Surfaces
Horizons
Album · Christian · 2019 · Surfaces Music / TenThousand Projects, LLC
Surfaces know that they’re coming at this a bit differently. “We’ve definitely noticed that being positive is almost like counterculture today,” band member Colin Padalecki tells Apple Music. “People want to numb themselves; they’re trying to get away from the world. We're trying to enforce that you don't need to.” Written in summer 2019 at Padalecki's family home on Lake LBJ, just outside of Austin, Texas, Horizons is an almost radical proposition in 2020—an album of bedroom pop that feels like it came from the outdoors, undeterred by the darkness of our current moment. “In the midst of all of this, there really is a lot of good stuff happening around the world, and there's reasons every day to wake up and be proud of who you are and ready for the day, ready to take on new challenges,” Forrest Frank tells Apple Music. “There's always a light at the end of the tunnel. I've noticed that in my own life, and I've walked through stuff with Colin as well. We've had some really dark times in our lives, and there's just always light at the end of the tunnel.” Here, Padalecki and Frank break down every song from their third album.
Rising
Forrest Frank: “We were trying to figure out a way to open up our tour, and going through different ideas for sounds. We wanted a big, grand opening. Once we had ‘Rising’—how fun it was performing it, or walking out to it at all the shows—we felt that this is the type of energy that we wanted to introduce the album with. We wanted the album to be really upbeat but really keep that retro sound. I feel like if you go back to James Taylor, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, there's just this thing: When they express love, or when they talk about love, it's like, ‘I want to hold you, I want to respect you, I want to love you.’ That's kind of what we hope for.”
Take It Easy
Colin Padalecki: “We wanted it to be super upbeat, with the mission statement of ‘As long as you have love around you, you can make home anywhere.’ I think the line is ‘I know you've been looking for better days,’ and it's like you can always find better days within yourself—the only one making it a bad day is the energy from the outlook you have going on with yourself. It's like a proclamation, of you offering yourself as a friend, and that person can be anyone. At the beginning, you can hear Forrest saying, ‘If you need a hand, I will be your friend.’ And it's almost like that one song, ‘Lean on Me.’ Like, you're not on your own. We can help you become comfortable with yourself and have a home wherever you are.”
FF: “It's this visual home, like, ‘Hey, come on in, take your shoes off, prop your feet up, grab a drink, let's just take it easy.’”
Good Day
FF: “Definitely kind of a pure beach song. We really just imagined a beach or a pool for that one. We were just hanging out at the lake, spending all of our time outside all day, doing whatever we liked. It was a good day.”
CP: “I feel like it was just a narrative, like what we were actually doing outside. It was a sunny day out, we were just chilling—we wanted to capture the energy of the day, and that's what came out.”
Lazy
CP: “Me and Forrest recorded most of our music near my college house in College Station [Texas]. That's when I went to Texas A&M. A majority of [2019’s] Where the Light Is was actually recorded in this house, in my closet. The house is actually on Montclair Avenue, which we say in ‘Lazy’—it’s always been really special to Forrest, and I just have a lot of great memories there. I think we captured it pretty well in the music video.”
Bloom
FF: “It’s [one of] the biggest outliers on the project, as far as the sound goes, because most of it's like R&B, trappy percussion, but that one's just like traditional disco. It’s very reminiscent of the lake. They actually had this major flooding, and Colin’s whole dock just got destroyed, and they rebuilt it with this kind of cool concrete thing with the insurance money. We were hanging out there and the sunsets on the lake were just really pretty. I think the hook came first: ‘I was thinking about you and all the colors bloom.’”
CP: “When you hear the word ‘bloom,’ you think of flowers. We didn't want to just say ‘flowers’ and surface-level stuff—we wanted to dive deeper. ‘Bloom’ is just a really catchy way of describing the color in the world and the color of that day.’”
Sunny Side Up
CP: “Forrest is really, really good at making great food. Like very healthy, very aesthetic protein bowls, taco bowls—I’m pretty sure I only eat vegetables when I'm around him. So, one day, I was like, ‘Man, we should really make a song about breakfast,’ because it's just something that was always in our lives and it always felt like a special thing when we were together making breakfast. So, we made a song about breakfast.”
