I'm excited to see how that's emulated in the music. I know that you guys are all individual people, so you all put your two cents in your piece into it. But like you mentioned, you guys were all going through it. So it'll definitely be interesting to see how that's perceived. Was there any picture, colors, or imagery associated with the album? I know it's called Dandelions, so I don't want to assume that you were thinking of a flower the whole time, but I am curious if there was any imagery or visuals that were associated with the album?
B: “I like writing off of imagery that's always fun, like watching a movie or a piece of art , you're like, 'how does that make me feel emotionally?’' And then trying to replicate that in your own way in a different medium, like music or something. I do really enjoy that. You know, I've done that in the past. I don't think I did that too much with this album. But for some reason, I think of blue. For whatever reason, our last EP has a blue album cover. And for some reason, I think of that for this album; It almost feels like an extension of our identity. I think our EP was us being more indulgent and just trying to hone in on emotion while writing that. And [I tried] to not worry about radio play, or playlisting, or hooks and stuff like that. I was just trying to capture emotion and be an artist, whatever that is. And then it was kind of a warm up to do this album. This album feels like a more fleshed out extension of that in my head.”
For me personally, I like earth colors, blues, greens, yellows, oranges, things like that. Those always seemed to be like the most calming or the most grounding. So I know that, like, thinking a blue is associated with a feeling of freedom or openness. So I can I can definitely understand that extension or that connection with that emotion or with that color. I know we kind of touched on it a little bit when you were describing Dandelion in its entirety, but do you have any favorite memories or anything memorable from when you guys were making the album?
B: “Yeah, there's a couple of different things. So when COVID was happening, it was really difficult. We started writing I think, and we wrote maybe two ideas. We worked like two days, I think, and then COVID lockdown happened. It was really serious, as serious as it is in everybody's world, but our drummer's brother is a quadriplegic and has a very weak immune system. So if anything happened to him, especially that time no one knew what was going on, we were worried that this could be very fatal for him. So we were very cautious and we had to not see each other. We tried doing Dropbox writing and stuff like that. And, it's fine to get some ideas out, but then if someone wants add to that idea, it's just so hard. I'm like, 'If we just did this in a room together, it would take like two seconds.' It's like trying to make a master plan over text messaging, that's what it felt like.
So with that we were like, 'We can't do this.' And I think that Addie was just getting really sad, she was miserable doing that. We packed everything up in our van and drove down to my parents' lake house. We just huddled up there and set up all of our gear and lived with each other. It was work. Tour is very go, go, go, and it's crazy. But this felt a lot more domestic. We would write, and we would do our hours, and that was fun. We'd cook dinner and then it's like, 'All right, now let's play cards together.' It was just really domestic and kind of sweet. [laughs] It was a great way to set the tone for us, and being nice to each other, and being gentle with each other on set. It set the tone for the rest of the writing session.
There's a song on the album called 'How Long,' and it was the last song that we finished for the record, if I'm thinking correctly. And it was horrible to write, it was like we had this idea and we thought it was worth something, but we could not figure out a chorus for the life of us. We just felt so stuck on it. We just kept re-visiting it over and over again, and then one night it just clicked for us and then one night the heavens opened up. And I was like, 'THANK YOU. THANK YOU SO MUCH.' I remember leaving the studio that night, with a high that felt like a natural high. I was just so, so happy. And then, it made it onto the record. The outro on that song is my favorite part on the entire record. It like encapsulates everything that record is for me.”
Wonderful. I loved your answer on that because I just feel like I was there, I was along for the journey. I feel like I felt that struggle when making this album. It brings me into the next question, if you could tell anybody anything before they listen to the album, what would it be?
B: “Nothing. [laughs] I don't want to say anything to anybody about the album. If they get something from it, they get something. And if they don't, they don't. I want people to make up their own minds and I don't think I need to tell them.”
