Interview: Lowertown – The Strength And Fruit In Intertwined Roots
Lowertown is firing on all cylinders.
It’s been almost six years since Atlanta natives Avsha Weinberg and Olive Osby released their debut project, “Friends,” a playful lo-fi bedroom-pop record recorded entirely in Weinberg’s basement. Two albums, two EPs, and a plethora of solo material later, the duo have come full circle as they gear up to release their third album early next year, once again fully crafted in Weinberg’s basement.
The duo’s path to the present has been anything but predictable; since meeting in their high school math class, the pair have signed with Dirty Hit Records, relocated to New York City, toured the U.S. with beabadoobie and Wet Leg, and parted ways with the label to release music independently.
These shifts have shaped their ever-expanding musical careers, inevitably broadening their palettes and encouraging them to effortlessly traverse genres along the way. Whether it’s the dreamy lo-fi electronica of bedroom-pop, the nostalgic tones of alt-rock, or the grit and aggressiveness of punk, Lowertown tackles it all with an unshakeable DIY spirit.
The band visited American University to headline the fall semester edition of WVAU’s Capitol Boogie, where they shared the stage with Nectarine Girl in the Battelle-Tompkins atrium. WVAU had the chance to catch up with the duo to discuss the media that inspires them, the evolution of their powerful creative partnership, and how their upcoming album represents the culmination of their musical journey.
WVAU: First off, welcome back to DC! Over the years you’ve played in countless cities across the world, but DC has such a rich, unique musical history and energy to it. Do you have any special memories or stand-out moments from previous shows in the city?
AVSHA: Yeah, absolutely! In 2022 we played at DC9. We were on that street there, and I remember seeing a bunch of people on four-wheelers. There was a lot of energy on the street that night.
OLIVE: One guy had a cone on his head.
AVSHA: There was a guy with a cone on his head on a four-wheeler doing a wheelie.
OLIVE: And escaping the police.
AVSHA: That was when we were opening up for Wet Leg at DC9.
OLIVE: That was the first time we ever played DC.
AVSHA: That was our very first tour. We also did 9:30 twice, and 9:30 was awesome! It’s just such an iconic venue.
OLIVE: We felt like rock stars. It was on my birthday! I turned 21 when we played at 9:30 the first night, which was awesome. They got out a birthday cake!
WVAU: We’re hearing you’ve just wrapped up the recording on a new album! Could you give us any details about this latest project?
OLIVE: Everyone says this about their newest album, but it’s one of my favorite things we’ve ever made. Avsha sings a lot more on this one. It feels like a combination of all of our previous work with a lot of new elements, but it doesn’t feel so rooted in one genre, which I like. We’ve recorded all of it so far in Avsha’s basement studio like we did our first album, and I think it sounds really good.
AVSHA: It’s the first project that we’ve done almost entirely ourselves since our first record, “Friends.” We do all the writing, production, and tracking ourselves. Because we’ve been doing it over two years and so many crazy things have happened in our musical career, I think it’s one of our favorite projects because of how all-encompassing it feels. The EPs and the records we’ve done previous to now came out pretty quickly one after another. It’s just a much broader period of time, and so much intense growth happened during the recording period, that it’s probably going to be our most varied and well-rounded project.
WVAU: If it were a meal, what would it be and why?
AVSHA: Big turkey dinner, because I feel like you’ve got a lot of different things going on. There are a lot of sides…
OLIVE: There’s sweet and there’s savory.
AVSHA: There are all the different flavors. There’s cranberry sauce you made from the can, but there’s also turkey that you’ve been cooking for days.
WVAU: Like you’ve said you’ve explored a wide variety of different genres over the years, like bedroom pop, punk, and indie rock. With this new album, did you find yourselves exploring any uncharted musical territories?
OLIVE: I think the way we recorded some of the songs is different from how we’ve recorded previously. We tried to live track. We did newspaper clippings for one of the songs. I’ve been really obsessed with clippings because I’ve gotten into industrial music, and a lot of the lyrics in industrial music come from newspaper clippings. I told Avsha that I really, really wanted to write a song like that and he was super down. I have a bunch of newspaper clippings all around my room, so we used those and made a song from that.