FF: “And the phrase ‘I keep my sunny side up’: Whenever it first hit us, it was like it just felt so on brand. It’s like all analogy, obviously. It's like half sunny side up like breakfast, and sunny side up like mindset. It's like even when you're down, and people are looking at you while you're down, if you have a smile on your face while you're down, they're looking at you, like they're looking at your sunny side up.”
Sky Interlude
CP: “I think we put a lot of pride in our interludes. I think it was especially important for this album because I think this is the first album where we have a Side A and Side B. It's not that they're crazy different, but Side A is more like a little more retro, a little more upbeat, and then Side B is way more vibier, but it really hits you in the head a lot. Every time I listen to the album, I never skip it, because it feels good, like a nice transitioning.”
FF: “Yeah. I think Side A is more like blue and yellow, and then Side B is almost like purples and violets, and just a little darker shades.”
Remedy
FF: “It might be my favorite. It's definitely one of the most gentle songs that we've put out as far as vocals go. It’s one of those songs where it feels like every element of it is kind of perfect—and it's not trying hard at all. It just kind of fell together.”
CP: “I feel like the essence of what's going on in the hook really puts you in a state of mind and a mood that really makes you appreciate where you're at and how you're feeling.”
Dancing With Nobody
CP: “I think one of the most important lines in the album is definitely when Forrest and I talk about ‘even though it hurts, we're always falling into place.’ It really just entails so much of the vibe we were going for. Like, ‘Yeah, everyone does fall, and you will have adversity in your life, but we're always falling into place just like a puzzle piece.’ Your puzzle pieces aren't always going to be in the perfect place, and sometimes you're going to get lost, and sometimes you're not going to know what to do, but there always is a plan and it's always going to fall together.”
All Around
FF: “I think anybody can learn from this story, our story that's in the song. It's basically saying there's this thing that we want to accomplish, we know that it's written on our hearts that this is correct, that we want to do this, and that if we do music, if we pursue music, it will add value into the world. But there's voices internally and externally, like our parents and people around us, saying, ‘Hey, this isn't a job, you should go get a real job, you should do something that's actually going to make you money, you should do something that has structure.’ And you know what, it doesn't matter, because before I die, before the sun goes down, I’m going to take this love and spread it all around.”
Horizons
FF: “This song literally just wrote itself. As undergrads, I was sitting in the passenger seat, Colin was driving. I think I had his laptop plugged into the AUX, looping the production on Logic, and we just starting going, like that call and response. We just kept doing it, and doing it, and doing it—it just felt right. We almost had to sit back and decipher what it meant, because me and him were just singing it and it just made sense in the moment.”
CP: “I think it's almost like this awareness of what's going on around you and just taking it all into account.”
Keep It Gold
CP: “It’s a mindset. There's a lot of yellow in this song: ‘I can see the sun is shining on your soul,’ and ‘You don't need no money to spread a little honey.’ That's how we think of money, like gold, and then you think of honey, which is also yellow. Let's keep that soul gold, let's keep our vibe, let's keep our feelings, let's keep our energy gold. Let's keep it the best it can be, like, let's keep it shiny, let's be happy, let's have an adventure.”
FF: “And like, the ‘light inside’ would be like a candle or like a flame, which has a yellow tint. So, if you're ‘keeping it gold,’ that means that you're letting your light shine. That song really is about a road trip, and there’s this line that says, ‘Oh, what a shame/We could never feel the pain that the past tried to put in our view.’ It's that idea of, you're driving on and all the things that tried to hold you back, you can just look in the rearview and see them behind you.”
Rising
Forrest Frank: “We were trying to figure out a way to open up our tour, and going through different ideas for sounds. We wanted a big, grand opening. Once we had ‘Rising’—how fun it was performing it, or walking out to it at all the shows—we felt that this is the type of energy that we wanted to introduce the album with. We wanted the album to be really upbeat but really keep that retro sound. I feel like if you go back to James Taylor, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, there's just this thing: When they express love, or when they talk about love, it's like, ‘I want to hold you, I want to respect you, I want to love you.’ That's kind of what we hope for.”
