Switched on Pop - The Fire & Fury Of Overcoats

Episode Date: March 10, 2020

Gone are the days of a clear dividing line between “mainstream pop” and “conscious” music. Many of the world’s highest-grossing pop stars are climbing the charts with lyrics that seem to get... right at the very weight of human existence. They’re tackling climate change, and drug addiction, crippling anxiety, inequality, sexism and racism. It’s a fascinating shift to witness. That’s why this week, we’re especially thrilled to be chatting with folk-pop duo Overcoats. JJ Mitchell and Hana Elion are known for otherworldly harmonies that sound more like a single voice diverging in two rather than the other way around. We discuss two singles off their new album “The Fight” (out now), and reflect on how seemingly small decisions about a song’s arrangement can make things like anxiety and microaggressions feel a bit easier to carry. Here’s a teaser quote from the episode that we’ll be thinking about for a while: “We often use repetition as a way of saying something until you believe it...that’s very true for this song as well. We’re singing ‘There’s a fire / There’s a fury’...it feels apocalyptic. But the more you say ‘We’ll get through it’ and the more voices join in, it starts to feel true, and starts to feel hopeful.” SONGS DISCUSSED Overcoats - The Fool Overcoats - Fire & Fury The Supremes - Stop In The Name Of Love LCD Soundsystem - Watch The Tapes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. the eater app at eaterapp.com. It's free for iOS users. Do you ever do your introductions in harmony?
Starting point is 00:00:51 Let's try. We can. Let's see what happens. Give me a note. We're, we're overcoats. That was beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you for other. I'm sorry. Everyone. I'm JJ, one half of overcoats. And I'm Hannah, the other half of overcoats. And I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. Welcome to Switchton Pop. So you are a musical duo from New York City. You had a highly acclaimed album called Young. We don't know what we are running from. I actually saw that tour.
Starting point is 00:01:33 It was really fun. I was really taken by the palpable friendship that you show on stage, the dancing that gives me permission to participate. The really tight vocal harmonies, as we just heard, and you're really raw, open lyrics that you described a Billboard as sounding like a diary entry that you weren't supposed to hear, or to see, rather. You're here with a new record, the fight. What are you wanting to communicate on this new record? That's a great question.
Starting point is 00:01:59 I think that the fight as a body of work is sonically a departure from young and lyrically tackles the many definitions of the word fight. And so there are songs on the album that deal with interpersonal relationships and a fight with a significant other. There's a more expansive definition of the fight, meaning political, the fight for representation. She raised her fist in the air for those listeners. Thank you. And then also the fight against one's own demons and anxiety and depression. And the record kind of came together because each of the songs that we were writing, seemed to require a lyric that had the word fight in it.
Starting point is 00:02:48 And so every song on the album has that word in it. Oh, is that right? I didn't. I think so. I don't notice it. Oh, I love that. I hope I'm not spreading fake news. And then the album.
Starting point is 00:02:58 I think every. Almost every, if not every. Yeah, somebody's going to fact check and out us. But sonically, we wanted more of a gritty sound. We're writing about things that are a lot angstier and more aggressive. and the songs needed that sonically. They needed walls of guitar. They needed a lot more live instrumentation
Starting point is 00:03:21 than our first record. So I want to listen closely to two of the songs on the record. We're going to listen to The Fool and Fire and Fury. And I think we're going to hear a lot of those elements that you're describing. To jump right in, let's take Listen to The Fool. So tell me who is The Fool? The Fool is... The person you don't want to be.
Starting point is 00:04:05 It's the person second-guessing themselves and not sure where to turn. The Fool, it was actually a song written about the tarot card, The Fool. And the card signifies taking a leap of faith and just kind of like letting all of your worries and fears go and jumping into something head on. And so we wrote it in a time that we were not sure of where to turn, and there were a lot of uncertainties. And we were tired of feeling anxious and concerned about all of these things. And it's a song that's kind of like a call to self-empowerment and community also. One of the things that stood out to both of us, Nate, who couldn't be here today, actually called it. He listened to the song is like, wow, this song has two personalities.
Starting point is 00:04:54 It's both incredibly wise and it's also uncertain at the same time. And I think there's ways that we can hear that reflected actually in the music itself. There was this one moment that he zoomed in on about this little instrumental line you have. You have this neat little synthesizer line. It's like this nice little happy line. And then when it comes back in the pre-chorus, it's not so happy. It's like evolved. What's happened here?
