Interview: Tommy Lefroy
Interview by Carson Huffer
Clad in medieval suits of armor while running the streets of London, transatlantic indie-pop duo Tommy Lefroy has entered a new musical era with their swords, both literal and lyrical, at the ready.
Composed of singer-songwriters Tessa Mouzourakis and Wynter Bethel, Tommy Lefroy found its footing as a quarantine project turned success story. The duo initially met in Nashville in 2017 working as songwriters for others, and when COVID hit, they found themselves split between London and LA with nothing to do. Instead of sitting complacent within the world’s isolation, Tessa and Wynter found themselves writing and producing music over zoom, eventually finding themselves releasing their debut EP Flight Risk in November of 2021 and putting Tommy Lefroy on the map as an emerging artist to watch out for. Now that they’ve reveled in their own exploration of love, loss, and exploring their new artistry, Tommy Lefroy is back with their newest single “Dog Eat Dog”, out today. I got the chance to catch up with Tessa and Wynter pre-release to chat about “Dog Eat Dog” and the new era of Tommy Lefroy.
Resonant throughout our conversation was just how excited the duo is for the new era of their music. “Dog Eat Dog” is the first song that the duo has co-produced with someone else, and they found their sound shining through the collective minds of Andy Seltzer and themselves. More exciting for the duo, however, was the chance to show fans how Tommy Lefroy sees the world now in a post-Flight Risk mindset.
“I think we're really ready for the next chapter because with Flight Risk, a lot of those songs we had been working on for years, so our lives changed considerably in the time it took for them to come out. “Dog Eat Dog” we started last summer in London and we finished this year in LA, so it's just a newer mindset for us. I would also say this is just some of the most fun we've had. We were in a bit of a strange place while writing “Dog Eat Dog”, but it was funny to us. It was fun and funny to write this song and we hope that it's felt when listening to it.” -Tessa Mouzourakis of Tommy Lefroy, for Tongue Tied Magazine
“We're excited for this one. I think it will be a fun era kind of coming out of this sort of melancholic, dramatic era of flight risk. We're still dramatic, but it's a new chapter, and I think we had a lot of fun with it. So we're excited to share.” - Wynter Bethel of Tommy Lefroy, for Tongue Tied Magazine
The fun of creating “Dog Eat Dog” carried through its entire creation for Tommy, as the music video for the track features Tessa and Wynter clad in full suits of armor walking around the streets of London. Filmed with an all female crew, Tommy found joyous moments in the chaos as they showed their physical armor to the world.
“A really funny moment happened where there's a scene that we shot at Stoke Newington Overground Station. I'm on one side of the platform and Wynter was on the other and there's this moment of recognition where I'm in armor and she's in armor and we see each other for the first time. To get that moment, however, the train had to come and go past us. Finally the train comes and it's full of people just going about their day, I’m just standing there as we're waiting to get the shot. There ends up being about two full minutes of me just standing really close to the train in a full suit of armor as the doors are open. At one point, this guy gets off the train, takes one look at me, and then just gets back on it. It was the funniest thing. We definitely scared him by accident waiting for that shot.” - Tessa Mouzourakis of Tommy Lefroy, for Tongue Tied Magazine
PHOTO CREDIT: CHELSEA BALAN
Finding their voice within the sophomore era of Tommy Lefroy brought to light the issues plaguing the world and their own interpretation of it. Within “Dog Eat Dog”, Bethel and Mouzourakis explore a variety of topics important to them as of late, which they say is indicative of every song they release.
“A lot of the songs we release cover a lot of ground and this is definitely one of them. I think that the first verse deals more with our personal journeys and our relationship to work ethic. It’s a really fun part of our identity, but we also recognize it's kind of toxic to uphold these ideals of to get the thing you desire, you have to not only work for it but also fight for it and it ends up taking over your life. For us in the context of the last two years, that has been our music. A lot of the song, however, also came about just talking about being women working in music. It feels like there's such limited space sometimes and women are sort of pitted against each other in this way. We were just talking about all these things and I think like dog eat dog, but in a playful and sardonic take on it. Defensiveness coming from insecurity is also a big theme and that's something we’re playing with the armor and the video, just like guarding ourselves as we walk through the world as a woman. Those are all things that are baked into this silly little song. It's quite complicated, I think, because the female experience is having to reconcile all of these different things all the time. There's a lot to unpack, I think, in a lot of ways.” - Tessa Mouzourakis of Tommy Lefroy, for Tongue Tied Magazine
“We wrote the first verse in like 10 minutes, and then the second verse took us eight months because we knew that we wanted to touch on all these things. Like we knew that it was such a loaded topic, so we didn't want to take it too lightly, but we also didn't want to take it too seriously. We didn't want it to feel heavy or preachy or anything like that, so it was a lot of focus on finding ways to tell the story. Considering all those things was a challenge.” - Wynter Bethel of Tommy Lefroy, for Tongue Tied Magazine
The duo has repeatedly called “Dog Eat Dog” a real departure from the previous work of Tommy Lefroy. Diving deeper into this sentiment, Tessa and Wynter have found themselves in entirely new ways, both as individual people and as the rising stars of Tommy Lefroy.