Take It Easy
Colin Padalecki: “We wanted it to be super upbeat, with the mission statement of ‘As long as you have love around you, you can make home anywhere.’ I think the line is ‘I know you've been looking for better days,’ and it's like you can always find better days within yourself—the only one making it a bad day is the energy from the outlook you have going on with yourself. It's like a proclamation, of you offering yourself as a friend, and that person can be anyone. At the beginning, you can hear Forrest saying, ‘If you need a hand, I will be your friend.’ And it's almost like that one song, ‘Lean on Me.’ Like, you're not on your own. We can help you become comfortable with yourself and have a home wherever you are.”
FF: “It's this visual home, like, ‘Hey, come on in, take your shoes off, prop your feet up, grab a drink, let's just take it easy.’”
Good Day
FF: “Definitely kind of a pure beach song. We really just imagined a beach or a pool for that one. We were just hanging out at the lake, spending all of our time outside all day, doing whatever we liked. It was a good day.”
CP: “I feel like it was just a narrative, like what we were actually doing outside. It was a sunny day out, we were just chilling—we wanted to capture the energy of the day, and that's what came out.”
Lazy
CP: “Me and Forrest recorded most of our music near my college house in College Station [Texas]. That's when I went to Texas A&M. A majority of [2019’s] Where the Light Is was actually recorded in this house, in my closet. The house is actually on Montclair Avenue, which we say in ‘Lazy’—it’s always been really special to Forrest, and I just have a lot of great memories there. I think we captured it pretty well in the music video.”
Bloom
FF: “It’s [one of] the biggest outliers on the project, as far as the sound goes, because most of it's like R&B, trappy percussion, but that one's just like traditional disco. It’s very reminiscent of the lake. They actually had this major flooding, and Colin’s whole dock just got destroyed, and they rebuilt it with this kind of cool concrete thing with the insurance money. We were hanging out there and the sunsets on the lake were just really pretty. I think the hook came first: ‘I was thinking about you and all the colors bloom.’”
CP: “When you hear the word ‘bloom,’ you think of flowers. We didn't want to just say ‘flowers’ and surface-level stuff—we wanted to dive deeper. ‘Bloom’ is just a really catchy way of describing the color in the world and the color of that day.’”
Sunny Side Up
CP: “Forrest is really, really good at making great food. Like very healthy, very aesthetic protein bowls, taco bowls—I’m pretty sure I only eat vegetables when I'm around him. So, one day, I was like, ‘Man, we should really make a song about breakfast,’ because it's just something that was always in our lives and it always felt like a special thing when we were together making breakfast. So, we made a song about breakfast.”
FF: “And the phrase ‘I keep my sunny side up’: Whenever it first hit us, it was like it just felt so on brand. It’s like all analogy, obviously. It's like half sunny side up like breakfast, and sunny side up like mindset. It's like even when you're down, and people are looking at you while you're down, if you have a smile on your face while you're down, they're looking at you, like they're looking at your sunny side up.”
Sky Interlude
CP: “I think we put a lot of pride in our interludes. I think it was especially important for this album because I think this is the first album where we have a Side A and Side B. It's not that they're crazy different, but Side A is more like a little more retro, a little more upbeat, and then Side B is way more vibier, but it really hits you in the head a lot. Every time I listen to the album, I never skip it, because it feels good, like a nice transitioning.”
FF: “Yeah. I think Side A is more like blue and yellow, and then Side B is almost like purples and violets, and just a little darker shades.”
Remedy
FF: “It might be my favorite. It's definitely one of the most gentle songs that we've put out as far as vocals go. It’s one of those songs where it feels like every element of it is kind of perfect—and it's not trying hard at all. It just kind of fell together.”
CP: “I feel like the essence of what's going on in the hook really puts you in a state of mind and a mood that really makes you appreciate where you're at and how you're feeling.”