Starting point is 00:05:31 What's going on? Yeah, I think that's really apt. I feel like the song is kind of about screaming until you figure things out. That's obviously the case with the chorus, but I think that with many of the melodic and lyrical moments in the song, it's about just like repeating things until they become more certain. And finding power in uncertainty also. You know, the lyric, my road, my home, everything I know, it's like this path is all, that is your home. You know, it's like we can try to make things feel stable. but really the journey is the thing that is constant. And so just kind of embracing that uncertainty and jumping in to it is something that can be empowering.
Starting point is 00:06:18 I like that you use this idea sort of like, is something stable or unstable? And it's I think maybe why our ears tuned in to that moment of just like this little synth line. It's got beautiful lyrics all around it. But we're sort of like tuned in there because it starts out consonant and becomes dissonant. And the first time around, it's like on the,
Starting point is 00:06:34 I think it's on the home note, the key. and then it goes down to the seventh note of the key and in doing so it all of a sudden becomes like dissonant but stronger like more powerful and assertive as you were saying you've arranged this thing in a way where the music is sort of saying what the lyric is communicating prosody prosody if you love that's about
Starting point is 00:06:54 that word is the coolest thing and it means exactly that tell me more about prosody like when something musically is communicating right the same thing as what it's very very
Starting point is 00:07:08 well put. I'm sorry. Somebody should Google this. Let's check it out right now. Let's see. So, prosody. Okay, according to the dictionary, prosody is the rhythmic and intonational aspect of language. So I guess we could think about it as like
Starting point is 00:07:27 the way in which we sound the word invokes meaning. I think like a fun example would be like the song Stop in the name of love. Stop. has this sort of rhythmic spacing between the next phrase indicates exactly what it's trying to do. We were writing material that was angrier and more disillusioned, and so the music needed to match it too. So we weren't like, oh, let's make a rock album, but we were writing these songs and we were like,
Starting point is 00:08:03 these lyrics require angstier, more gritty sounds to illustrate the story, I think. Sometimes when we talk with various songwriters and producers, they'll find that, oh, I just did that thing because it sounded cool. And that's a big part of the creative process for sure. You know, you're sort of drawing on all of your past experience and intuition. But it sounds like there is some intentionality going on in the sounds that you're drawing on here. I think that everything you said about keys and notes and dissonance and consonants means nothing to me. But I think it's very smart. Thanks.
Starting point is 00:08:41 That's not in any way how my mind works. I have zero musical training. And so it is when choosing, you know, the note that should play underneath a riff, it's based on a feeling. Yeah. And I think it's the same for Hannah. Some of the producers that we worked with had more of a theory-based background. And so it might have been more intentional for them in terms of choosing. how the two should interact as the song progresses, but for us it's always more of a feeling.
Starting point is 00:09:14 Well, I mean, I think that so often whether or not we come from an experience of deep musical training or if it's more something that we're more self-taught, and oftentimes the things that theory describes maps onto whatever the emotional experience, it describes some other experience of music. And it's really just a set of tools to sort of help you find your way out of if you get lost in a knot somewhere, maybe that can be helpful, but that it's coming from intuition versus deep training, I don't think really matters. Here, it just works. You reached the same conclusion.
Starting point is 00:09:46 Yeah, exactly. So, all right, I want to talk about, can we talk about harmony? Because you're particularly known for harmony. It's definitely the thing that I was most stricken by when I first heard your music because you have a way of blending. You become sort of one voice, which is very powerful. I want to go into, particularly this one line in the verse. Some days I'm a warrior, some days I'm out of,
Starting point is 00:10:08 of my mind. Verse. Verse, yeah. Some days I'm a warrior. Some days I'm out of my... That's wonderful. Wow. What is that harmony doing for you all at that moment?
Starting point is 00:10:23 Well, I haven't really thought about it before. But trying to pick it apart now, I do feel like when JJ jumps to that higher note, it's like right around when she's saying, out of my mind. And so that lyric also grows because of the harmony changing. and you're staying in sort of a more solid, like, warrior tone in a certain way. Like, it feels like there is that prosody.
Starting point is 00:10:48 It's quite beautiful. Yeah. It's not intentional. Like, it's intentional spiritually. Well, actually, I kind of remember coming up with those, at least the part, at least that, like, small part because, wait, what is it? Some days I'm a warrior. Some days I'm out of my mind. So, like, you kind of slide up to your note.
