Through Love and Loss, JOYNER Releases Heartfelt Ballad “Ted Lasso”
Photo by Lindsey Kusterman
Indie pop duo JOYNER, comprising the talented sisters Summer and Torrey Joyner, have unveiled their latest single “Ted Lasso.” The soul-stirring track is not only a testament to the duo's musical prowess but also a deeply personal tribute to their late mother, marking the beginning of a significant and transformative journey.
“Ted Lasso,” written and produced by the pair alongside Billy Lefler, transcends the boundaries of traditional indie pop by delving into the realm of human emotion with remarkable honesty and vulnerability. The song's genesis lies in a profound moment of grief – the night the sisters' mother passed away. Faced with the weight of their loss and uncertainty, they turned to the television show ‘Ted Lasso’ as a source of solace and comfort.
“We wrote ‘Ted Lasso’ about the night our mom passed away,” JOYNER said. “We had spent the day saying our goodbyes and when it came time to turn in we couldn't sleep. We sat together in the living room of our childhood home with our family, exhausted and perplexed on what to do next. We turned on the tv and watched Ted Lasso and somehow it lightened the air.”
The song's poignant lyrics vividly capture the complexity of emotions felt that night and in the aftermath of their mother's passing. Lines like “holding my breath doesn’t put more air in your lungs” echo the struggle to hold onto fleeting moments and the indescribable pain of loss.
“Ted Lasso” was born from voice memos – raw recordings capturing thoughts amidst grief. The song evolved into a beautiful creation that speaks universally to anyone who's experienced loss. The single's delicate production, anchored by loops and evocative instrumentation, became a form of emotional catharsis for JOYNER.
This heartfelt track, chosen as the first single from their upcoming album JOYNER 2, marks the turning point that initiated their musical journey of healing and rediscovery.
“For a while, we weren't sure if we would ever make music again, but as it turned out, it was the only thing we could do,” JOYNER says.
The music video for “Ted Lasso” is a visual masterpiece directed by JOYNER and creative duo HEAVY BOOTS. Shot in a historic Lloyd Wright home in Los Angeles, the video's minimalist aesthetic beautifully complements the song's subdued and melancholic mood. Each room within the video symbolizes a stage of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance – while the finale resonates with surrender.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Thank you for talking to Unpublished Magazine. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. For any readers who aren’t yet familiar with you, can you tell us what inspires your creative persona and artistic style?
[TORREY]: We’re sisters and we write together, but we have very different styles. I’m pretty moody and I feel like Summer is more influenced by pop hooks, and I think that sonically, a lot of our music comes from that side of me with creative instrumentation and Summer’s pop-driven melodies.
[SUMMER]: I’m the guitar player and she’s the synth keyboard player, so that brings in those two worlds of indie rock with the guitar and she brings in the moody aspects and 80s elements.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What artists inspire you, either lyrically or instrumentally?
[TORREY]: We just saw the 1975 the other day and we are inspired by their hooks, as far as sonically, The War on Drugs and their use of guitars and drum patterns is really cool. We started playing around with running our vocals through guitar pedals and trying weird things out and getting cool sounds which was really fun.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Say if someone hasn't heard of your music yet, which song would you introduce them to that best encapsulates your artistic growth and maturity?
[TORREY]: I feel like it's the songs that haven't come out. They're coming out of our current catalog. I feel like the song that's probably closest to what we're making now is “Don't You Want Me?”
[SUMMER]: I was going to say “Peaches,” because it has the elements of synth and pop. But also “Blue Love” because it has a laid back, dreamy vibe. The stuff coming up on this album, we spent two years on it and it’s the most current of what we’re feeling and what we’re into.
[UNPUBLISHED]: You just released your newest single “Ted Lasso” that’s named after the iconic series. What is the inspiration behind the single?
[SUMMER]: We'll keep it short and sweet. It's about the day our mom passed away, and we literally spent the whole day crying and you don't know what to do with yourself. It was two in the morning and we were not going to sleep. There's nothing we can do. We can't go to sleep. When we were in the hospital with my mom and dad, we watched the first episode of Ted Lasso of the first season. We continued to watch an episode per night that week and it was the one thing that was an escape for that 45 minutes or that hour, like it doesn't take away the pain but it distracts you and it gets a little bit of a laugh out of you. I think it was just like such a funny, heartwarming show that it just helped us get through such a tough time and then as season two came out and season three, it just felt very comforting. It's that little comfort blanket of that time and it feels super sacred and special to us, so it only made sense to write a song about that because it's such a private moment that nobody got to see. Putting it in song is like a little glimpse of what we went through.
[UNPUBLISHED]: I would love to know more about the creative process. How did you go through this experience and how did it affect the process of creating your music? Has “Ted Lasso” helped you express feelings and let off some steam?