Dancing With Nobody
CP: “I think one of the most important lines in the album is definitely when Forrest and I talk about ‘even though it hurts, we're always falling into place.’ It really just entails so much of the vibe we were going for. Like, ‘Yeah, everyone does fall, and you will have adversity in your life, but we're always falling into place just like a puzzle piece.’ Your puzzle pieces aren't always going to be in the perfect place, and sometimes you're going to get lost, and sometimes you're not going to know what to do, but there always is a plan and it's always going to fall together.”
All Around
FF: “I think anybody can learn from this story, our story that's in the song. It's basically saying there's this thing that we want to accomplish, we know that it's written on our hearts that this is correct, that we want to do this, and that if we do music, if we pursue music, it will add value into the world. But there's voices internally and externally, like our parents and people around us, saying, ‘Hey, this isn't a job, you should go get a real job, you should do something that's actually going to make you money, you should do something that has structure.’ And you know what, it doesn't matter, because before I die, before the sun goes down, I’m going to take this love and spread it all around.”
Horizons
FF: “This song literally just wrote itself. As undergrads, I was sitting in the passenger seat, Colin was driving. I think I had his laptop plugged into the AUX, looping the production on Logic, and we just starting going, like that call and response. We just kept doing it, and doing it, and doing it—it just felt right. We almost had to sit back and decipher what it meant, because me and him were just singing it and it just made sense in the moment.”
CP: “I think it's almost like this awareness of what's going on around you and just taking it all into account.”
Keep It Gold
CP: “It’s a mindset. There's a lot of yellow in this song: ‘I can see the sun is shining on your soul,’ and ‘You don't need no money to spread a little honey.’ That's how we think of money, like gold, and then you think of honey, which is also yellow. Let's keep that soul gold, let's keep our vibe, let's keep our feelings, let's keep our energy gold. Let's keep it the best it can be, like, let's keep it shiny, let's be happy, let's have an adventure.”
FF: “And like, the ‘light inside’ would be like a candle or like a flame, which has a yellow tint. So, if you're ‘keeping it gold,’ that means that you're letting your light shine. That song really is about a road trip, and there’s this line that says, ‘Oh, what a shame/We could never feel the pain that the past tried to put in our view.’ It's that idea of, you're driving on and all the things that tried to hold you back, you can just look in the rearview and see them behind you.”
Horizons
Surfaces
Surfaces know that they’re coming at this a bit differently. “We’ve definitely noticed that being positive is almost like counterculture today,” band member Colin Padalecki tells Apple Music. “People want to numb themselves; they’re trying to get away from the world. We're trying to enforce that you don't need to.” Written in summer 2019 at Padalecki's family home on Lake LBJ, just outside of Austin, Texas, Horizons is an almost radical proposition in 2020—an album of bedroom pop that feels like it came from the outdoors, undeterred by the darkness of our current moment. “In the midst of all of this, there really is a lot of good stuff happening around the world, and there's reasons every day to wake up and be proud of who you are and ready for the day, ready to take on new challenges,” Forrest Frank tells Apple Music. “There's always a light at the end of the tunnel. I've noticed that in my own life, and I've walked through stuff with Colin as well. We've had some really dark times in our lives, and there's just always light at the end of the tunnel.” Here, Padalecki and Frank break down every song from their third album.
Rising
Forrest Frank: “We were trying to figure out a way to open up our tour, and going through different ideas for sounds. We wanted a big, grand opening. Once we had ‘Rising’—how fun it was performing it, or walking out to it at all the shows—we felt that this is the type of energy that we wanted to introduce the album with. We wanted the album to be really upbeat but really keep that retro sound. I feel like if you go back to James Taylor, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, there's just this thing: When they express love, or when they talk about love, it's like, ‘I want to hold you, I want to respect you, I want to love you.’ That's kind of what we hope for.”
Take It Easy
Colin Padalecki: “We wanted it to be super upbeat, with the mission statement of ‘As long as you have love around you, you can make home anywhere.’ I think the line is ‘I know you've been looking for better days,’ and it's like you can always find better days within yourself—the only one making it a bad day is the energy from the outlook you have going on with yourself. It's like a proclamation, of you offering yourself as a friend, and that person can be anyone. At the beginning, you can hear Forrest saying, ‘If you need a hand, I will be your friend.’ And it's almost like that one song, ‘Lean on Me.’ Like, you're not on your own. We can help you become comfortable with yourself and have a home wherever you are.”
