 (32:57):
There's there's the guys around that too. Julian and Rodrigo
has a little bit of he's he's doing some guitar
and twelve string is usually Rodrigo because I hate twelve string.
It's like the most frustrating instrument in the entire world.
So he did a lot of the twelve string.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
Do you play a twelve string electric?

Speaker 5 (33:18):
Now?

Speaker 8 (33:19):
I just think it's it's so annoying, it's so unbelievably annoyed.
They sound really cool, but I would rather have somebody
else have to deal with it than me. Just so
much tuning and my I feel like my ear gets
really sensitive at a certain point if I'm trying to
mess around with something that much. So, yeah, he's playing
some twelve string. Julian's playing a lot of like chorus

(33:42):
y guitar lines because we do some some live taking.
You know, there's a mixture of live takes and getting
kind of drums and bass down and building on top
of that, and a lot of pre production too. That
was kind of meshing in by the end and coming
in and saying this is here, We're gonna get rid

(34:02):
of this. We're going to get rid of that, you know,
kind of moving stuff around.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
Do you like that process?

Speaker 9 (34:07):
I do.

Speaker 8 (34:07):
I love it. I love being able to make something
really exciting. I never do it at home. I never
do it on my own, but it's like so much
fun to be able to make something sound just like
exactly how you would want it to sound, and build
dynamics and all that kind of stuff. I think it's
really important.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
After this last break, we'll be back with the rest
of Bruce Helm's conversation with Soccer Mommy. We're back with
Soccer Mommy.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
This is terrible to admit, but sometimes, you know, I'll
go on YouTube and I'll watch guys talking about this
pedal or that pedal and the sounds they get out
of this, and honestly, everything sounds the same to me.
That's a terrible thing to admit. I appreciate on records
it's going to sound different, but often the sounds just
seem the difference to seem minuscule to me, And I
think if that were me, i'd be like, I don't

(34:59):
have time for this.

Speaker 8 (35:01):
Yeah, there's a lot of stuff that does similar things,
I think for sure, but you can for you. I
think it's I just think with any pedal, especially if
you're gonna like watch a video or watch someone else
use it, you have to use it yourself and see
how you like it, because I think there's a lot
of you know, there's always a lot of editing you
can do on the pedal to find different ideas. And

(35:23):
I think something that's fun in the studio too is
being able to mess with a lot of pedals that
you would never or at least I would never be
using live. If you're playing like rhythm guitar chords and stuff,
you're not going to be using certain things that you
can then get really get weird with when you're in
the studio. I think, like my favorite weird pedal is

(35:45):
the microcosm by what are they called Hologram. Hologram has
some great stuff.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
Did you use that on this album?

Speaker 4 (35:53):
I did.

Speaker 8 (35:54):
I didn't use it on guitar, I don't think from
my memory. I used it with a vocal mic, putting
it into the pedal, and it's like it kind of
makes loops, but they're like weird, very affected loops that
have you know, there's different options and different you know,
things that you can parameters, you can mess with, but

(36:15):
it's really great for making weird vocal loops, like you
can sing into it and you can turn the like
you know, the thing all the way up wet and
just have no none of the dry signal really still
in there and get these weird like echoed like vocal
like humming sounds that kind of make ambient textures.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
Where did you use that on the on this record?

Speaker 8 (36:36):
It's un lost. It's just like a ambiance in the
entire background where I like, I'm doing some humming that
kind of, you know, makes these like ghostly kind of sounds,
and then adding like whistling for sounds like birds a
little bit on the loops and stuff like that. And

(36:56):
I think on changes too, there's a there's a lot
of that that kind of makes this like dreamy, atmospheric
type of sound. I think that's the only two where
it's really coming out.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
So I do want to talk about a couple of
the songs Driver, which starts with the great line I'm
a five foot four engine waiting to move. Tell me
about that song. It's got a great, very interesting melody,
big jumps in that for just like a major seventh,
I think, or something big vocal jumps, So tell me

(37:30):
about that song.

