Smile Politely: I’ve been listening for a couple of years and some of my favorites are from Household Name. I love “Speeding 72.” I speed down our 72 all the time. So I’m kind of curious: What is 72?
Allegra Weingarten: I think it’s supposed to be the miles per hour, but I honestly don’t remember. I think it just rolled off the tongue, so we put that number there.
Etta Friedman: I have a brief memory of us writing the words to that and being like “72 just sounds good, let’s just use it,” and then being like “Speeding 72 is like not even that fast.” But then I think we were just kind of like “It doesn’t actually matter, it just sounds good. Who cares?”
SP: I read that you signed to Polyvinyl after they cold-emailed you. I think that’s so cool. Are you willing to talk a little bit about that interaction?
Weingarten: It was just in 2020, and we had released Two of Me earlier that year and I had just moved to New York. We kind of didn’t really know what our game plan was as a band. Two of Me kind of flopped; only because we couldn’t tour it and there was a lot going on in the world. We felt like it just wasn’t getting the attention it deserved. But we were gonna keep writing and making music regardless.
And then it just so happened that Polyvinyl just emailed us. They were like, “Hey, we like your music, we’d love to get on a call.” We didn’t even have a manager yet. So we just talked to them and months later circled back once we had demos. We got a manager and a team together, and talked to them, and ended up landing on them and signing with them.
SP: What did a typical day in the studio look like for you while working on Welcome to My Blue Sky?
Friedman: I feel like we’re a band with weird routines. We like to set weird little things for us [in the studio] because it’s just entertaining. We did half the record at Studio G in New York and then the other half at our friend Sebastian [Jones’] studio, Wasatch Studios in Santa Monica.
First of all, we had to bring lights, because the lighting there was not great. We all brought lights, literally like lamps from our room, to set a vibe. We brought color changing lights and stuff like that. We would put on King of the Hill at a certain point in the Studio G recording.
But typically, in terms of how we were actually doing it: Drums go first, then me and Allegra are just kind of there like playing along. We have a lot of trust with Aron [Kobayashi Ritch] and he knows how to achieve the sounds that we want and we definitely don’t necessarily know all that it takes to get that. So we get to go shopping for pedals and stuff like that, and I don’t know, get a good lunch. That’s pretty much our day in the studio.
Weingarten: Yeah, we all have our things that we do when we’re not actively doing something. If Etta’s tracking guitars, Preston [Fulks] and I will play Geoguessr together.
SP: Are there any songs that didn’t make the cut? Any we might hear later?
Weingarten: There’s plenty of songs that didn’t make the cut that will never see the light of day. Unfortunately, they’re not great songs, but there are a couple B-sides that we’ve kind of revitalized, and those will be heard eventually. I don’t know how much I’m allowed to say, to be completely honest, but yes, it will be heard in some capacity.
SP: I know that you both met when you were younger in California, and it seems like you lived separately in New York and New Orleans for a few years. What did your collaboration look like during that time? Was there a home base?
Friedman: Going to school in separate places and even in our separate places, [we both] still needed musical outlets. We both like people to play music with, which I think really kept a spark going to generally keep making music, and the drive of it.
And then — we have always, we just write. We would send each other little ideas, like “I think this would be a fun thing to work on together,” or “Do you have an idea for this?” And then, during winter break, spring break, summer break, we would always be back home in LA. And then that’s when we would flush things out, play some shows if we could, record if we could, stuff like that.
SP: You mentioned that Aron came into the process and was helpful. I read that Aron also produced Welcome to my Blue Sky. How did y’all get involved?
Weingarten: It’s really funny because Aron did our very first project when we were still in high school, called thanks come again. And Sebastian, too, who has the studio where we did Welcome to my Blue Sky. We just knew them from high school. I’ve known Sebastian since I was a kid.
We asked them to do Two of Me. Or, I guess we didn’t really know what it took to make an album at that point and we didn’t really know what a producer does. We had no idea. We weren’t doing pre-production, we weren’t demoing anything. We were kind of like, “Here are the songs, let’s go into a studio and do it.”
We enjoyed working with Aron so much that when we relocated to New York and we needed a bass player, we wanted him to be in the band. It also made sense to have him produce with us as well. He opened up our entire world in terms of how a record should be made. We did a really intense demo process with him, and we were writing with him. It really became like a true collaboration, and it still is now. The band definitely changed for the better when we brought Aron into the fold.
SP: What are your current influences? What are you listening to?
Friedman: Musically, I’ve been listening to this artist that Allegra showed me, Graham Hunt. My friend showed me this band called The Pillows. They’re from Japan, they’re really cool. And then I’ve been listening to Yeule and the new Alex G. I’d say, those are probably my four right now.
Weingarten: I’ve been listening to this band that we’re taking out this fall called Villager. I found this band on tour called Sandpit, and I’ve been slowly putting everyone I know onto them. They’re Australian and kind of sound like Pinback, but just really interesting, angular guitar music. It makes me want to write leads again, because I feel like most of the time when I write, I’m writing chords, like singer/songwriter stuff. Then last night, I got home from the bar, and I listened to Taylor Swift for an hour.
From: https://www.smilepolitely.com/music/momma-talks-recording-touring-and-musical-influences/
