On the song selection process for Maybe This Can’t Wait, he said, “The first few songs developed organically, one idea at time. In the beginning, we didn’t want to over-engineer our music; we just wanted to write the best songs possible. But once we switched toward thinking about the album as a whole, we began introducing different strategies. Sometimes focusing on the tempo (we need something greater than 140 bpm), other times focusing on the dynamics that come with key, style, volume, and atmosphere. There’s nothing truly objective about why certain songs didn’t make the cut; we just knew they didn’t belong on this album.”
Regarding their music inspirations, he said, “A deep belief in (and appreciation for) music’s capacity to awaken deeper aspects of human beings, to speak directly to the little voice inside our heads. Combine the right words with the right sounds and voila: you can open people up to new ways of thinking, elicit curiosity, activate important memories, nudge people toward their higher selves. There’s something remarkable and inexplicable in the impact music can have. It may not always realize that potential, but it’s worth striving for.”
On being a band in the digital age, he said, “It definitely comes with pluses and minuses. The best part about it is that you can collaborate with talented people all over the world, anytime you want and it’s never been easier. Couple that with the ease of sharing ideas, that anyone can learn pretty much anything you can think of, and unparalleled access to music technology, and it’s clear there’s a lot to appreciate.”
He continued, “At the same time, there is something inherently distorted about the digital arena. Pretty much everyone is aware of it, but oddly, most of us have become enablers rather than provocateurs. The importance of your digital footprint may automatically take a toll on authenticity and transparency. It’s as though value has become tethered to your online presence in a manner that demands complacency.”
“Play the game or lose out entirely,” he said. “This shift in consciousness has real staying power. It’s only natural that the social animal would evolve alongside technology, but the unintended consequences of marrying value to the fickle and oftentimes inauthentic digital world have yet to be fully realized. It’s difficult to objectively evaluate any situation in real-time, and we are still very much in the midst of the digital age.”
“So, that’s the part we wrestle with, but none of us like to spend much time shaking our fists at the man. As musicians, the content we want to create is art, and art takes time and focus, so we will keep creating music as best as we can regardless of the age we happen to be living in,” he added.
On their future plans, he said, “We just released our debut album, Maybe This Can’t Wait, so we’ll definitely continue to promote it and learn from the response it receives. But we’ve been with those songs for a long time already (release schedules can take a while), so we’ll be writing—a lot. With the current state of the world that’s probably the one thing that we can still do with little hindrance. We’re all locked into our personal recording spaces, sending ideas back and forth. It’s actually quite fun. Of course, performing live is something we absolutely adore (and miss), so once that’s a thing again, we may forget about everything else for a while.”
For young and aspiring musicians, he said, “Make sure you are pursuing music for the right reasons. If your main reasons are to get famous, gain status, or because you really want to get laid, you’re probably setting yourself up for disappointment and not going to stick to it for long. You need to be in love with music and the exploration of it. Then, success becomes more than a goal with an endpoint; it becomes a value you live and breathe. The proof of one’s love for music will show in the music itself.”
On their dream collaboration choices, he said, “One of the best things about our group is we all come from very different cultural and musical backgrounds and have wildly different influences. Each of us would give very different answers. But we love experimentation and what introducing new musicians can bring. Ultimately, we’d want to collaborate with any of the musicians we love so long as he or she would give it their full heart. Dave Grohl, Miley Cyrus, Travis Scott, John Mayer, Post Malone, JT, NF—you name it. It’s all interesting.”
“We wrote the album long before the world was thrown into this new, turbulent state,” he told the fans. “The message we felt compelled to communicate has its roots in a desire to get people to think more deeply about what being alive really means. That sentiment remains. There are far too many unfulfilled people in this world, but it needn’t be so. Fulfillment requires giving one’s life direction, and if ever there was a time for introspection this is it.”
He continued, “Uncertainty is inevitable. Chaos too. Of course, our hearts are with those who have lost their lives or someone they love. And of course, the misinformation and inconsistency are troubling. Nevertheless, this doesn’t need to be a doom and gloom story. At scale, it could represent the rarest of moments: an inflection point in the trajectory of humanity. At a personal level, this represents a great chance to reflect and rescript. A time to learn a new skill or unbuild a bad habit. If your life’s story needed a rewrite, you may never get a better opportunity. Try your best to avoid the self-destructive options; they are always available.”
“Be smart. Be safe. Be strong. Live your values. And for those who have been working to keep us alive (and to keep the demons in our nature at bay), thank you,” he added.
For their fans, he concluded about the album, “We hope more than anything that you enjoy it. That it makes you think and feel. We have grown so much in writing it. We truly gave it our best. For us, it was a milestone. A cementing of the beginning of our journey together. But it revealed to us that we have so much room to grow. So, any fans out there, let us know what you like, what you dislike, and especially what you love. We are listening.”
Maybe This Can’t Wait is available on digital service providers by clicking here.