Speaker 8 (37:31):
Yeah, that one is That's one of the ones that
is not kind of in the context of I guess
the entire album, but it's just like kind of a
fun one for me. I think I'm very spacey and
very all over the place a lot of the time.
And my partner is very grounding and you know, not
really as much like that, but really puts up with

(37:51):
it and tries to keep me on track with certain things.
And I think that's a really beautiful thing, and I
wanted to make it, you know, take one of these examples,
like driving. I can't count how many times I've been
driving and completely started going towards something that is not
where I'm going and realize literally, yeah, literally when I'm

(38:12):
driving driving down the road and pass my turn way
back and I don't even know where my brain has
decided we're going now, and kind of having someone in
the car to say, hey, which what root are you
taking right now? You know, which where are we going?
And being able to be brought back a little bit.
It's it's like, you know, such a goofy little little piece,

(38:33):
but it's I think it really pulls that that feeling
of like having someone with you to ground you and
you know, be that other half a little bit.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
Hello. Arguably you're doing in the car just what you
do with the with the guitar, which is your messinger.
You're just just just wandering in a close state. Yeah, well,
isn't that true?

Speaker 8 (38:53):
Pretty much? I do think so. I think it's like
you're just looking for just going in whatever direction it
takes you and looking for something exciting.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
And some sunny day talk about that one.

Speaker 8 (39:06):
Yeah, Actually, I wasn't sure if I was going to
bring that one into the studio, which seems crazy to
me now because I love how it turned out. But
that was one of the first songs we worked on
in the studio when we did like pre production, and
it really just kind of quickly took off and it
was so obvious where it was going to go, and

(39:28):
you know where it was going to lead In response
to the rest of the album. I think it's really
important to find those sonic ideas early on and then
be able to spread them across the album and kind
of figure out what you're wanting to do and do it.
And that was really instrumental I think for me personally,
it really has that lightness and that airiness, and it's

(39:50):
a little bit dreamy and it's soft, but it's also
kind of like it's like dreamy and when you look
at like a dream filter and there's a lot of
light and it's kind of like hazy but like blinding
a little bit. And Yeah, it was really exciting for
me with that song because I think that I was
unsure of how it would work with how many parts

(40:11):
there are. There's a lot of chords going on, and
there's a lot of sections that are different from each other. Yeah,
and I think sometimes blending those together can be difficult
in a studio setting, even if you can sit and
play it, going from part to part and making each
one feel special and interesting can be hard. But it

(40:31):
was seamless, was there.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
Every temptation will take out this one, idea, will take
out the middle eight will.

Speaker 8 (40:40):
No, no, I never will compromise.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
I see.

Speaker 8 (40:44):
There are certain things I would you know, in a
studio setting with a song edits that can be made, like,
you know, let's shorten this part. It's half this part
blah blah blah. But I think with a song like that,
every section it's so important and you can't cut it
in half really they're just like the weight that they're

(41:04):
laid out. It just wouldn't make sense, I think in
my brain at least to chop anything down. It like
all goes into the flow of everything.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
Was that a song you wrote in bits and pieces
as well and then joined or did you write it
as a coherent whole.

Speaker 6 (41:21):
No.

Speaker 8 (41:22):
I wrote it as a whole, And I remember thinking
this is like I could hear it in my head
kind of what I was going to want out of it.
But I was trying to imagine if it was going
to be something that would feel really clunky. But I
ended up taking it in because I really liked it
and found it exciting. I'm always excited by a song.

(41:43):
And it has lots of different chord changes and turnarounds
that kind of bring everything from one place to another
and blend it in that kind of way.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
Yeah, it's got a very nice descending figure in the
in the chorus.

Speaker 8 (41:57):
Yeah, that song.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
But really, and you're right, it stretched out so when
it comes it's very very satisfying.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:03):
And then what's the song about.

Speaker 8 (42:06):
It's just kind of about feeling, you know, all of
this darkness surrounding the sadness and feeling kind of like
you're drowning in it a little bit and looking around
and not seeing I guess, the hope in the way out,
but clinging to the idea of positivity. I guess, like
having this shred of positivity and being like, you know,

(42:28):
this is not all there is, this is not all
there will ever be, and I know that it just
doesn't feel like it in the moment.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
Yeah, you've got to you keep saying how you want
to lightness in this record, because there's a lot of
references to light in your lyrics, and that one is
the trick of the Light Won't Keep Me Down. I
thought it was a very nice light keep me warm.
Pardon me, I can't read my own writing. Trick of
the Light won't keep Me warm? What image did that?