Starting point is 00:11:10 and I am on my note, and I remember us debating whether we should both... Match perfectly. Like, we should both slide up together. And I don't know why, whether it was just sonically that we decided that it would be more powerful to, like, for Hannah to slide up and meet me.
Starting point is 00:11:29 Right. But I do remember that being a discussion that we had. Cool. I mean, it kind of, I feel like, when you're thinking about the fool and the fool can have these, like, multiple personalities, It's like you're separating and then merging and it's like finding its way.
Starting point is 00:11:42 Going down a path and your paths are intertwining there. Yeah, totally. And that's why the song is also like sort of in unison and then in harmony. We wanted to show the layers. How do you go about working on your harmonies together? I think it happens in a couple different ways depending on the song.
Starting point is 00:12:02 Sometimes one of us will just have an idea for a harmony that's a little bit out of the box and then teach the other that part. Or sometimes we have to like really figure it out note by note. And we have the idea for the melody but not the harmony. And so we sit there and we're like, eh, ah, ha, ha, ha. Painstakingly.
Starting point is 00:12:29 The process of beauty is not always. But sometimes it comes very naturally and you just sing it and suddenly it's in perfect harmony and you're like, well, I guess that must have been what was true to the way that I wrote that. Yeah, I feel like it's similar to the conversation we were just having about like theory versus intuition because like sometimes we have to rely on,
Starting point is 00:12:51 okay, like what's the third of this? Sit at the piano. And like figure out the notes. And then other times it comes really naturally. And we try to even, you know, with our harmonies, that song, for example, like we try to not always be just in, thirds like doing regular harmony. That song's got, you know, JJ's sometimes in thirds with me, but then she's jumping up. And I think, yeah, just to go along with what the lyrics are doing
Starting point is 00:13:19 and just really kind of use your intuition about what the harmony is supposed to be providing. Because we have the opportunity when singing together as one voice to create like this complex thing within the vocals because they can tell multiple stories at one time. I'm thinking now, you know, I've listened to your entire first record and I've listened to the singles off of this record and I actually can't know. Do you ever sing a part? People try to make us. On our first record, there's the verses of 23. We sing separately. You be strong. No, I can't be the only one loving you.
Starting point is 00:14:18 Siren, we do some stuff. I feel the weight of many shoulders. Live the broken dreams of all the other. Please don't pull me down. I think I'm drowning. On this record, when we're singing, we just did like unison rather than somebody singing alone. That makes sense. So often people are double-tracking their voices and so you're your own double-tracking in a certain way.
Starting point is 00:14:57 Yeah. You really do in that way bring something unique to contemporary popular songwriting. You have to figure something out that most other folks aren't concerned about. So often vocal harmonies are there to fill in, to build something in a pre-chorus or something like that. But in sustaining them, there's all kinds of new narrative twist. and turns and opportunities that exists and it makes it sound utterly unique in that way. Definitely.
Starting point is 00:15:21 Yeah, we try to, we don't even think about it as like one person is doing the melody and one person is doing the harmony because we really try to have them both be the melody. I think the fool is a great example of that. Like, there's not one part that I think is more the melody of the song. We try to just be like who's high and who's low. But also in any given line in some song,
Starting point is 00:15:45 will swap halfway through the line. So what's an example? I'm low for the verse, but high in the chorus. Like we switch it around. Yeah. I mean, I'm staring up on my library, this book that destroyed me in school. Actually, I dropped my music major because of a course.
Starting point is 00:16:03 I'm looking at Gregorian chant and sacred music, and we were studying multiple species counterpoint. You know, the sort of an older way of writing that really privileged the uniqueness of each melodic line. within a harmony. So often in pop music, a harmony is just there to support something. But you're describing actually a way of singing that goes much further back to actually sort of pre-harmony when melody was much more important in terms of how people composed. That's an interesting draw to much more older. And I think you even sort of talked about the way in which they're sort of like
Starting point is 00:16:35 finding the right thing is a sort of more spiritual thing. And that the way in which you sing and try to create multiple melodies does draw to older spiritual music. Good to know. Yeah. Well, I'm not sure if it's ever been the case. I'm trying to think like Simon and Garfunkel if one of their voices gets like privileged at least in terms of decibel. I think Garfunkel had the higher voice, but I don't know in terms of, yeah. But I definitely think that you're right that in pop music, the harmony is always seen as like just to kind of buff up the sound and like create a kind of ambience. And when producers that were working with try to lower the volume of, you know, one of our voices, we go insane.
