INTERVIEW: Silver Liz

Silver Liz are a husband-and-wife bedroom pop duo based in Brooklyn. On their new single Until Lately they step away from their trademark dreamy and experimental noise-pop and make a surprisingly catchy honest-to-god guitar pop tune. We talked to Carrie from Silver Liz about the song's inspiration, musicianship as a socially confusing walk of life and the band's new album.

— Does the song have any direct influences or sources of inspiration?

— I wrote the song a while ago and I don't remember any specific artists I was listening to at that time, but I was generally listening to more pop, which you can hear in the song. I think that's around the time I discovered Clairo and I'm sure her music subconsciously influenced Until Lately. I started appreciating pop a lot more because of the hook, melody and structure to pop songs, and how much that informs what's important to us in songwriting.

— In your press release for the song you said: "When I would introduce myself to people just a few years ago, I felt weird putting out into the world that making music was what I wanted to do, because in a few of my social circles that was confusing to people?" Can you please talk a bit more about that?

— Telling people you meet that you want to make music for a living feels like such a bold move to me, and like you have to then make music or performing your whole personality. I don't innately feel that way, but a lot of other people expect that for some reason. It shows up with some family members, too – some just don't really show interest or they'll ask about backup plans, maybe out of protection because they know it's so hard to succeed.

— Until Lately is the opening track from your new album coming out in 2022. Is it pointing in the direction of how the album is going to sound or is the album going to be stylistically diverse? If so, what is the song's part sonically and story-wise in the context of the album?

— Our new album will essentially have an A side, primarily comprised of songs that I wrote, and a B side made up of songs that Matt primarily wrote, although all of them have some element of collaboration between the both of us. The first side is more earnest, acoustic pop, and the second goes off the deep end into experimental noise pop. Until Lately, in particular, tells a coming-of-age story. Like a couple of other songs on the first half of the album, it grapples with insecurities people can face as kids that linger with them through adulthood but gradually get easier to deal with. 'Cause at a certain point you just decide it becomes exhausting to give these trivial issues unnecessary space in your brain.

The album as a whole is definitely different from our previous releases, and Until Lately is different from other songs within the album, but in my opinion if you have the same vocals throughout differently styled songs, that weaves them all together. We don't want to be pigeonholed into one specific genre and I think we'll always be exploring different styles and genres depending on what we want to make at the time.

Also revisit the band's previous single – the extatic Roman Candle Part II.