(42:55):
How did that come.

Speaker 8 (42:57):
For me? It was like the image of laying in bed,
you know, tired, worn down, no motivation to do anything,
and seeing like shadows and tricks tricks of the light,
like shapes kind of just stretched out on the ceiling
from lamps and the light outside and all this kind
of stuff, and kind of letting your imagination run free

(43:20):
a little bit, or like even just a feeling of
I think a lot of us have experienced, you know,
being at night and thinking you see a shadow in
the corner and it's scaring you. But that kind of
feeling but almost like in a you know, you can
convince yourself that something is something else even if you

(43:41):
know it's not. It's like a bit of a trick
on your brain.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
Yeah. I don't know if you did, if you grew
up in a house with a lot of trees around,
but that's always when I was growing up, we had
a lot of window, we had a lot of trees,
and so yeah, having the trees always sway in the breeze,
it just creates this effect inside you just think there's
always something there.

Speaker 8 (44:03):
Yeah, it just creates a feeling of you're not alone.
And I feel that a lot of the time. Like
I'm not a religious person, but I do sometimes you
can just feel like energy sometimes around you, I think,
and especially if you lose someone, I think it can
be comforting to feel their energy still in places or

(44:27):
in actions things you do. Feeling that the kind of
ghost of that it's not haunting in a bad way.
It's like a positive feeling of you know, even if
somebody is gone, there's always parts of people left around
the world that just kind of remind you of a

(44:47):
certain person. You can feel that again.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
Very different song is Dreaming of Falling, which seems a
little more suicidal.

Speaker 8 (44:56):
Yeah, it's a little it's a little more off the edge.
I think I actually had COVID when I wrote that song,
and I was very sick, and I think that added
a sense of impending doom to the situation. But yeah,
it really was a moment of like, I don't care,
there is no looking forward, and there is, you know,

(45:18):
being stuck in this place of being needing to move forward,
needing to move on with your life, and not even
just needing to you are because there's no other possibility,
and also clinging to the past, which you can never
go back to you and even if you could, it
would it wouldn't be, you know, there anymore waiting for you.

(45:41):
So it's yeah, that kind of stuck, purgatory feeling of
being stuck in between two things and hating change. But
also there's no choice in taking the change or not
taking it. It's no option.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
It also feels a little bit like wanting to end.

Speaker 8 (45:56):
It all though no, definitely it's got this horrible feeling
of the rest of life is less in a sense,
which I think is something that I've always struggled with.
I think with losing things or losing bits from the past,
and even simple stuff like growing up and moving on

(46:18):
from people in a not you know, not difficult way,
but just naturally and looking back and seeing that you
don't have these things anymore and that your life is
kind of ever changing, and it's like, I think, with
a situation like that, it can feel very much like
you're just on a new path now in life and

(46:38):
you have to do it and there's no choices, and
you know, it's depressing. It's a depressing idea to not
have the uh, I guess control over over your life
a little bit and over changes and over making decisions
and letting those things happen slowly and naturally. I think
when there's usually change in your life, it fades and

(47:01):
it moves and you don't even realize when it's happened.
And in as such a situation like that, it's like
sudden and you're just cut off from where you were
and you're changed as a person, but you can't there's
no going back to the old person you were, and
there's also you know, you don't really want to let

(47:21):
go of.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
It either, but you see someone who you know. You've
put out a lot of demos, live records, You've put
out a new album every two years, which these days
is a healthy pace. You went to school in New York.
We didn't talk about that. You went to NYU for
a couple of years and studied music business, and you

(47:44):
seem to make a lot of like did your parents
help you with contracts and lawyers or because you you know,
you were signed very early, someone else would look at
you and say, here's a person who really, you know,
took control of the situation at a very young age.

Speaker 4 (48:05):
Yeah, I think.