Starting point is 00:17:18 And we're like, why did you turn this down? They're like, ah, this is what we do. And so I think you're right that it is a little bit out of the box when you're doing music that is a departure from like folk and entering more into the pop realm. It is different to have both the melody and the harmony considered as like equals in terms of volume and EQ and having them ride together. This must also speak to your relationship as well then. Oh yeah.
Starting point is 00:17:48 Yeah. We're all about yin, yang. We're different, but we're equal. We do everything 50-50. Like, we write everything together. Yeah, I think it does. Wow, that's special. It truly is. Very unusual, especially in contemporary writing.
Starting point is 00:18:06 Mm-hmm. Just my life. Let's talk about this fabulous chorus. This chorus for me is somewhat, enigmatic. It is fist pumping, but also sort of like zen and inspirational and contemplative. How did this come to be? This song was really fun to write. I remember when we wrote that chorus, we weren't sure if it was going to be like a pre-chorus or the chorus or if it was maybe just going to be a stand-in because we had never written like a shouting part before and we were like
Starting point is 00:19:11 This is dumb. Like, we can't actually do this. But we were listening to, like, a lot of bands that have kind of, like, this way of speaking, rambling lyrics. Arcade Fire and LCD sound system. And we were like, maybe, maybe this is the new sound. And this is one of the first songs that we wrote for the album and really dictated what the whole thing was going to sound like. So there ended up being a lot more kind of gang vocals on the album. And we discovered the bullet mic.
Starting point is 00:19:46 Yeah, that was a big moment too. What is the bullet mic for those who are unfamiliar? I don't know. It's like a small handheld kind of older microphone that I know the Beatles used, I think. And it's very kind of like distorted and sounds like a little bit like your underwater, yelling underwater. Yeah. We used the bullet mic and we recorded a bunch of the gang vocals. We also did this other stuff where we put the vocals.
Starting point is 00:20:16 through like these crazy pedals and then through a guitar amp and miced that and just all like screamed into it. We did also standing around in a circle around a mic and stomping and clapping and screaming. It's a bunch of layers, but yeah, it was really fun. You had a lot of fun recording this. Yeah, yeah. This movement into the chorus here has one of my favorite moments in the entire song and actually
Starting point is 00:20:44 you were play acting it earlier. That's a very nice little drum song. I'm glad you like it because it almost didn't make the song. Yeah. Our producer, Justin Rason, really wanted that in there, and we hated it. And we had a different drum fill in there from when we first wrote the song. That was just like your classic, like do do do do do do. And he was like, no, this is way cool.
Starting point is 00:21:14 It sounded like the theme song from a British sitcom, you know, R1. Like kind of 80s. Yeah, I was like doof, doof, dof. But then we grew to love it, and now I play act it every time we sing it live. Yeah, I think I had registered that this was coming from the tarot card, The Fool. What is the image of that card? It's a person literally like leaping off a cliff. This drum solo sounds like it's leaping off a cliff.
Starting point is 00:21:41 It's like a little uncertain. It's like not perfectly in time. And then you're like, I'm going, I'm going. Yeah, yeah. And into the chorus. You're like shouting, jumping off a cliff. It's a beautiful thing. And I think that at least lyrically, yelling the things that we yell in the chorus felt very cathartic because we had just toured our album for two years and we're finally back in the studio and yelling things that don't make total sense, but sort of can be parsed out to mean touring felt important to us.
Starting point is 00:22:17 And so my road and then my home, my road being my home, everything I know, is this all there is? Is this everything? This is everything. This is all I know. It was very therapeutic. And it still is. Sort of to that journal entry kind of narrative, I think this really allows anybody to also just like, this is my road, this is my home. It's both incredibly personal to you. And universal. Yeah. Yeah. There's a wonderful outro where this really becomes collective protests. It's all wonderful. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions.
Starting point is 00:23:08 I'm Maria Sharpova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready? Ready. Do not sugarcoat something for me. No, no.
Starting point is 00:23:30 We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. Immigration may be Donald Trump's signature issue. President Trump is now targeting predominantly Democratic cities for ice raids and deportations. Dozens of protesters clashing with immigration and customs enforcement agents in Minneapolis Tuesday. We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.
Starting point is 00:24:19 But what we want to do in this space is talk about America and politics beyond the current president. So what do most Americans think about deportation and border security? period. I think that Americans are definitely against the kind of violent displays that we've seen in the street from ICE. When it comes to the question of deportation, the answer is more complicated. My sense is that people want border at the border. They don't like the idea of having no idea who's coming into the United States at any given time. The view on immigration from the bottom up instead of the top down. That's this week on America Actually. Every Saturday in your audio and video feeds.
