Part 2

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

It’s different for every song. If a song starts from a really personal place for one of us, it’ll shape how the writing unfolds, and the topic definitely changes the emotional experience.

But at its best, it can feel a little mystical. Some days, it feels like the song already exists and we’re just catching up to it.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece?

We usually let songs marinate if time permits. There are definitely cases where very little changes, but as we’ve grown as writers, we’ve gotten better at giving things space.

Distance helps. When we revisit a song, we’re less precious about it and more able to see what’s working and what’s ego.

How do you think the meaning, or effect of an individual piece is enhanced, clarified or possibly contrasted by the EPs, or albums it is part of? Does each piece, for example, need to be consistent with the larger whole?
    
We’re very song-driven as a band, not project-driven, so our music can jump between genres, concepts, and moods. But because all of it comes from us - and the same general moment in our lives - there’s always going to be a natural throughline.

For this album, we recorded everything in the same studio with the same players and co-producer, and produced it ourselves. That created a consistent sonic world, even though the songs are wildly different from each other.

It gave us the freedom to let each song be what it needed to be without worrying about whether it fit in.

In terms of what they contribute to a song, what is the balance between the composition and the arrangement (including production, mixing and mastering)?  

We put almost as much weight on vocal arrangement as we do on songwriting. Harmonies are part of our storytelling, and it’s how we stretch the emotional range of a lyric or idea. Every song needs something different.

“Sleeping At The Wheel” felt complete in its most stripped-down form.



“Last Bloom” needed a million vocal layers and minimal instrumental production.



Others really came alive once we added rhythm and groove. Mixing and mastering are huge for us too, they’re what allow a listener to feel a song instead of analyzing it or trying to understand what’s happening sonically.

Music and the accompanying artwork are often closely related. Can you talk about this a little bit for your current project and the relationship that images and sounds have for you in general?

We had so much fun building the visual world around this album, and it’s genuinely one of our favorite parts of the process. We’re all really visual people, and even as we were writing the songs, we were already imagining how they might look onstage, what kind of music videos they could have, or what colors and moods they might evoke. That visual language develops alongside the music for us, helping bring the story to life in a different way.

The superhero idea came up as a way to reflect the core themes of the album: emotional strength, resilience, and transformation, and the idea that these can all be superpowers. This record is about growth, but not the polished, picture-perfect kind. It’s about the messy, uncomfortable, sometimes painful process of becoming. We loved the idea of turning that into something bold, theatrical, and a little bit ridiculous in the best way.

We’ve also been compared to the Powerpuff Girls a lot over the years (which we’re not mad about), and that idea of individual personalities combining into something stronger together just felt right. Each of us already had a signature color from previous projects - green, pink, and blue - and we leaned into those as part of our visual identities.

It helped us expand on our individual personas, especially since this isn’t a band with one frontperson. We each bring something unique to the table, and we wanted the visuals to reflect that mix of individuality and unity. It ties into the bigger story we’re telling with this album, which is not just about growing, but about growing alongside other people while still holding onto who you are.

And we honestly couldn’t have brought any of that to life without our incredible creative director, Stephanie Haller. She’s the mastermind behind so many of the visual concepts on this album. She has this incredible ability to take all of our chaotic ideas and translate them into something cohesive, bold, and visually stunning. Her eye is so sharp, and she makes everything feel intentional and cinematic in a way we could never pull off on our own. She helped shape the visual identity of Growing Pains just as much as we shaped the music.

The goal was to create a world that felt immersive and slightly heightened, a space where people could step in and find a piece of themselves reflected back. From the album artwork to the music videos to the stage design, we wanted everything to feel cohesive, playful, and meaningful, without taking itself too seriously.

The visual side gives us a different kind of creative freedom. It’s where we get to dream bigger, go a little weirder, and have a lot of fun.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

Yes! That post-release crash is real. So much time, energy, and love goes into something like this, and when it’s out, it can feel like sprinting off a cliff. There’s a weird mix of vulnerability and hope. Suddenly it’s in other people’s hands, and they get to decide what it means or how good it is.

We’ve gotten better over time at letting go of expectations. We’re proud of this music. That pride helps stave off the emptiness. And while we try to take breaks after big releases, we often shift straight into promo or tour mode.

Sometimes the only way to keep our creative spark alive is to chase smaller, more personal outlets in the margins. That’s often where the next project quietly begins.

I would love to know a little about the feedback you've received from listeners or critics about what they thought some of your songs are about or the impact it had on them – have there been “misunderstandings” or did you perhaps even gain new “insights?”

While we were creating this project, a lot of people assumed it was a breakup album, which surprised us at first because we saw the theme more as growing pains. But in hindsight, it makes total sense. Growth is loss. It’s been incredibly meaningful to hear from listeners who felt healed or validated by these songs.

And we were especially surprised by how many people connected with “Growing Pains” as if it were written for them. Apparently we’re all in that era.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?  

Creativity absolutely shows up in all different forms, and we’ve talked about this a lot, even recently.

There are studies showing that our brains actually counteract anxiety through creative expression, and that creativity doesn’t have to mean making a masterpiece. It can be something as small as making a sandwich. That act of using your hands and mind together to build something can shift everything.

We all have different ways of being creative in our downtime, whether it’s crafting, journaling, cooking, organizing playlists, whatever it is, and those personal outlets really help keep our creative muscles engaged outside of the band.

But songwriting is different. Writing a song has this ability to take a fleeting thought or a complicated feeling and stretch it into something that’s bigger than the words themselves. It becomes something that not only helps us understand what we’re going through, but might also help someone else feel seen or less alone in what they’re going through, too. Music can say things that words alone can’t. Sometimes writing a song is the only way to fully express a thought or feeling, and to give it the emotional weight it deserves.

So yes, a perfectly made cup of coffee can be beautiful - AND a song lets you live inside an idea. And sometimes that’s the only way to truly fulfill its potential.