AVSHA: I think rather than genre, there’s a sense of comedy in the new record that we haven’t really explored a lot.
OLIVE: There’s a cheekiness to it, like, laughing at yourself.
AVSHA: I think we started to touch on it with “Bucktooth” on our last album. There was much more of a feeling of not taking ourselves too seriously this time. This time we took the opportunity to do newspaper clipping songs, or like a song that we’re performing today, where we sat down and said, “We’re going to do it all today. We’re going to write the lyrics and the chords and everything all in one sitting.”
OLIVE: We always take what we do very seriously. I got really into Zappa during this record, and it’s like how he takes what he does very seriously, but the subject matter is insane and comedic, or just very absurd. I feel like we have elements of storytelling. There are some deep tracks. People are used to us being very emotional, but we’re also trying to be light. It’s nice to write and perform music that isn’t so depressing all the time because it makes me sit in my depressing feelings even when I’m not in that mode. It makes me get into that mode to perform it. It’s nice to have a balance.
WVAU: Every project is born from a set of specific influences that help shape your sounds and overall vision. Do you continue finding yourself pulling primarily from those initial influences, or do you think your main influences shifted over time? I know you mentioned Zappa and industrial music as big influences on this album.
OLIVE: I feel there’s like the core influences that are formative to you when you start writing music and when you’re young that are just ingrained in you and your cells, but one thing about Avsha and I that I feel shows why we’re on the same page and why we’ve continued to be a band for so long is that we both are very explorative and open-minded people with music. We get bored very easily listening to the same stuff. We have the same core music that we got into when we were young that sort of ties everything together and will always have a special place to us in our hearts. We both go through different phases with music that we’re really obsessed with while we’re writing an album, and that’s why I feel like each record sounds different than the last.
AVSHA: Yeah! When we made our first record, I think our influences were a little bit more on our sleeve, just like any young musician is, but as we’ve performed more I’ve started to draw more from experiences rather than musical inspirations. When we were recording the record, I honestly wasn’t listening to a ton of music. It was more stuff to calm me down, like classical instrumentals, which I’ve always kind of listened to, but I drew a lot more from stories and experiences rather than my inspirations, and I think that’s kind of true with any musician as they grow older.
WVAU: Your writing has very strong literary and poetic qualities to it. Do you find yourselves also pulling inspiration from other mediums like TV, books, and film? If so, what are some specific works and how do you see them reflected in the music?
OLIVE: I definitely think we’re both really big movie people, for sure. The Jarmusch films were really important to us when we were writing our last record. I think a lot of visual imagery, like striking, visual imagery in film is what really inspires a lot of writing for me. Very visceral imagery, like a lot of Jodorowsky movies. He’s one of my favorite directors. I also watched “The Stalker” semi-recently when we were writing this album and the imagery in that was really inspiring to me.
AVSHA: I think we’re both pretty intense consumers. We consume a lot of media all the time. We were just talking today that I watch a movie every day. I try and look, away from music, for different mediums to explore and think about. Film that feels a little bit more guerilla has been speaking to me more, especially because we’re doing it all ourselves and it has a very specific quality, all of our recordings and the way that we play, that already in itself is very guerilla and not really traditionally or classically practiced.
OLIVE: I watched “Julien Donkey-Boy” yesterday, the Harmony Korine movie that’s like really weird, and that was inspiring to me because it’s so different, so experimental, and just strange. Also, it’s really funny! Stuff like that is inspiring to me, like very weird stuff. I also watched “Daisies” while we were writing, and that was inspiring. I also got into making videos recently, and I think visual attachment to the music has always been a big thing for our band, but definitely getting into video-making more has been very inspiring to me.
AVSHA: Thinking about our relationship to stage performance and live performance has been big as well. We’ve explored pretty hard how to perform aggressive music on stage. Now we’re trying to experiment with this new record a bit softer and quieter, but also how to be visually engaging to an audience as people who go to shows all the time. Because we see music all the time, we really want to channel something that…
OLIVE: Is different and sticks with you.
WVAU: It’s well known at this point that you’ve been making music together since you met in your high school math class. How would you say the creative process of writing music as a duo has evolved since you were sixteen?