Speaker 8 (48:05):
I think honestly, I wasn't very I didn't realize what
I was getting into. I think when I started, when
I first did a record deal with Fat Bossom, I
didn't really realize that it was going to be a career.
I was still thinking I took time off from school,
I didn't even drop out. I was thinking, I'm going
to go back, I'm just going to go do a
fun tour. It's going to be great. I was thinking

(48:28):
it was gonna be very different than what it ended
up being. I'm glad it ended up being what it was,
but I was not. I was not expecting it and
I was not prepared for it. I did. When I
first signed my deal with contract, it was a very
simple deal. I didn't have a lot of pages and
legal language for you yeah, basically train over your soul.

(48:52):
I had my dad found like a friend of a friend,
a friend who's a lawyer, who like looked over it
for like fifteen minutes. I was like, yeah, this is all,
you know, normal, Like it's this is all what it means.
It's pretty pretty normal for something like this, and I
signed it and went for it. It was a short deal.

Speaker 4 (49:11):
It was only.

Speaker 8 (49:13):
One record really. It was like a collection thing that
I did called Collection of band Camp Songs. We recorded
with a little, very very little money into it, and
then my first album Clean. So it was very short
deal and I was out of it really quick, free
to go, you know, do whatever I wanted. At that point,
I had my own lawyer when I signed my next deal,

(49:35):
so I didn't have to I didn't have to sign much.
I didn't I didn't need a lot of help in
that department. I think what made me be kind of
level headed about things. Is that I was always like
this is I was still in the headspace of this
is not like your dream is not coming true a
little bit. You know, it's like you're gonna get to tour.

(49:57):
That's great. Like only only focus on things that are definites,
I guess, and rather than getting lost in what could
be or what someone could offer you. I think because
a lot of people signed to labels that tell them
all these things they can do for them and give
them these huge dreams and ideas of what they could

(50:17):
be that are like far beyond their reach at the
current moment. You know, it's like we could turn you
into this a little bit. And I think getting in
over your head is always a bad idea. I think
because you just you are the one who's going to
do everything for yourself at the end of the day.
Like if you get big, it's because you worked really

(50:38):
hard at writing music and you wrote a song that
was great and then there was all the help of
the press and all of that. But you have to
be driving it, I think, and if you're not, no
label can take you and just like poof turn you
into like a star or something. It's not like a
fairy tale. You still have to work at things and

(50:59):
you have to grind, and that's really how you get somewhere.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
Did you hear promises like that from labels?

Speaker 8 (51:07):
Yeah, I definitely definitely talk labels before where it was
like a lot of big ideas. I think at the
time with fat Posum, it was not big ideas. It
was like, we want to do this in this and
it was like great small team, you know. They they
were dedicated to trying to like make my stuff take off.
But there weren't any crazy promises and I didn't have

(51:31):
crazy ideas in my head. I was just like, I'll
give one hundred and ten percent of anything I have
to doing this and if it takes me somewhere, great.
If it doesn't, I'm never gonna regret it. I'm just gonna,
you know, see things for how they are a little
bit that not everybody makes it.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
Are you more accepting of the idea now?

Speaker 8 (51:52):
Now? I accept it's my career. I do not have
to do another job currently.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
Do you think you'll ever have to do another job
or you think you'll be able to make music?

Speaker 8 (52:01):
I think about that all the time. I wouldn't be
surprised if I did I just don't. I don't think
I have what it takes to be like someone who's
shooting for like the very very very top. I used
to think that. I just don't think I actually want that. Now,

(52:22):
you know, you can want to be as successful as
possible with your music and be ambitious about music and
not care about the industry and all that kind of stuff,
and it can be very damaging to people. I think, so,
I don't think I would necessarily ever be in a
place where I'm like getting number ones top of the charts,

(52:44):
like doing all this kind of stuff. I wouldn't necessarily
say no to it, but I wouldn't want to fight
for it anymore. And I do think about when I'm fifty,
what will I be doing. So I save my money
and release some of it and just try to, I
don't know, keep getting to do what I want to do,

(53:05):
but not pushing myself into a place where it's not
fun anymore, and not you know what I want to
be doing. I'm making compromises. I don't think you should
ever compromise what you want to make in art. I
think if you do your like starting the Fall, you're
like gonna lose if you start changing yourself for what
other people want or for what the world thinks they want.

