An Interview with The Backseat Lovers
Written for Unclear Magazine, August 2022
The Backseat Lovers, a Utah-based indie band that focuses on the emotions of their music over the music itself, took the stage at Mo Pop 2022 on Sunday, July 31st. Composed of Jonas Swanson (guitar/vocals), Joshua Harmon (guitar/vocals), KJ Ward (bass), and Juice Welch (drums), The Backseat Lovers met through the tight-knit music community in their state.
Their debut album, When We Were Friends, has become a staple for many indie-music lovers and still claims the top spot in their discography, even three years after its release. With the promise of new music soon, The Backseat Lovers are ready to rise through the ranks once again.
Photo by Isabel Dowell
Home for all of you is Utah, correct? And you’re from a few different cities in the state, how did you originally come together?
THE BACKSEAT LOVERS: For us, just like the music scene in Utah is pretty tight knit. We all ended up playing the same places in Salt Lake and Provo. We kind of met through the music scene and just ended up coming together there.
Has it been hard getting back into touring?
THE BACKSEAT LOVERS: We never really toured this much for the pandemic, so it's just kind of like a new experience.
Is it what you expected, with the pandemic in mind?
THE BACKSEAT LOVERS: I think so. I mean, I kind of expected it to be crazy and chaotic, something you’d have to adapt to daily. It's been pretty forgiving, for the most part.
Your last full length album was When We Were Friends in 2019 and you had mentioned in your set that you had plans for new music. Could you tell me a little more about that?
THE BACKSEAT LOVERS: Within a couple of weeks of releasing our first album, we started working on this one. So it's been about three years of being very dialed in and focused on this new record. We are incredibly proud of it and it means so much to us.
When it comes to your creative process, since there are four of you, do you guys ever butt heads? Or do you work together well?
THE BACKSEAT LOVERS: I think there's a lot more agreement than disagreement. I’d say 90% agreements, 10% disagreement. Those disagreements are our only good thing. That's what makes us stronger as a band is because we all rely on each other. One person making good decisions has to go through all four of us before something is done or played in front of our fans. I think those things have made us stronger as we've gotten closer.
The other album you have listed is a live album from the Troubadour. What was that process like?
THE BACKSEAT LOVERS: It kind of just happened. Our front of house engineer was just recording every set and that happened to just be a really amazing and special performance for us. We knew we wanted to put out a live album at some point, necessarily knowing that it was gonna be at The Troubadour, but it was kind of lined up.
As of this morning, your song “Kilby Girl” has over 160 million streams. Do you think some of the music you’re planning to release will top that?
THE BACKSEAT LOVERS: I think from our perspective, “topping” doesn't really have much to do with the numbers. It’s more how many people receive the songs or what they do on a commercial level. I could say confidently speaking for all of us that we think with the new music we've been working on, and even past the album, that we're about to release songs that feel like we’ve really been able to grow as people and as a group together. I think that to us is so much more important than what any number Spotify or anything the industry focused perspective would say about success. I think that we've done far more than that, even at our house in our basement, without anybody else seeing it.
Since it’s been about three years since your last official album, how do you feel you’ve grown since then? You also mentioned that you started writing your new album just a few weeks after, does it still feel relevant to who you are as people now?
THE BACKSEAT LOVERS: Just from the beginning to now, it's changed drastically over, it's been like three years now. When we started writing, I feel like and it's just because we change as people change. It still sort of holds relevance from that very seedling at the beginning. We literally were three years younger. And to the very, very finishing touches, it's a perspective of further people. So I think it has a little bit of all of that and it still very much feels like us. To be honest, at this point, we are about done listening to it, and ready to send it off and never listen to it again.
Photo by Isabel Dowell
The songs that you've done for this new album, have you edited them at all? Even going back to maybe the earliest versions, or have they been pretty straightforward?
THE BACKSEAT LOVERS: I think it's been pretty much the opposite of straightforward. We always try to make something that we really, really value at that moment. When a song feels like it comes together, having that very human feeling of a song emerging and then turning into that specific moment, is something that we always really want to try to embellish in the final recording.
In addition to that, there are so many things that change over time and perspectives change. We're also very interested in the way that production and post production affects a recording, specifically, and not just the live performance of a song. I think that we always try to stay true to that core meaning and feeling the songs tried to say but there's a few songs, many, many songs on the new album that we've tried every single angle on. We jumped through all these hoops, saw what worked and what sticks with structures. I think we finally got to the point where it feels like it's speaking the truth.
Your stage presence is part of who you are as The Backseat Lovers, how do you get yourself hyped up before shows?
THE BACKSEAT LOVERS: Something we talked about a lot is just to be as in the moment as we possibly can and just try to channel who we are right now. I feel like sometimes there's nights where we're like hyping each other up and it's really high energy before a show and sometimes it's just just us hanging out doing our thing. I feel like a really important thing to us is when we're on stage we really are in that moment and try to capitalize on that as much as possible.
There's no pre-show rituals or things like that?
THE BACKSEAT LOVERS: Our pre-show ritual is procrastinating the setlist four minutes before we go on and we always have a group hug before we go.
The Backseat Lovers
Listen to The Backseat Lovers here.