a chat with gloomy june

I recently got to have a little chat with gloomy june about all things music, their new band name and so much more. gloomy june's newest single "Save Anyone" will be out on March 17th on all streaming platforms.

Hi! Thanks so much for answering my questions, how are you?

Alexi: Hey thanks for having us! We’re so stoked though a little bit stressed- we’ve been going full speed to prepare for our name change since around December last year.

How did you all start making music together?

Alexi: Devin and I started making music together after we met in college at SF State. We started the band as a recording project helping finish each other’s half-written songs, but realized we write really well together and started performing the songs. We met Jack through craigslist, and we knew he was a great fit when we started talking about Game of Thrones lol. (This was before the show had fully jumped the shark.) Ash found us in a similar way to Jack, and this was in late 2020, so we first auditioned them through them emailing us e-drum kit play-alongs to songs we were working on. Funnily, we thought they were hitting the drums timidly but that was a trick of the e-kit and in person they bashed our ears off, but in the best way.

How did you go about discovering your sound?

Alexi: We all come into this with different tastes in music, the Venn diagram of our tastes crosses over in just a few cases like the band AFI, and from that we bring our styles of technical playing (not me tbh), pop sensibility, heaviness, every shade of emo, and some early 2000’s power pop, and it just sort of flows from there.

You were originally called The Y Axes and now are re naming yourselves gloomy june (which I love)! You’ve said you feel the need to an urge to “un-techify” yourselves, which is really interesting. Can you talk a little more about this?

Alexi: I originally called us the “Why Axis” which was in my imagination the plane of consciousness where you question everything. Because at the time Devin was a scientist at Nasa, and I sort of romanticized the idea of math making sense, the nerd quality of the name made sense at the time. Devin and I both liked band names that were “The (insert plural nouns)” like The Strokes, The Killers, etc. so we decided to pluralize it and make it easier to spell as The Y Axes. Turns out (and this is no exaggeration) 50% of the time, the name got misspelled. After a few years of home-recording our music, and just growing and changing as people, we felt we’d outgrown the logical science-style name, but it also felt like it was too late to change it since people knew us. Now that it’s really too too late, and we’ve survived an apocalyptic pandemic, we decided it’s now or never and we’d take a chance being true to ourselves as gloomy june.

You’ve recently released your newest single “Save Anyone”. This track has a sense of vulnerability in it. How do you go about bringing vulnerability and honesty in your lyrics?

Alexi: It was definitely something I had to grow into. Over the past bunch of years, I got more comfortable being vulnerable in my lyrics. Where before I would normally disguise my feelings of alienation or romantic drama in metaphors of being a time traveler or robot, (sounds so silly now lol), I’m more likely to say what I mean now, because I feel like it’s worth it to be vulnerable if someone hears it, identifies with it, and maybe it helps them express their feelings somehow.

What was the creative and writing process like for “Save Anyone”?

Devin: Save Anyone coalesced around the opening guitar riff which I initially messed around with mostly because it was fun to play. For the choruses I aimed to write an optimistic evolving melody over a base of melancholic chords, combining a pop hook with an emo punk edge. I gave all that to Alexi and she did a great job translating the mumbled melodies I sang into my phone into actual compelling vocals. Once we brought it to the rest of the band everybody got excited and we ended up playing it much more intense than I originally intended but it had a lot of driving energy so it stuck.

“Save Anyone” sound is a bit different from the likes of “Slide”, was the creative process different? (in terms of creating the music)

Alexi: Slide was written in Spring of 2019, performed for the first time at the tail-end of a tour in April 2019. 2019 is so hard to imagine now, but it was such a different mental space than spring of 2020 when we wrote Save Anyone. 2019 has such a nonchalance and almost grunge feel to it, while Save Anyone really feels like a plea for someone to open themselves up for help. You might also be feeling the production style of studio_dad from Text Me Records on “Slide,” which definitely adds a danceable energy to the track.

You said once you heard Porter Robinson’s Secret Sky, and you heard “Get Your Wish” and started writing the chorus of “Save Anyone”, who would you say your musical influences are?

Alexi: I mentioned earlier we all come from different places with our musical tastes, but for me personally I feel a Mew, M83, and Coheed and Cambria vibe for “Save Anyone”. I’d say personally my musical influences come from Dirty Hit bands like 1975, Pale Waves, and Beabadoobee, as well as Jack Antonoff projects like Lorde’s “Melodrama”, Bleachers, Carly Rae Jepsen, maybe you’ll see some Taylor Swift in there in the future. I could go on.. Remi Wolf and The Strokes and Girl in Red.. I consider myself a fan of music as much as a writer.

How would you describe the music you are creating to a first time listener?

Devin: Catchy intricate bittersweet pop rock.

You’ll also be playing SXSW which is amazing! (Congratulations!) How does that feel to play something so well known for up and coming bands?

Alexi: We’re so excited we’re finally doing it! I hope it helps bring our music to more listeners, but whatever happens I think it solidifies our resolve to be Really Doing the “music thing” if that makes sense. Excited to play with The Hate Drugs at Balanced Breakfast’s showcase too!

Being based in San Francisco and having a DIY scene there, did it ever inspire you all at all? If so, how so and which bands are/were your favorite?

Alexi: I love the local music scene here. I think a few that inspire me are Tino Drima, Derek Ted, and Carpool Tunnel. My favorite local artists other than them right now are LoserLees, Ha Vay, Goodworld, Mae Powell, Madi Sipes, Same Girls, Kevin Nichols, Buzzed Lightbeer, Like Roses, The Moondrops, Ricky Lake, Thank You Come Again, Lofi Legs, Stoni, Cardio Star, Ultra Q, Spelling, Hot Flash Heat Wave, Destroy Boys, Alice Knows Karate, Juicebumps, and New Spell.

Are there any bands or artist you listen to during your creative process?

Alexi: I just made a list of artists I want to write to when I have time! Boy Pablo, Charli XCX, Dominic Fike, Troye Sivan, Remi Wolf, Third Eye Blind, and Remy.

Last question, we’re all about discovering new artists and bands. Who should we be checking out right now?

Alexi: I’m sure you’ve heard of all of them, but I’d recommend Fashion Jackson, Julian Skiboat, The Haunts, Reisender, Nari, Blushh, basically anything on Park The Van records.

Words by Melody

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