(53:27):
I think you're just going to be losing.

Speaker 1 (53:30):
You know, you toured with Liz Fair, and I don't
know how much time you spent with her.

Speaker 8 (53:36):
Yeah, a little bit.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
But she is a person who kind of, like you,
had these little tapes that kind of just exploded, and
she became this very powerful symbol for people. And then
a couple albums in her record label said write with
these other people, and she, like you didn't write with
other people. She wrote by herself, and she got eviscerated

(53:58):
for it.

Speaker 8 (53:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
My old employer of The New York Times wrote a
piece that was just made it seem like she, I
don't know, betrayed the nation or something, Yeah, betrayed her fans.
Did you ever talk to her about like her career
trajectory and what people expected of her.

Speaker 4 (54:16):
No, I didn't.

Speaker 8 (54:16):
I didn't really, but I obviously know a bit about
her career, and I think there there is a beauty
to like kind of where she's at in life too.
You know, she's still making records, and I feel like
she's just making them for herself. She's doing what she
wants to do, and that's where I want to be
when i'm you know, when I'm fifty, I want to

(54:38):
be making what I want to make and being able
to literally live off of it. I don't want to,
you know, I don't need to be like this huge
star for my life. I don't think that's not something
that I think is worth giving up your happiness. And
you do lose that. I think if you try too

(55:00):
hard to please other people, and you try too hard
to do things that are not true to yourself, you
lose like you're happy meaness and you end up in
a place where you just aren't happy.

Speaker 1 (55:11):
So you don't want to buy Michael Jackson's old ranch
or no anything like that.

Speaker 8 (55:15):
I mean, hey, if I get there, i'd I'd love
to buy myself a big ranch or buy myself you know,
like something. I have no problem with it. I just
think you have to be very true to what you
want to do, and it's okay to not be comfortable
with all of the parts of the the industry. I
think we really love as a like society. Everybody loves

(55:38):
to look at people like even like Chapel Roone. I
feel like it's been talking about it a lot. But
and you look at these people talking about it and
you're like, that's so great that they're saying something that's
so great. But people still want the same things from you,
and they're still going to ask for the same things.
And if you say no to doing certain things or

(55:58):
to you know, being involved in certain parts of the world,
if you pass on things, it does hurt your career,
it doesn't help it. But it's a balance of like,
just because this is how the world is and the
industry is, it doesn't mean you have to decide you're
willing to do it. You still have choice.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
Yeah, but you know it occurs to me. If you
grew up in Detroit in the sixties and we're talking
this way, I would say, well, did you listen to
Marvin Gaye in Motown and you grew up in Nashville
in early two thousands, Taylor Swift must have been everywhere.

Speaker 8 (56:35):
Yeah, she was.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
Were you a fan growing up?

Speaker 9 (56:38):
I was?

Speaker 8 (56:38):
I was a fan growing up. I was a fan
when her first album came out. I remember my dad
gave me that on his iPod video that's the time period,
just to set the same for everybody. And I loved
that album and then I loved like when Fearless was
coming out, I loved some of that, but I was
also like kind of a I was a tomboy and

(56:59):
I kind of I think for a lot of what
was middle school for me, I was a bit like
I don't like music like that, like like I'm cooler
than that a little bit, and which was stupid because
I love it. And by the times in high school
I was like, no, I love this, this is great.
So I am a Taylor Scheff fan.

Speaker 1 (57:18):
Have you ever met her?

Speaker 4 (57:21):
Yes?

Speaker 8 (57:21):
Actually I met her one time at it was not
through this, It was not through music world. It was
I was in high school. I went to a performing
arts high school and they got some of the guitar
students to come take a photo off at the opening
of her like learning center at the Country Music Hall
of Fame, And so we took a photo me and

(57:45):
a couple other students with her.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
Were you holding your guitars or no, We're just.

Speaker 8 (57:49):
It's just like students music students.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
Standing there local. Yeah, Okay. Is she the kind of
star and not every start is? Is she the kind
of star that makes people want to pick up a
guitar and do it themselves.

