Interview & Live Show with Valley
To know Valley is to love Valley. Whether it’s because of their standout pop hits or because of their genuine love and care for what they do and the people who tune into it, I don’t see how anyone could avoid falling head over heels. In the midst of their tour with COIN, I had the opportunity to sit down with them for Tongue Tied and discuss their recent EP Last Birthday, their newly announced first headline tour, and how they navigated creating in a pandemic.
For readers that may not know you all yet, I’ll have y’all go around and introduce yourselves.
I’m Rob Laska, and I sing and play guitar in the band Valley.
I’m Karah James, I play drums and sing in the band Valley.
I’m Mickey [Brandolino], I play guitar and keys in the band Valley.
I’m Alex [DiMauro], I play bass and bass synth in the band Valley.
I’d love for you to tell me a little bit about the history of Valley. What was the journey to define yourself and find your sound like?
RL: So, we got double booked by accident. Me and Alex were in a band in high school, and Karah and Mickey were in a band in high school. We both came from different lanes musically. We all grew up on our parents’ records and stuff like that, the through line was like, Fleetwood Mac and Jackson 5 and a lot of Motown, all the stuff your parents give you, like classic rock. But we got started in high school and I got into very alternative music and me and Alex were listening to a lot of the early indie pop bands that were coming up in the UK, like Two Door Cinema Club, Bombay [Bicycle Club], like Tokyo Police Club, all these bands, and then Karah and Mickey were kind of on the opposite spectrum, like covering a lot of amazingly written pop music and had a big pop sensibility that I hadn’t discovered yet with Alex, so we kind of clashed in the perfect way when we met and I think the reason why it works is because I’m kind of this alt-leaning — I hate to genre-fy now, but — I kinda came from the UK and Britpop and Karah and Mickey brought the real pop sensibility into the band and then Alex grew up listening to pop rock, like Green Day and Fall Out Boy and all those kind of punk pop bands, so he brought that realism and that pop sensibility as well. So I think that’s how we got our sound, and then it’s just been snowballing that idea for seven years until it becomes a million other things.
I want to congratulate you all on the recent release of the Last Birthday EP, which I might add is fantastic. How does it feel to have those songs out in the world? How has the fan reception been?
MB: It’s been really great.
RL: It’s been good. It feels really good. We knew with this EP we were definitely turning a new page songwriting-wise and production-wise, and it’s been really nice to see the expected things happen, and that’s good and bad. There’s definitely some people that, you know, loved MAYBE, MAYBE was their album, and we cherish that a lot…And you know, they might listen to the new stuff and it might take them a little longer to get into it. But It’s still Valley and nothing has changed, it’s just us writing and producing songs in our basement. The other side of the coin is like, there’s been so many new people that are just discovering Last Birthday and then going back and discovering sucks [to see you doing better] and then discovering MAYBE, and it’s been cool to see those two things clash in a beautiful way. We’re really, really grateful and people have received the music really well and we’re definitely expanding what the band can sound like and mean. Me and Chase [Lawrence, frontman of COIN] talk a lot about this on time off in the venues, he always says once you’ve cracked the formula it stops being fun anymore. I think the reason why we keep putting out so much music and keep growing is like, whenever we think we have it figured out we just try the opposite. I think Last Birthday was a big step in that direction. We were like, “Let’s try something we’ve never done,” and I think we got a lot of amazing songs out of it. It’s just been amazing. The fans are really so open to change — not change, growth — with us, which is amazing.
AD: I feel like, to add to his point, a lot of the songs that are on Last Birthday were held back, so we’re just really happy to see people enjoying those songs that, as we say were kept in the fridge for a bit of time now. Years…seven years for one of them.
MB: They fermented.
AD: [Laughs] Yeah, they’re fermented. They’re good for you. It’s just nice to see those songs in the world and people listening finally.
Towards the beginning of the pandemic, your song “Like 1999” went viral on TikTok. Did garnering an audience on that platform and thus leaning into a platform with such a short attention span change the way you wrote and released music at all?
MB: Honestly, we are thankful every day that the song exploded at the perfect size. Because it did go viral, and it got us millions of streams on every platform, but it was at the perfect size where it brought our career to the next level without skipping a bunch of steps and then being that one band with that one song from TikTok. We’ve watched our monthly listeners go up, we’ve watched our followers go up and stay there, which is incredibly important with our type of band. I think what we did learn from it was to not overthink things. It was the second song on this writing trip that we did and we couldn’t get a song that day, it just wasn’t working out, and then we were like, “Let’s set a timer for 30 minutes, if we can’t get anything good out of this let’s just end the write today and that’s it,” and then we came up with the “1999” chorus with Jon [Capeci] from Nightly and Charli Adams, and then it just wrote itself in literally an hour. And then we uploaded it on TikTok just cause we were like, “Wow, we love this song,” and I think it just resonated with other people so we really learned to like…if you just don’t overthink things, and you share your personality and you share your music and everything, sometimes things stick. There is no formula, you just gotta be consistent and not overthink things.