[TORREY]: That's the whole reason that we made this record. We had released an EP in 2018 and were touring around for a little bit and then the pandemic hit, and we're like, what do we do now? Then our mom was really sick, and so we didn't really know if we were going to continue making music and then that happened. We connected with the producer that worked on our first record with us. We just made one song that was a different song that actually didn't make the record that was also about her mom. We just kept going, like it really was the only thing that we could do. I think that some people are really paralyzed by grief and find it really hard to be creative. Just being in the studio and making music is what kept us going, like it informed the whole process.
[SUMMER]: But for “Ted Lasso” specifically, it started off just as little snippets of voice notes. I would be driving in the car and I have this line and I would sing it into my phone, and then the chorus actually came to me in the middle of the night in my sleep, and I woke up and I grabbed my phone and I recorded ‘They wrapped you in white / We said goodbye / We watched Ted Lasso last night as our tears dried.’ We were in the studio one day and our producer, Billy, had just got this cool rubber bridge guitar and he was just doing loops. So it was just the guitar and the chords and I took it home and I recorded it with my vocals. I didn't show anybody – not even my sister – and then the next day, we were in the studio and I was like, I think I have something to show you guys, but I need you to put a vocal effect on me because I feel vulnerable singing this to you, so I don't want to be myself. They loved it and then we did one vocal take and then it was done. So it all came together in the way it was supposed to. There was this magic moment of catharsis like wow, I got to tell the story and I didn't know that I was gonna be able to, but it just worked out the way it was supposed to.
[UNPUBLISHED]: I can only imagine how healing it must’ve been to write about such a personal tribute. How does it feel to have such intimate and vulnerable work out in the world?
[TORREY]: It's scary. It's a little overwhelming because it's so personal to you and I. So far we've gotten positive feedback. Some people don't even really know what it's about. It's a hard story to just get into casually so it's interesting, but I think most people know that.
[SUMMER]: It doesn't necessarily read as a sad song, maybe to everybody. It will impact the people who have gone through something similar in a different way, or you can just listen to it as a vibe and it doesn't feel necessarily sad.
[UNPUBLISHED]: “Ted Lasso” is accompanied by a music video and I absolutely love the movement and water imagery. What is the creative inspiration and how was your experience filming the video?
[TORREY]: We had this idea to do a dance video from the very beginning, so the video basically captures a feeling of grief and each room represents the five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. We wanted it to be a dance video, but we wanted it to look like an indie film, which is a combination that we found very difficult to find the right people for. We found this couple on Instagram that was a magical combination. They’re a couple where one is the DP and the other is a dancer and choreographer, and it was in the exact style that we were looking for. It was serendipitous of how it all came together.
[SUMMER]: I had a dream about being underwater, and I didn't know if it was possible for us to shoot underwater. I had this dream of this person going through grief is underwater and then they're pulled back out into the real world and then they're back in it. Being in the water signals this dreamlike state where you’re washed over this and surrendering to the void. The real world represents all the madness you’re going through.
[TORREY]: Another random thing about the video is we never realized this before, but we were filming and the DPS asked how long is the song and I looked down at my phone and it said 2:11 and 2/11 is the day that our mom passed away. It felt like there was some weird cosmic force putting it all together.
[UNPUBLISHED]: “Ted Lasso” is a sneak peek into your upcoming debut album. What can listeners expect from this new era of music?
[TORREY]: I think based on the single, it’s not what you expect it's going to be. There's a lot of pop songs. The album is the evolution of going through grief, so it's a lot of sadness, but it's also becoming somebody new and all the wild nights that we had.
[SUMMER]: You go through a transformation, you're becoming a new person and it's a lot of that up and down movement through all of it.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What is your favorite song off the album and why do you love this song? Is there a certain lyric or message that stands out to you the most?
[JOYNER]: “New Friends” is a single that's coming out next. We love “Ted Lasso,” but these are our top two magical ones. Our favorite lyric from “New Friends” is, ‘Crying in my car / In the bathroom / Crying all the time / On my way to work standing in line.’ It's super poppy, but also has all the emotions. It's fun to dance too. It's got the energy, but then it's also got the moodiness. I'm excited for it to come out soon and for everyone to hear.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What are you most excited for with your full-length debut project being out in the world?
[SUMMER]: We've never done a full length album. We've just had our EP and singles, so just to put out a whole body of work and to see what people gravitate towards because it's always different.On our EP, the song that we didn't know was going to take off was the one that became the surprise hit, so I'm interested to see what people relate to on the album and what people react to. They're all so personal to us. It's fun when somebody else also went through the same experience and a song speaks to them. We had a listening party just in LA with our friends and everybody loved this one song. It’s always fun to hear people’s different takes on it.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like for you that you would love to share with Unpublished?
[JOYNER]: The rest of the year is putting the project out. We have one more single coming out this calendar year and then the record will come out early New Year, but I think the next step, we've just been so focused on making the music and getting the record out, I think like the next piece is getting back out and playing live again. I think it will be really fun to flesh out the songs in a live format, which we haven't even dipped our toe in that pool yet.