Speaker 8 (58:04):
Yeah, I think so when I was young, I think definitely.
I can't speak to it now always much because I'm
in a different place in my life and I don't
know if I can speak to that kind of inspiration.
But when I was younger, I think definitely seeing someone
like her, like when her first album came out, even
who's writing her songs and is sitting there playing guitar

(58:25):
and singing and it's just a normal girl. Really, it
was very inspirational and the songs really spoke to I
think a lot of young girls like my age. I
think it was speaking to everybody. And they're just also
super catchy, super poppy, like kind of immaculate songs they have.

(58:47):
They have a lot of thought behind them, you know,
they're not just something that someone wrote really quickly and
popped out. So yeah, I think it was definitely really important.
I don't think that there was a lot of that
going on where it was an artist that felt like
they were writing their music and not like they were
just a pop star that was getting thrown songs a
little bit and kind of doing that, which there's nothing

(59:09):
with that either, But I think it was very inspirational
at the time.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
Now, you've never written with anyone else, Is that right?

Speaker 8 (59:15):
Yeah, I haven't because that's.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
A big part of sort of the Nashville culture. You
phone someone and at ten o'clock you meet and you
write for two hours. Have you have you ever been
asked to do that by label or.

Speaker 8 (59:29):
I haven't been asked by label. I've been asked by
people if I want to write with them, and it's
I don't. I just can't imagine who could make me
want to write with them, Like, I can't imagine what
level of like idle it would have to be for
me to want to do that. I just I think
writing for me is very personal and it's very like private,

(59:51):
and I would feel really uncomfortable. I've like had friends
when I was in high school They're like, let's write
a song together, and would like try to do it,
and I would just be like checked out. I just can't.
I can't work like that. I don't know. It feels
very awkward, and you know, just I don't want to

(01:00:11):
compromise with anyone. If I'm working on a song, I'm
working on making something I want to make. I don't
want to compromise. I don't want to work with somebody else.
I don't want their idea in there if I don't
like it. So yeah, I don't know. I get why
some people do it. It makes a lot of good music,
but I just I can't.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
No, you say it's so private what you do? Is
it hard then presenting your stuff to your band?

Speaker 8 (01:00:38):
No, Honestly, by the time that the band hears the songs,
they've been done for a while, like they've been demoed
for like a minute, I think, and it gives you
time to decide whether you're asshirt on it. I think
when you're writing, it's such a private process because you're
making mistakes. You're thinking of an idea and saying, oh,

(01:01:01):
I hate that. I think that's embarrassing that I even
thought of that. You know, I don't. I don't like
that idea, scrap it. And I think if you're writing
with someone else, it'd feel very vulnerable to make those
kind of mistakes and have things to say that aren't good,
because that's what you know in writing. You're not going

(01:01:22):
to just write everything beautifully and great on the first try.
And it's weird to share someone with someone like the
draft process.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
I think, although you know for a lot of people
that feeling of vulnerability stops them from writing altogether. Yeah,
have you ever had trouble writing?

Speaker 8 (01:01:41):
No? I think I've just been doing it so long.
It's thoughtless. Honestly. You know, when I sit down to
write a song, I'm not even thinking necessarily that I'm
going to write a song. It's just going to come,
or it's not going to come. But I do think
that it's stopped me from sharing my songwriting for a
long time, and it stopped me from pursuing that kind

(01:02:04):
of you know, you see people, even when I was
in high schoo people recording their songs and like making
a CD and printing it out and selling it and
like publicizing it. And I never wanted to do that
because it was embarrassing to write a song. You know,
you say a bunch of stuff, and if you're gonna

(01:02:25):
be honest, it's like really a peek into your mind
a bit, and if somebody doesn't like it, it can
be so embarrassing. Making art is like one of the
most embarrassing things that you could ever do, I think.
But that's why it can be so you know, satisfying
and can really break down a lot of walls.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
Well, at the risk of embarrassing you. The line and
dreaming of falling that really stuck out for me was
seeing the light is an awful trick when I've been
going when I keep going down. So what was what
prompted that?