TT: I do think a lot of the best music comes from just putting it out there and not overthinking.
MB: Yeah, lots of happy accidents.
How would you say the lockdown altered your creative process?
KJ: It was an adjustment at the beginning, because we had to pull inspiration and influence from less, like, routine things, because obviously we weren’t touring or traveling and we were exposed to less. It was an adjustment to write a song because you had to think more introspectively as opposed to, you know, being prompted by like, being in Denver and seeing whatever on the street. Toronto, where we’re from, held the record for longest lockdown in the world and most consecutive days, so there was actually a long time where we couldn’t be together, so everything was done remotely. Even stuff with sucks to see you doing better…like the “homebody” drums were done on an iPhone. You figure it out. And honestly it would’ve been impossible without technology, like if this had happened in the 80’s there would’ve been no chance for us.
MB: But then, within that too, because we couldn’t see each other our only choice was to kind of in phases basically live together. We got a place for over a month to be safe and made music, and I think just having a space for one purpose was really helpful as well because we woke up every day and were like, “Alright, let’s just throw paint and see what happens,” and that’s how we came up with half the songs on the record and a lot of songs that we love that aren’t out yet…but will be out. I think it was a lot of good but a lot of challenges, like anything in life really.
What has it been like coming from a world without touring and going straight into it again?
MB: I adjusted better than I thought I would.
RL: It’s like riding a bike, you just kinda click in.
MB: It really did feel like we kind of picked up where we left off.
RL: This tour is also like a big deal, because we’re on a bus for the first time, so we actually rest more, we have full days off, not driving days a lot of the time. We get to relax and work on other things. We’re working on our Toronto headline show we just announced, so all the free time now is just designing the show and stuff. It’s nice, we’re not in a van, stinky people. Now its just a little bit bigger. More stink, I guess. [Laughs]
MB: More space for the stink to go.
What has been the most rewarding part of this tour with COIN so far? What are you most looking forward to on the rest?
MB: Seeing fans connect more than the last tour is crazy. There’s been so many people in the crowd singing every word, and it’s really mind boggling because turning the analytics of, you know, the data from how many people stream and how many people follow and seeing it in real life and it actually existing is really cool. I take my in-ears out every time we play “Like 1999” so I can listen to the crowd sing it because I don’t play for half the song, so I get a moment to be a part of the crowd. It’s nice.
RL: I’ve been a big fan of COIN since like, high school pretty much. So for me it was like full circle to tour with them, and then to become friends with the boys has been really cool. We’ve toured with artists that I’ve looked up to, but COIN is definitely one of the artists I’ve looked up to the most, so it’s been really cool to A) just hang out with them and B) just pick their brains for knowledge. And they’re genuinely extremely nice, humble human beings. I’ve started to realize thats rarer and rarer in this industry, and we’ve been very lucky to tour with amazing artists that have treated us really well, but I’ve talked to other artists and there’s a lot of shit that goes around this industry that’s not cool. [COIN] are just so awesome. They get offstage and just hang out and it’s not crazy every night, like we get to have genuine conversation. Just very human, the whole tour is very human.
MB: Before we went on yesterday and the day before, Chase just came up to us and gave each one of us like, a unique compliment out of nowhere.
RL: They’re such nice humans, and it’s not like a fake nice, they’re just genuinely very nice people that just do it for the right reasons. They play their show, they know the path they’re on. It’s been really cool to see that. I feel like there’s not a lot of bands that really stick to that mentality their whole career. COIN remind me of Coldplay that way, where they’re just like, “There’s one thing that we’re supposed to be doing,” and it’s really nice to see. That’s probably been my favorite part of the tour, just that realization.
Are there any artists, in any medium, that you all have been taking inspiration from recently?
RL: COIN for sure. Lately…let me think. Let me look at my Spotify.
MB: For the EP, Jim Carrey and a lot of movies.
RL: Lot of movies for sure, lot of cinema. Thelma and Louise.
MB: The Truman Show.