FF: “It's this visual home, like, ‘Hey, come on in, take your shoes off, prop your feet up, grab a drink, let's just take it easy.’”
Good Day
FF: “Definitely kind of a pure beach song. We really just imagined a beach or a pool for that one. We were just hanging out at the lake, spending all of our time outside all day, doing whatever we liked. It was a good day.”
CP: “I feel like it was just a narrative, like what we were actually doing outside. It was a sunny day out, we were just chilling—we wanted to capture the energy of the day, and that's what came out.”
Lazy
CP: “Me and Forrest recorded most of our music near my college house in College Station [Texas]. That's when I went to Texas A&M. A majority of [2019’s] Where the Light Is was actually recorded in this house, in my closet. The house is actually on Montclair Avenue, which we say in ‘Lazy’—it’s always been really special to Forrest, and I just have a lot of great memories there. I think we captured it pretty well in the music video.”
Bloom
FF: “It’s [one of] the biggest outliers on the project, as far as the sound goes, because most of it's like R&B, trappy percussion, but that one's just like traditional disco. It’s very reminiscent of the lake. They actually had this major flooding, and Colin’s whole dock just got destroyed, and they rebuilt it with this kind of cool concrete thing with the insurance money. We were hanging out there and the sunsets on the lake were just really pretty. I think the hook came first: ‘I was thinking about you and all the colors bloom.’”
CP: “When you hear the word ‘bloom,’ you think of flowers. We didn't want to just say ‘flowers’ and surface-level stuff—we wanted to dive deeper. ‘Bloom’ is just a really catchy way of describing the color in the world and the color of that day.’”
Sunny Side Up
CP: “Forrest is really, really good at making great food. Like very healthy, very aesthetic protein bowls, taco bowls—I’m pretty sure I only eat vegetables when I'm around him. So, one day, I was like, ‘Man, we should really make a song about breakfast,’ because it's just something that was always in our lives and it always felt like a special thing when we were together making breakfast. So, we made a song about breakfast.”
FF: “And the phrase ‘I keep my sunny side up’: Whenever it first hit us, it was like it just felt so on brand. It’s like all analogy, obviously. It's like half sunny side up like breakfast, and sunny side up like mindset. It's like even when you're down, and people are looking at you while you're down, if you have a smile on your face while you're down, they're looking at you, like they're looking at your sunny side up.”
Sky Interlude
CP: “I think we put a lot of pride in our interludes. I think it was especially important for this album because I think this is the first album where we have a Side A and Side B. It's not that they're crazy different, but Side A is more like a little more retro, a little more upbeat, and then Side B is way more vibier, but it really hits you in the head a lot. Every time I listen to the album, I never skip it, because it feels good, like a nice transitioning.”
FF: “Yeah. I think Side A is more like blue and yellow, and then Side B is almost like purples and violets, and just a little darker shades.”
Remedy
FF: “It might be my favorite. It's definitely one of the most gentle songs that we've put out as far as vocals go. It’s one of those songs where it feels like every element of it is kind of perfect—and it's not trying hard at all. It just kind of fell together.”
CP: “I feel like the essence of what's going on in the hook really puts you in a state of mind and a mood that really makes you appreciate where you're at and how you're feeling.”
Dancing With Nobody
CP: “I think one of the most important lines in the album is definitely when Forrest and I talk about ‘even though it hurts, we're always falling into place.’ It really just entails so much of the vibe we were going for. Like, ‘Yeah, everyone does fall, and you will have adversity in your life, but we're always falling into place just like a puzzle piece.’ Your puzzle pieces aren't always going to be in the perfect place, and sometimes you're going to get lost, and sometimes you're not going to know what to do, but there always is a plan and it's always going to fall together.”
All Around
FF: “I think anybody can learn from this story, our story that's in the song. It's basically saying there's this thing that we want to accomplish, we know that it's written on our hearts that this is correct, that we want to do this, and that if we do music, if we pursue music, it will add value into the world. But there's voices internally and externally, like our parents and people around us, saying, ‘Hey, this isn't a job, you should go get a real job, you should do something that's actually going to make you money, you should do something that has structure.’ And you know what, it doesn't matter, because before I die, before the sun goes down, I’m going to take this love and spread it all around.”