“I think so much of the process of making Flight Risk was very apprehensive. We had to work through a lot of insecurity and imposter syndrome to just prove to ourselves that we could do it at all. With the year that we've had and the trajectory that the music has taken, everything has completely blown our minds. Now we're no longer fighting as many of those roadblocks of if we even have a right to tell a story, because there is an audience and people are excited to see what we have to say. We’re able to tell our stories without that entry barrier, but now our lives are totally different. When we wrote a lot of the songs of Flight Risk, we weren't living in the same city, but now we've had a lot more shared experiences. So much is informing this next season, and I I think it feels a little bit more grown up. It's more reflective and more, we say, taking accountability because yeah, there's a difference between an early experience of heartbreak versus looking back on a situation two years later and processing it. Looking back, what did you gain from that heartbreak that you're taking forward with you into the next step and the next relationships? We're kind of growing up and figuring out as we go, and all of the music is reflective of that.” - Wynter Bethel of Tommy Lefroy, for Tongue Tied Magazine
“The biggest feeling I have looking at this upcoming body of work is it feels a little bit more empowered. I think we're just really coming into ourselves in being Tommy through this process. And I think these songs are reflecting that sort of ownership we're taking. I like to say it's kind of like taking back the narrative in a sense. It's like. Someone actually on the Discord server we have was asking me a question about the meaning behind the lyric “hopeless wordsmith” from “The Cause”. Looking at this new song, I'd like to think this era is a little less hopeless, a little more wordsmith.” - Tessa Mouzourakis of Tommy Lefroy, for Tongue Tied Magazine
Creating music in the same city is a new experience for the COVID-created Tommy Lefroy, who previous to “Dog Eat Dog” had created almost all of their music virtually over zoom. Having the ability to be in the same place has granted Mouzourakis and Bethel a variety of benefits in their creation process, between the ability to bounce ideas more readily off each other, collaborate in real time, or even just be in the same time zone, but their unique DIY beginnings still affect their process even now.
“The process definitely does feel faster in person. We can sit next to each other and really dive into the details without having to wait for the other person to wake up or respond. Going through the music and ideas we have real time, which I think also creatively makes a huge difference for me.” - Tessa Mouzourakis of Tommy Lefroy, for Tongue Tied Magazine
“I think we're still faced with these challenges that are very specific to our DIY approach. Yes, we’re both in the UK, but I don't have all my instruments or my studio set up because everything's in the States. Also, during 2020, we had this sort of like just a unique situation in that I spent days where all I was doing was producing. When we started recording “The Cause”, I lived in that song for weeks at a time and I did it every day. Now, we're really busy and we have a lot more going on, so we don’t have as much time to dedicate to production ourselves. I think the approach has been just circumstantially so different for this EP than the last.’ - Wynter Bethel of Tommy Lefroy, for Tongue Tied Magazine
The aforementioned “wordsmiths” of Tommy Lefroy have found a home within passionate and imaginative lyricism that pulls in the listener. Songs such as “Shoot” find the duo discussing a relationship devolving into a very real crash landing off of a massive fall, pulling on the heartstrings and imaginations of the masses. The duo was quick to tell me that the way they create their lyrics changes with each song, but their desire for vulnerability, release of emotion, and creating their own safe space keeps the project of Tommy Lefroy’s lifeline alive.