RL: My recently liked songs are random. “Meet Me At Our Spot” [by THE ANXIETY, WILLOW & Tyler Cole], just ‘cause I wanted to listen to the original. I’ve been listening to that. “CTRL + ALT + DEL” by Rêve. Peach Tree Rascals just put out a cover of “Everywhere” by Fleetwood Mac, and it’s borderline better than the original. I don’t say that lightly, it’s incredible. That’s pretty much what I have saved right now…Men I Trust, new BLACKSTARKIDS, they’re awesome. New Hippo Campus, new Jeremy Zucker, new FINNEAS album.
MB: Did we say new Coldplay?
RL: New Coldplay! Kind of the ushe for us to be honest.
What is something you hope people will take away from your music?
MB: Feeling. Whatever it makes you feel.
RL: Yeah. My goal is for people to have a song for every moment in their life, I think thats like the ultimate goal. That’s what I’ve actually realized is the trick to becoming from a listener to a fan or a follower of a band, is you have to have that song for every moment. I think COIN does that really well. COIN has the song for every feeling, Coldplay — one of my favorite bands — is the same thing. They have the song that can make me cry, dance, put on at a party. They have the song that makes me think about death, they have the song that makes me think about, you know, when I’m hungry. Like there’s so many different songs that they have for every emotion and feeling and that’s what I want to get at with our band. And get more and more specific with it too, not just like a heartbreak song, a whatever song. But then again, we just had this conversation with Chase, and he has this theory that people, like, on the outside of our industry, only feel very simple things. It’s like either cry, laugh. Fast, slow. And I feel like we’re always going to cater to those feelings, but just kinda zoom in on them more and more you know? That’s the goal too, I want to have songs for very very specific feelings, not just oh, breakup. I wanna always push for very specific moments. Every artist always says the more specific you get with something the more global it is.
TT: I do think that’s something that like, drew me to your music. I’ve been a long time listener, and I feel like y’all kind of just zone in on very specific emotions in a way that no other band does.
RL: “Malibu” by COIN is such a great example. That’s like their fan favorite…not even the fan favorite, that’s just like one of their magnum opus songs, and it’s so, so specific. Even global pop songs, I find the ones that can just dig a little deeper lyrically into a moment, you’re gonna win over so many more people. But it changes, I guess, ‘cause then you have that TikTok…PinkPantheress song, which is just a vibe, you know. You have a song like that that is so unbelievably catchy, and she’s kind of repeating the same three ideas.
MB: That’s a huge feeling though, “When you wipe your tears / do you wipe them just for me?” Like, it’s beautiful.
RL: Exactly, exactly. It’s just figuring it out, that’s the whole game right now we play.
A little birdie told me we can expect some tour dates in 2022. Anything you can tell us about this yet?
RL: It’s gonna be our first headline tour, no doubt about it, as expected. It’s gonna be long, we’re gonna try to hit as many cities as possible. We’re in the process of actually upgrading some cities, so yeah. It’s all happening. We’re gonna try to make it the most fun and best show we could put on within our means. We just wanna make it a really unique experience for our fans and people that follow us, ‘cause it’s been a really long time coming. We just wanna make sure it lives up to the hype. It’s kinda seven years in the making.
MB: And it’s a really good time for us to tour, ‘cause we have so much new music that fans haven’t been able to hear live, especially even on this tour because we’ve been lucky enough to have a lot of songs do well and so we play those songs first because those are the most popular and people wanna hear, but we wanna play the B-sides, the deep cuts, everything on sucks, everything on Last Birthday, MAYBE, that fans wouldn’t otherwise get to hear live if we weren’t headlining. It’s gonna be nice to be able to play those songs on a headline tour for people.
RL: And there’s just more time to put on like, a performance and like, a moment. When we’re not rushed onstage we can have conversations, we can improv, we can like, build a show for people. It’s not like, play the songs and get off ‘cause the headliners up. We get to put on the show we’ve wanted to, which is exciting in itself. That’s what people are craving, too. They just want to talk to us for an hour and a half and hear us.
What does the ideal future look like for Valley?
MB: Short term: sold out headline tour. Long term: sold out headline tour.
RL: The globe. We wanna go to Asia, we wanna go around the world. Show people the Valley way. Write really great songs. I think really great songs is the answer to everything. You write really great songs, you tour really great songs, people connect to those really great songs, everything is the songs. Your social media is amazing when you have really great songs because you’re proud of your really great songs. It’s really just…great songs. Gotta write the best song.
Stream Valley’s new EP Last Birthday and find their upcoming tour dates here
Interview by Bella Peterson