Horizons
FF: “This song literally just wrote itself. As undergrads, I was sitting in the passenger seat, Colin was driving. I think I had his laptop plugged into the AUX, looping the production on Logic, and we just starting going, like that call and response. We just kept doing it, and doing it, and doing it—it just felt right. We almost had to sit back and decipher what it meant, because me and him were just singing it and it just made sense in the moment.”
CP: “I think it's almost like this awareness of what's going on around you and just taking it all into account.”
Keep It Gold
CP: “It’s a mindset. There's a lot of yellow in this song: ‘I can see the sun is shining on your soul,’ and ‘You don't need no money to spread a little honey.’ That's how we think of money, like gold, and then you think of honey, which is also yellow. Let's keep that soul gold, let's keep our vibe, let's keep our feelings, let's keep our energy gold. Let's keep it the best it can be, like, let's keep it shiny, let's be happy, let's have an adventure.”
FF: “And like, the ‘light inside’ would be like a candle or like a flame, which has a yellow tint. So, if you're ‘keeping it gold,’ that means that you're letting your light shine. That song really is about a road trip, and there’s this line that says, ‘Oh, what a shame/We could never feel the pain that the past tried to put in our view.’ It's that idea of, you're driving on and all the things that tried to hold you back, you can just look in the rearview and see them behind you.”
Rising
Forrest Frank: “We were trying to figure out a way to open up our tour, and going through different ideas for sounds. We wanted a big, grand opening. Once we had ‘Rising’—how fun it was performing it, or walking out to it at all the shows—we felt that this is the type of energy that we wanted to introduce the album with. We wanted the album to be really upbeat but really keep that retro sound. I feel like if you go back to James Taylor, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, there's just this thing: When they express love, or when they talk about love, it's like, ‘I want to hold you, I want to respect you, I want to love you.’ That's kind of what we hope for.”
Take It Easy
Colin Padalecki: “We wanted it to be super upbeat, with the mission statement of ‘As long as you have love around you, you can make home anywhere.’ I think the line is ‘I know you've been looking for better days,’ and it's like you can always find better days within yourself—the only one making it a bad day is the energy from the outlook you have going on with yourself. It's like a proclamation, of you offering yourself as a friend, and that person can be anyone. At the beginning, you can hear Forrest saying, ‘If you need a hand, I will be your friend.’ And it's almost like that one song, ‘Lean on Me.’ Like, you're not on your own. We can help you become comfortable with yourself and have a home wherever you are.”
FF: “It's this visual home, like, ‘Hey, come on in, take your shoes off, prop your feet up, grab a drink, let's just take it easy.’”
Good Day
FF: “Definitely kind of a pure beach song. We really just imagined a beach or a pool for that one. We were just hanging out at the lake, spending all of our time outside all day, doing whatever we liked. It was a good day.”
CP: “I feel like it was just a narrative, like what we were actually doing outside. It was a sunny day out, we were just chilling—we wanted to capture the energy of the day, and that's what came out.”
Lazy
CP: “Me and Forrest recorded most of our music near my college house in College Station [Texas]. That's when I went to Texas A&M. A majority of [2019’s] Where the Light Is was actually recorded in this house, in my closet. The house is actually on Montclair Avenue, which we say in ‘Lazy’—it’s always been really special to Forrest, and I just have a lot of great memories there. I think we captured it pretty well in the music video.”
Bloom
FF: “It’s [one of] the biggest outliers on the project, as far as the sound goes, because most of it's like R&B, trappy percussion, but that one's just like traditional disco. It’s very reminiscent of the lake. They actually had this major flooding, and Colin’s whole dock just got destroyed, and they rebuilt it with this kind of cool concrete thing with the insurance money. We were hanging out there and the sunsets on the lake were just really pretty. I think the hook came first: ‘I was thinking about you and all the colors bloom.’”