Starting point is 00:24:59 Let's move on. I love Fire and Fury. I want to start out right at the beginning and check out the verse. Oh, wild for you, babe. Won't you take me home tonight? Because I can't stand these people. Oh, I've been thinking lately. Girl, there's a know.
Starting point is 00:25:30 It's coming to an end. Is there a story behind this song? Yes. Yeah. This song went through just to start off many iterations. Almost didn't make the album. Also almost didn't make the album. That would have been a shame.
Starting point is 00:25:49 It would have. It started off as just that verse, and it was called Wild. And it was just guitar and vocals, kind of what you're hearing in this version. Because this song will change as we listen to it for the parts. It will. And it is about feeling very disillusioned with kind of, party culture that we were witnessing, but also with like our generation as a whole. Obsession with technology and social media.
Starting point is 00:26:20 And vanity. And wanting your partner or the person that you came to the party with to leave with you and wanting them to also reject this culture and feeling frustrated that they won't. And so that's where the song starts. and it kind of expands. Let's go there. Let's go there. Let's expand.
Starting point is 00:26:44 So it starts in this kind of microcosm world of a party. What is the very even first thing, though? We got a match strike. Yes. Higher. Like you're about to burn it all down. Oh, miles for you baby. It starts like you're at this party.
Starting point is 00:27:04 You're feeling very isolated. Your partner is nowhere to be found. I hate the party. The people. Yeah, it's a terrible party. And then it kind of expands the way that anxiety does, where it starts off about something very real and then turns into major existential thoughts about your entire life. So it kind of follows that pattern. So it starts you're at a party, but then you're like, wait, the whole world is going to hell.
Starting point is 00:27:34 Which is not untrue. No, and it's not. Let's hear that. It makes me your mind. Sure. Oh, I've been thinking lately The world as I know it is coming to an end So just stop and say something
Starting point is 00:27:58 Do you see what I see? So is this what's going on for you Or what's going on in the world? Or both? It's both. It's both. It's both. Because, and I think that's a really important part of our writing process
Starting point is 00:28:19 is we try to figure out the ways that our stupid little lives can relate to everybody else's and figuring out, okay, what are the things that we're going through that can be kind of explained as bigger themes? And so, you know, it's kind of about this one person and then it grows into... Fascism and climate change and all the things that are wrong. Precisely. Exactly. Exactly. And just sort of seeing... just like having a moment where you just feel really existentially upset and you're seeing the like corruption and all of the negative things in the world and just sort of reckoning with them. I feel like this comes to a head in, I guess it's like almost like a down chorus.
Starting point is 00:29:25 Is that some bullet mic going on there or something? Yeah. Okay, that's what. Sure, exactly. I didn't know that until earlier. I just didn't have to chat with you. But this is a different kind of harmony for you all. This is saying something very different than I'm used to hearing. Yeah, well, I think the cool part about that is it mirrors that movement that we're talking about,
Starting point is 00:29:42 where it's really small and individual, and then it gets really big and louder and heavier. Yeah, a bit of screaming going on in there. Bit of whispering into a bit of screaming. Yeah. Yeah. I think that dynamically this song is really special for us. I can't think of a song on our first record where we went to. so dramatically from like one way of singing to another within one song.
Starting point is 00:30:12 And I feel like this really captures the breadth of the way that we want to use our voices on this album. And so it's like a very intimate acapella moment where we're whispering, there's a fire, there's a fury, and it's ominous. And then by the end we're screaming and it's singing. in parts that are way too high for our voices. But I feel like it's kind of, sorry to use your same word, but a microcosm of what the album as a whole is
Starting point is 00:30:45 in terms of the way that we used our singing voices to translate the messages. Yeah, I think as well, because harmony is literally, like, two halves becoming a whole, I think because there's this feeling of, like, wholeness and satisfaction from when we see, sing together, we'd like have to really work hard to find these other ways of making tension within the music. And I think that this is a cool moment where you really palpably feel that
Starting point is 00:31:15 tension, even though we're still singing in like this beautiful, like, harmony. The song, I feel, offers some hope. This is, this is really the one more than anything for me which turns into like, this is like an anthem. This is going to be sung by hundreds of people, thousands of people at a time. I love what's going on here in this outro. Let's talk about getting through it. Yeah. I was just noticing something when we were listening to that,
Starting point is 00:31:57 which I think has been important to us since our first record, which is like the meaning of repetition. I think we often use repetition as a way of saying something until you believe it. And I think that's very true for this song as well. you know, we're singing, there's a fire, there's a fury, there's like such dread and it feels like apocalyptic, but the more you say we'll get through it and the more voices join in, it starts to feel true and starts to feel hopeful. That gave me chills.