Speaker 8 (01:02:58):
I think it's kind of a flip from a lot
of other moments on the record where there's like this
idea of trying to be positive and be not even hopeful,
but just cling to these beautiful things, you know, when
you're feeling all this sadness, realizing that it's a balance
and it's not one thing, it's all of these things,

(01:03:20):
and kind of remembering that memories and painful moments don't
have to be just awful. They can be reminders too
in a nice way. And I think in this moment
it was like that, you know, seeing the lights, seeing
this like warmth, and trying to have this reminder of

(01:03:41):
like the beauty of things is just like a knife
a little bit. It's not you know, it doesn't feel helpful.
It feels just like a reminder of what's not there anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
It's a very powerful line. It reminded me a little
of do you ever see the documentary The Bridge? It's
about the Golden Gate Bridge, and they set up cameras
before they put up the protections. It makes it harder
for people to jump off the bridge. I think about
fifty people used to jump every year. So you'll actually

(01:04:12):
see a little splash of water on one of these
distant cameras, and then they'll try and find the person's
family and talk to them about it. But there's and famously,
one guy jumped off the Golden gate Bridge who survived.
And when you talk to him and he gives speeches
and stuff about this, it's really you know, he was
a drug addict, he was having a tough life and

(01:04:36):
he jumped and he said the middle the minute he
jumped out in his foot left all he could think.
It was like I don't want to do this, like
I want to live. But he now he ended up living.
But you just wonder how many people sort of go
through that when they jump. I don't know, that's even
more morbid than your song, I think, so. I don't

(01:04:56):
know why it reminded me of that, but it just
brought that image fact to me. I do want to
ask you about a couple more songs of Salt and
Wound and Anchor are both. They've both got these great
guitars parts. I think, like you know, you mentioned Nirvana,
Alison Chains, I think those guys would have been proud
of those guitar riffs. Where did they come from?

Speaker 8 (01:05:17):
The Salt and Wound one is me I that was
like part of the demo and everything, and I just
I just could wanted it to have this kind of
moving around the chords and you know a little bit
strange because there's some within the chords, there's like some
notes that have you know, a very particular feeling. I

(01:05:38):
guess that it that it gives you and it kind
of I love slighty half step note things all the time.
I love writing that. It's just fun to play. Honestly,
if you sit down with the guitar and you play
that riff, it's just like moving in half step increments
all over the place. It's really fun. So yeah, that

(01:06:00):
was a really important part to me. I feel like
that really brought it from being just this song to
like bringing it to life a little bit and you know,
being a little bit more yeah, rocking anchor. That's actually
Julian playing that part that like arpeggio on the acoustic guitar.
I think that's Julian and Rodrigo doubling each other. Perhaps,

(01:06:21):
I'm pretty sure with like a twelve string and an
acoustic and electric or something.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
Damn twelve string again, Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:06:26):
Twelve string. I don't want to play it. Somebody else
can do it. An acoustic twelve string too, is awful
to play. I mean, my hands are just not used
to that. But yeah, it's that song was so difficult
to get right. I wrote it and I knew what
I wanted it to feel like. I guess after we
tried to like mess around in the studio, I was like,

(01:06:48):
I wanted to have this like drunken like sailor type
of like woodenness to it. But it was very very
hard to get that correct without it turning into something else,
you know, turning into something that's like a little corny
or like swung a little bit or too head with

(01:07:09):
how the chords are really a little bit dissonant at
the beginning. So it took a lot of a lot
of crafting on our parts to figure that out and
kind of piece it all together. But yeah, like that
guitar riff was like a perfect little transitional piece to
slot in that we just kind of overdubbed onto it,

(01:07:32):
and a lot of the stuff was very slotted in
there and kind of arranged after we had a lot
of ideas because it was just such a weird song
to try to get right.

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
I liked the heaviness of it, though.

Speaker 8 (01:07:44):
Yeah, I do too, It's just originally it was like
much it was like getting too heavy to like rock
kind of vibes, and I think it needs to be
a little bit, a little bit creepy kind of heaviness.

Speaker 1 (01:07:58):
Didn't you complain once? I thought I read this about
too many male dominated punk bands.

Speaker 8 (01:08:05):
I mean, I can't disagree.

Speaker 1 (01:08:09):
There's a particular time in your life. You were part
of a scene. I guess.

