Formula Indie Sessions _ Interview with My Girls
What is your earliest memory connected to music?
Lydia: Listening to orchestral Christmas carols while opening presents at my grandparents’ house.
Aaron: Hearing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on the radio when I was in second grade in my friend’s mom’s station wagon.
How did your passion for creating music begin?
Lydia: As a young kid I would sit at the piano and try to figure out how to play familiar songs and make up my own. It was cemented when I was gifted a violin when I was 8 years old and started playing in an orchestra.
Aaron: Before I knew how to play any instrument, I discovered a free recording program on my mom’s computer, and I would experiment with that and I fell in love with the process of music recording and production.
What’s the story behind your current music project?
Aaron: My Girls started when I had gotten the itch to write songs again but I was struggling with writing lyrics so I asked Lydia if she would want to collaborate. After we started working together, we quickly came up with the concept for the album “Dream Rig” and everything fell into place.
How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard your music before?
Lydia: I would describe it as generally Indie Rock with Shoegaze/Dream Pop undertones along with our idiosyncratic tastes that make it unique.
What is one thing you’ve learned that completely changed the way you make music?
Aaron: Major 7th chords.
What tools, instruments, or software are essential in your creative process?
Aaron: Guitar and piano are essential and Lydia’s phone to record rough draft ideas as they come to us. I’m a little obsessed with collecting guitar pedals but I know that every one of them is totally necessary.
Which indie artist or song are you loving right now?
Lydia: I’m listening to a lot of Cameron Winter and This is Lorelei.
Aaron: I’m listening to Snocaps right now, and Wet Leg.
How have your personal experiences influenced your music and artistic vision?
Aaron: The album is conceptual, so it stands alone. We definitely used personal experiences to draw from and communicate real emotional truths through the framework of the album’s narrative. We liked the creative freedom of writing this kind of album because we used our personal experience as a jumping off point and then could go beyond it to a more imaginative place.
What emotions or messages do you hope listeners take from your work?
Lydia: I hope that people can relate to some of the themes of desperation, loneliness, and self-reflection but take away the virtue of being sober-minded.
What’s the most important lesson music has taught you so far?
Aaron: Music participates in truth, beauty, and goodness and that’s what makes it transcendent and so vital.
What is a dream venue or festival you would love to perform at?
Lydia: At this point we can’t imagine playing at a festival. For now, our dream venue is a living room with a carefully curated guest list.
If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be and why?
Aaron: That’s a really tough question! So many people to choose from. I always wished my voice could sound like Hamilton Leithauser, but it doesn’t, so I feel like I could write songs for him to sing.
Lydia: I agree that this is a really tough question, but I’d have to say Paul Simon. He has been one of my greatest musical influences aside from classical composers.
Where can our listeners follow and support your music? (Website,Spotify, IG, links)
Lydia: You can listen to our music on all streaming platforms and follow our Instagram at @mygirlsband.
Looking toward the future, what’s your dream for the next chapter of your musical journey?
Aaron: Make more music. I want My Girls to discover its own voice more and more.
What do you hope listeners will discover about you along the way?
Lydia: I don’t want people to discover more about me. I want them to discover themselves through listening to our music.
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mygirls.bandcamp.com