CP: “When you hear the word ‘bloom,’ you think of flowers. We didn't want to just say ‘flowers’ and surface-level stuff—we wanted to dive deeper. ‘Bloom’ is just a really catchy way of describing the color in the world and the color of that day.’”
Sunny Side Up
CP: “Forrest is really, really good at making great food. Like very healthy, very aesthetic protein bowls, taco bowls—I’m pretty sure I only eat vegetables when I'm around him. So, one day, I was like, ‘Man, we should really make a song about breakfast,’ because it's just something that was always in our lives and it always felt like a special thing when we were together making breakfast. So, we made a song about breakfast.”
FF: “And the phrase ‘I keep my sunny side up’: Whenever it first hit us, it was like it just felt so on brand. It’s like all analogy, obviously. It's like half sunny side up like breakfast, and sunny side up like mindset. It's like even when you're down, and people are looking at you while you're down, if you have a smile on your face while you're down, they're looking at you, like they're looking at your sunny side up.”
Sky Interlude
CP: “I think we put a lot of pride in our interludes. I think it was especially important for this album because I think this is the first album where we have a Side A and Side B. It's not that they're crazy different, but Side A is more like a little more retro, a little more upbeat, and then Side B is way more vibier, but it really hits you in the head a lot. Every time I listen to the album, I never skip it, because it feels good, like a nice transitioning.”
FF: “Yeah. I think Side A is more like blue and yellow, and then Side B is almost like purples and violets, and just a little darker shades.”
Remedy
FF: “It might be my favorite. It's definitely one of the most gentle songs that we've put out as far as vocals go. It’s one of those songs where it feels like every element of it is kind of perfect—and it's not trying hard at all. It just kind of fell together.”
CP: “I feel like the essence of what's going on in the hook really puts you in a state of mind and a mood that really makes you appreciate where you're at and how you're feeling.”
Dancing With Nobody
CP: “I think one of the most important lines in the album is definitely when Forrest and I talk about ‘even though it hurts, we're always falling into place.’ It really just entails so much of the vibe we were going for. Like, ‘Yeah, everyone does fall, and you will have adversity in your life, but we're always falling into place just like a puzzle piece.’ Your puzzle pieces aren't always going to be in the perfect place, and sometimes you're going to get lost, and sometimes you're not going to know what to do, but there always is a plan and it's always going to fall together.”
All Around
FF: “I think anybody can learn from this story, our story that's in the song. It's basically saying there's this thing that we want to accomplish, we know that it's written on our hearts that this is correct, that we want to do this, and that if we do music, if we pursue music, it will add value into the world. But there's voices internally and externally, like our parents and people around us, saying, ‘Hey, this isn't a job, you should go get a real job, you should do something that's actually going to make you money, you should do something that has structure.’ And you know what, it doesn't matter, because before I die, before the sun goes down, I’m going to take this love and spread it all around.”
Horizons
FF: “This song literally just wrote itself. As undergrads, I was sitting in the passenger seat, Colin was driving. I think I had his laptop plugged into the AUX, looping the production on Logic, and we just starting going, like that call and response. We just kept doing it, and doing it, and doing it—it just felt right. We almost had to sit back and decipher what it meant, because me and him were just singing it and it just made sense in the moment.”
CP: “I think it's almost like this awareness of what's going on around you and just taking it all into account.”
Keep It Gold
CP: “It’s a mindset. There's a lot of yellow in this song: ‘I can see the sun is shining on your soul,’ and ‘You don't need no money to spread a little honey.’ That's how we think of money, like gold, and then you think of honey, which is also yellow. Let's keep that soul gold, let's keep our vibe, let's keep our feelings, let's keep our energy gold. Let's keep it the best it can be, like, let's keep it shiny, let's be happy, let's have an adventure.”
FF: “And like, the ‘light inside’ would be like a candle or like a flame, which has a yellow tint. So, if you're ‘keeping it gold,’ that means that you're letting your light shine. That song really is about a road trip, and there’s this line that says, ‘Oh, what a shame/We could never feel the pain that the past tried to put in our view.’ It's that idea of, you're driving on and all the things that tried to hold you back, you can just look in the rearview and see them behind you.”