‘’Shoot’ in particular is interesting because Wynter wrote the entire first verse and I wrote the entire second verse. We literally just put them together and it just sort of weirdly worked. When we started this project, we started it as a secret side project that we weren't really telling people about. We honestly just started doing it so that we had an outlet through which we could tell our stories, so when we talk about these like visceral images in the lyricism, I think it's probably from me just not editing myself. When you're writing for other people, you're helping them tell their stories, so for me, Tommy started as a chance to just tell the truth. That's something that I've had to try and remind myself as we write the next batch of songs, and I know now people are listening, so I have to remind myself to still be as truthful as I can be. I got started writing poems and stories and being vulnerable that way, so I apply those same ideas to my lyricism as well.” - Tessa Mouzourakis of Tommy Lefroy, for Tongue Tied Magazine
“Writing is such a big part of how we process our experiences, so with Tommy, it's been just a pretty safe space to bring that first instinct stream of consciousness of what we're going through, how things feel, or what we want to say. On this next project, we've challenged ourselves even more to let go with our writing. We would literally just sit at my kitchen table in LA and just write a stream of consciousness for like 30 minutes and then go back and pick out what we like from it. I think we needed that type of release because of everything that's happened. We have an audience which we're so grateful for, and we wanted to make sure that we didn't overthink these songs because we are overthinkers. It’s really important to us that the writing for the project just stays this sort of protected thing, this safe space that we can return to that isn't affected as much by expectations, whether it be our own, or the team, or the fans. It really is important that there's just a purity to it, so that's what we've tried to keep and protect.” - Wynter Bethel of Tommy Lefroy, for Tongue Tied Magazine
PHOTO CREDIT: CHELSEA BALAN
Wrapped up in the whirlwind that has been the last year for Tommy Lefroy, Tessa and Wynter have grown immensely as people and artists on the journey of their music career together. When it comes to reminiscing on the experience so far, the duo didn’t hold back on advice they wish they could give their younger selves from the lessons they have learned.
“When I was at university, there was a songwriter who came to speak with us and something that she talked about was that your tastes as a writer might evolve quicker than your skill set and the need to have patience with yourself throughout that process. I find that as you grow as a writer and producer, your ambition sort of outruns your skill set and you have to just keep going and persevere. It’s hard to start something like production where it's so skill driven, but we just had to start and be bad at it. I wish I would have started producing even sooner, but I was scared since basically all of my friends were audio engineers and they all had the technical know-how. I just felt like there was this barrier to entry because I didn't want to do something that I couldn't be good at, but in order to get good at it, you have to start. So just knowing and trusting that like your taste or your ambition might exceed your ability, but you have to start to get there. Then once you get there, there might be growing seasons where it happens again. Growth is a constant thing and you just have to be patient with yourself through all of that. And don't be afraid to stop because we all suck.” - Wynter Bethel of Tommy Lefroy, for Tongue Tied Magazine
“I would also just tell myself to start. I prevent myself from doing so much because I am so afraid of being bad at it. I also would say I need to trust myself. We're all growing and making mistakes, but I just feel like I slowed my progress so much as a teenager because I felt like if I was going to play lead guitar, I had to be the best at playing lead guitar. I put all this pressure on myself as a woman playing guitar. I felt like there was no room for me to be bad at it, but you need to be bad at it to get good. That is how you learn. With that, it’s also important to be more gentle with myself. You have to start, and you can do it. We're both perfectionists and it's hard to not be good at something right away, but that is the human condition.. You can't expect to be good at it right away. It's just not how it works.” - Tessa Mouzourakis of Tommy Lefroy, for Tongue Tied Magazine
Looking to the new era of Tommy Lefroy, the duo is excited to play more live shows, including recently announced October dates in New York City and Los Angeles, as well as release more music to welcome listeners into the newest state of their minds.
“We're really excited to just play Flight Risk for people, but also so excited to transition into this new era where we're developing a bit more. It’s a new direction and we’re just having fun with it.” - Wynter Bethel of Tommy Lefroy, for Tongue Tied Magazine
Personally, Flight Risk is one of the greatest EPs I have ever heard, so entering the sophomore era of Tommy Lefroy has brought about joy and excitement for myself and the duo’s base of fans. Finally getting to listen to “Dog Eat Dog” today, I can say with complete certainty that Tessa and Wynter have solidified themselves as the wordsmiths they have set out to be with a frenzy of lyricism and sonic goodness, and I cannot wait to see what comes next from the knights of Tommy Lefroy.
You can watch the stunning music video for “Dog Eat Dog” on YouTube and stream the song on Spotify. Be sure to catch up with Tommy Lefroy on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok so you stay up to date on new releases from Tessa and Wynter!