Starting point is 00:32:30 Oh, good. Yeah, we had a discussion actually with each other because I think that our first record was kind of dark. some of the themes that we sang about on our first record like effed me up and we talked in the months that we were working on this album about how we actually
Starting point is 00:32:53 have a responsibility as musicians who have a group of listeners now that we have a responsibility to provide hope as well as talking about the real shit that's happening and how bleak it is
Starting point is 00:33:08 and that that's something we want to do because we have to sing these songs every night on tour. And I think that that was really important in a lot of the songs on the record, that they kind of break your heart, but then they put it back together and that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. I like the framing especially of how you say it really matters, but both for yourselves and as a listener, because if you're like, there's a fire and a fury, and we'll get through it.
Starting point is 00:33:35 I'm like, oh, that is a cheap, like, that is a nice happy ending stamp. like rewriting the Romeo and Joliet kind of story, right? But I definitely did feel convinced of it as you framed it. I'm so excited to hear that live and see how do people participate. And all of a sudden you actually are building that movement. And the only way that we get through things is you build more people into it. Right. So right on.
Starting point is 00:34:02 Are there other themes and topics that you're excited for people to explore on this album? There's a lot of interesting stuff about politics, I think, that you can. can read in a lot of these songs, climate change in particular with Fire and Fury, we got into some more complex ways of thinking about sexism and feminism on this record, especially within the music industry. Yeah. Can you speak more to that? Yeah, there, well, there's one song in particular, but a few of them deal with kind of these very latent microaggressions that occur in the music industry and recording world. And so it was very meta because we were writing these songs and some of these lyrics
Starting point is 00:34:49 as we were in the studio with certain people. And just honestly observing what was happening. And there's a lot of good intentions right now out there, especially since the Me Too movement where people have been exposing kind of the more blatant, I guess, forms of sexism within the entertainment industry. but there's so much built in that you wouldn't call out. But in one song in particular, the verse is just talking about how we often go into sessions
Starting point is 00:35:23 and get treated like top line writers where it's not, Hannah who plays guitar and has played guitar for a decade is not handed a guitar. And it's assumed and presumed that a male player in the room or not in the room will be brought in to do that work. And so just these assumptions. It's not malicious. It's not malicious.
Starting point is 00:35:48 It's often an oversight, but it's one that has happened so many times that you start to see the pattern. So little things like that, I think we got to play with, especially as we have grown up into women-ish, we're women-ish, and just sort of being adults in the world. Because our first record, you know, we were more girls. We were writing a lot of those songs from we were like 18, 19. So I think we were able to think about some more complex ways. To reflect on it, yeah.
Starting point is 00:36:21 Yeah. What else? I think, yeah, as Hannah mentioned a lot in the political realm, it was important to note that we began writing this record in the year that Trump was elected. And so a lot of that and the kind of war on women's body. that was waged and basically like a national divide and sort of deep rift that people didn't comprehend was happening really impacted the way we were writing and the way that we wanted to join people together with things that were saying. And so that made its way in. I feel like a lot of people
Starting point is 00:36:59 been waiting for this kind of a record. Well, here it is. Right on. Yeah. When and where can people find your record. They can find it on March 6th, everywhere that you find music, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, everywhere. It will also be available physically on vinyl and CD form. And we've got four songs from the record already out now, which are The Fool, Fire and Fury, leave if you want to and keep the faith, and those are all available. Beautiful.
Starting point is 00:37:33 Thank you so much for sharing. very honestly the details of your music making process and a very powerful message that you have to share. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Switch on Pop is me, Charlie Harding, Nate Sloan, Bridget Armstrong, Megan Lubin,
Starting point is 00:37:52 Brandon McFarland, Iris Gottlieb, Abigail Barr, Nishawah, and Liz Nelson. We are part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Nate's going to be back again next week with another really great fun show. If you want to chat with us, you can find us at Switch. on Pop on Twitter and Instagram. You can find all of our back catalog on Switched on Pop.com.
Starting point is 00:38:11 We'll be back again next week with my buddy Nate. And until then, thanks for listening.

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