Speaker 8 (01:08:12):
Yeah, it was in Nashville. There was a big music scene,
and I mean I loved a lot of the bands there,
and a lot of loved Slash, still love a lot
of the people there. But yeah, I think I think
growing up it was very just like the same dudes
playing in all the same bands. And yeah, there's nothing
wrong with having having fun like that, but I think

(01:08:33):
it it felt a lot of times, you know, not
just for me, but I think for a lot of
other people it felt a little bit stifling.

Speaker 1 (01:08:42):
Mm hmm, Well that's why there's Taylor Swift Yeah, and
Evergreen beautiful sort of conclusion to the record.

Speaker 8 (01:08:50):
Tell me about it, Yeah, that one is kind of
one of my secret faves on the record. It was
a song I wrote really quickly and just instantly felt
this kind of you know, like haunting kind of beauty
that I wanted it to have because it's it's got

(01:09:11):
some you know, kind of majorie lifts and some kind
of haunting chords in there that make it with the melodies,
make it feel a little bit like ghostly and it
feels sad, but it feels like there's this those kind
of lifts at the chorus I guess, so to speak,
like major kind of lifts that give it that note

(01:09:32):
of like that light and that lightness and airiness that
I wanted it to have. And kind of to me,
it's like when it's winter and it's like snowy or something,
there's a lot of dead trees and it's like really sunny.
It's like that same kind of feeling of you know,
this haunting kind of warmth, I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:09:52):
And what prompted the song, what was.

Speaker 8 (01:09:55):
You know, just just the same thing that a lot
of the record's about. It's just about kind of I
guess that song in particular, feeling like there's all of
these remnants everywhere around and for me, I think, particularly
like in nature, I can see a lot of that
stuff and looking around and seeing it and having these

(01:10:17):
constant reminders and at times shying away from it and
being like, I don't want to do this anymore, I
don't want to think about this anymore. I don't want
to be reminded of these things, and at other times
feeling so connected to it and feeling like there's this
like promise that these things are going to be there
all the time still and never go away. And you know,

(01:10:39):
even if something's someone's gone, things are different. There's all
these changes, these like memories and these like we're just
feelings you know, that are connected to certain places and
certain things that you can do in times, and looking
around and seeing beauty in the world and being connected
to that feels lifting and feels like a good promise

(01:11:02):
I guess to have.

Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
Mm hm, well that's the trick of the light.

Speaker 8 (01:11:05):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
Yeah, do you feel like playing in the song, But.

Speaker 4 (01:11:10):
Yeah, I can do that.

Speaker 8 (01:11:11):
I can do another one. I'm gonna do not one
off of this record because of the tuning, but I
can play another one. I'll play an old song, all right,
and then we'll feel well. I'll feel very uh taken
back to my college days. This song I actually did
record for a college project, funny enough at n y

(01:11:34):
U songs called Alison, yeh.

Speaker 3 (01:12:02):
Oh the Sun good song, you sir, give a foot
ship food for because he's been laid and at the
short speeding.

Speaker 4 (01:12:25):
He said in for sir, if you bolted the who.

Speaker 10 (01:12:37):
Should not don't see all the same side is something

(01:12:58):
you just broke.

Speaker 3 (01:13:00):
This shackles hard because he won't never see those street
jeeves waiting.

Speaker 11 (01:13:11):
At the soup wait waiting for the night train. We
should not not the nex train.

Speaker 7 (01:13:28):
Waiting for you. You found waiting for you, you found
waiting for you, you found in for you, you found

(01:13:51):
waiting for you.

Speaker 2 (01:14:23):
Thanks to Soccer Mammy for coming on the show. You
can hear a new album, Evergreen, along with some of
our other favorite tracks of hers, on a playlist in
the episode description or on our website at Broken Record
podcast dot com, and be sure to follow us on
Instagram at the Broken Record Pod. You can follow us
on Twitter at Broken Record. Broken Record is produced and
edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric Sandler

(01:14:45):
and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tolliday. Broken Record
is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this
show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus.
Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content
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for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions. And if you

(01:15:08):
like this show, oh, please remember to share, rate, and
review us on your podcast app Our theme musics by
Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.