The Brummies on Touring, Collaborating with Kacey Musgraves, and Their New Album
Photo by Natalie Bakwin
The Brummies offer a fresh and funky flair to indie music with addicting songs like, “Drive Away” and “Lovers Do.” They released their debut album, Eternal Reach, in 2018 followed by Automatic World two years later. Recently, The Brummies channeled their talents into new music with their latest atmospheric single, “Cosmic Space Girl.” Dressed in lavender jumpsuits and sporting purple fuzzy boas, The Brummies chatted with us after their mesmerizing 2022 Governors Ball performance. We learned more about their upcoming music, unique creative process, and candid songwriting advice.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Amazing set, you guys did so well. How have you been enjoying New York so far? Give me some highlights - have you been able to explore?
[THE BRUMMIES:] We fucking love New York––maybe not “fucking” - we love New York. It’s become a second home for us, really. We’ve come up here so much to play shows and just spend time up here. We love it. We ended our tour in Toronto and got here so we’ve been here for four days. We’ve been tearing it up in Manhattan, West Village, Queens, all over.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Perfect, and now that your set here is done, do you have any post-show rituals? Are you gonna see anyone else? What’s the plan for the day?
[THE BRUMMIES:] I wanna see Clairo and Glass Animals. I’d love to see J. Cole but I feel like it’s gonna be late. Hopefully, it doesn’t storm too bad on anybody.
[UNPUBLISHED:] It seems like it’s been pretty clear so far. I’d love to talk to you about one of my favorite songs of yours called “Drive Away,” which is a collaboration with Kacey Musgraves. What was your experience working with her, and which other artists would you love to collab with in the future?
[THE BRUMMIES:] Working with Kacey was awesome. She’s a friend of ours, so it was really easy. It was chill, you know? She’s absolutely amazing. Other artists, we’d love to collab with would be Cage The Elephant and Kevin Parker.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What have been some of the main inspirations behind the sound for this new album, and what can fans expect for this new era you’re in?
[THE BRUMMIES:] So for our first album, Eternal Reach, we wanted to make an authentic 70s-to-tape album. In our second one, Automatic World, we decided, “Okay, what if we built on top of that tape and then also added some more synthesizers and kind of this Hi-Fi sound?” And then with this third thing we’re doing right now, it’s leaning even more into the synthesizers. It’s a natural evolution. It’s not so thought out like, “Here’s what we’re gonna do.” It’s just whatever ends up happening once we’re in the studio. We have the pandemic and just wrote a bunch of songs, so alright let’s record. Let’s make an album.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Just a question to build off of that, how has the pandemic influenced the direction of your music? Has there been any inspiration involved in that?
[THE BRUMMIES:] It probably influenced us in more ways than we even know. Everybody’s just locked up. We wrote a lot, wrote differently. We had to. You’re always on the move, you always have something to do, and then for two years I’m just sitting in my house thinking, “What do I do?” And then I write a song.
[UNPUBLISHED:] It’s great to find inspiration in the most simple places. How would you describe the feeling of performing on the Gov Ball stage? Thinking back to shows you have performed in your music careers, do you have a favorite show and why does it hold significance to you?
[THE BRUMMIES:] We just finished our tour, and it was insane. We were surprised in every single city. It was packed! Some highlights would be Dallas and Toronto. But the first question, Gov Ball, we didn’t know what to expect. Honestly, we thought nobody would show up because of the rain, and everybody showed up! It was badass and very fun.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Thinking about this new album compared to your past albums, how has your creative process changed throughout your music-making careers?
[THE BRUMMIES:] Kind of like we were saying earlier, our first album was like a 70s to tape, and we built on that with our second album - more electronic in some sense. And then even more so with this stuff. We’re just always experimenting. You know, you learn something new, and you want to incorporate it. I always grew up listening to new music. You hear other things and you think, “This is inspiring, as well.” It’s kind of always a reflection of what we listen to, and how we want to take that.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What kind of music do you listen to and find inspiration in?
[THE BRUMMIES:] Between the four of us there’s such a wide variety. We love Harry Styles. You can’t escape it. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like it, you’re gonna like it eventually if you hear it enough. A lot of friends from Nashville, too––Madi Diaz, lots of people. I think we all have our own studios and have gotten way better than that. Especially during the pandemic, you learn new things, so that kind of brings things out. If somebody learns a new trick or gets a new instrument, it adds another layer that wasn’t available until that point.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Talking about inspirations makes me think back to one specific song - the lyrics of “Lovers Do” are very well-written, tender, and heartfelt. Do you have a recipe for making the “perfect” songs? And, if so, what advice do you have for struggling songwriters?
[THE BRUMMIES:] Actually we do, but if I told you, then everybody could do it. Every song is different. That one was rare. It was written in 10 minutes. It was stupid. It just came out. Other songs take 15 minutes, you know? But yeah, sometimes you write lyrics and think, “Ah, this is terrible.” Then you come back to it months later, and you’re like, “Oh, this works now. Figured it out.”
[UNPUBLISHED:] Is it like a trial-and-error type thing?
[THE BRUMMIES:] Yeah. Here’s another thing: when you get into the studio, you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen, and everybody wants it to be perfect. You can go, and you can go, and you can go, and it’ll never be finished. Eventually, you gotta say, “At this moment in time this is finished. Give it to the world.”As far as writing the songs, we all write, and they all come in different ways. There’s no formula. They’re all floating around and sometimes you just grab ‘em.
[UNPUBLISHED:] So looking ahead, to this upcoming year, what are you most looking forward to? What are you most excited about?
[THE BRUMMIES:] This year, we played a lot of shows. The tour, we were looking forward to that and that’s kind of ending. We were looking forward to this October when we play Austin City Limits. We play the Pilgrimage which is a festival outside of Nashville. Maybe do some one-offs here and there, different cities. Honestly, we’re excited to do the album and just do music.