AVSHA: Kind of what we were touching on before, this process we focused a lot on trying new ways to write together, like in the song that we’re performing today where we sat down and wrote everything in front of each other. When we were sixteen, all lyrics would be written individually, all the guitar parts would be written individually, and we would share over text. We’d send stuff to each other and do the writing process individually, and then get together and eventually record. The writing process would happen in pieces.
OLIVE: We’re much more musically articulate and much more confident in different things. I used to not be able to play instruments very well because I was learning as we became friends, and Avsha just was not as confident in his singing and lyricism and stuff, and we’d both encourage each other to combine our energies more. It’s much more interesting because I get very bored of what I write about and I get very stuck in my same ways, my lyrical themes, my melodies, and it’s really nice bouncing things off of [Avsha] because [Avsha] ha[s] a very different lyrical and melodic approach to things. It really gets me out of my comfort zone and makes the songs a lot stronger when we both do things that each other wouldn’t have thought of. I feel like most of my guitar parts, they’re much more simple than [Avsha] would typically do, which is good sometimes. We just balance each other out a lot in that way.
AVSHA: Because we feel more confident about it, we’re more open to sharing and trying things in front of each other.
OLIVE: And building things through playing, just over and over, and improving together. We’ve live-tracked a few of them, where we’ll be in the same room, recording vocals at the same time or trying to record drums and guitar at the same time, sort of like punk-style, which we don’t really do as much, so that’s really fun. It has a different energy to it than just studio, like track-by-track, doing it.
WVAU: Both of you have your own solo projects– Avsha, and Olivia O., which, congratulations on your new album from earlier this month! How would you say your personal endeavors influence your process as a duo? Do you find that working individually brings fresh ideas for Lowertown?
AVSHA: Yeah! I think that a lot of the seeds of ideas come about through voice-memoing ourselves with little pieces of ideas. It always kind of starts individually.
OLIVE: I think it’s a really good outlet because we both have very similar tastes, but also there are things that musically we both want to explore where the other one is like, “I don’t know Lowertown is the place for this.” It’s a nice outlet because I think it allows us to do everything we want musically within the band and outside of the band, so neither of us is putting so much pressure on the other person to be on the exact same page and wanting to do every single thing the other person wants to do, and doing all the same workflow and everything. We also have different kinds of workflows with how we approach music. I feel like it allows us to really be on the same level where we know that every single song we put out through the band is curated for the actual band and the album. It allows us to not have so much ego attached to the project where it’s like, “This is the only creative output I have.” I’m able to write some fifteen-minute-long stupid drone song or whatever and Avsha’s like, “I don’t know if a fifteen-minute-long drone song is made for this Lowertown album, but if you want to do that…” Same thing with him!
AVSHA: Songwriting is a relaxation activity for both of us, so we’re always doing it when we’re hanging out and on our own. I’ll just be playing guitar while I’m watching TV or something. Because there’s so much output, there needs to be a place to put it in, and it becomes clear when something is supposed to be for our solo projects, or whether we feel what the other person can bring to it is so strong that the song would be much better. When I listen to the new album, it’s very clear to me that all these songs are so much stronger because we built them together. When I hear my and Liv’s solo stuff, I’m like, “This is great, but it doesn’t have the same element of the two of us.”
OLIVE: It’s very [Avsha], and it’s very me, and Lowertown is very much both of our energies together. It’s really cool.
You’ve done a lot of touring over the past few years. Would you say your existing songs evolve over time as you play them live? How does the experience of performing live influence your approach to writing new material?
OLIVE: Definitely!
AVSHA: It’s super influential. I think our relationship with performance is like an animal; it grows and it changes and it gets worse and it gets better and it gets sick and it gets healthier. Ultimately, it always gets healthier but there are ups and downs in that relationship. For example, when were first touring, we discovered that we wanted to make music that would make people move. Out of that came “I Love To Lie,” which is our previous record, and that one has a lot more upbeat stuff.
OLIVE: I feel like we would play the existing songs in such a way because we had so much energy to give onstage that it would change the nature of the existing songs we had. It would almost be the detriment of the songs sometimes. I was bored from having that strong desire to channel the energy into something like that. I also just feel like our live set, we’ve worked on it so much that in a way, a lot of the time, I like the live version of some of the songs better, because also, like developmentally, my voice and the way we play, everything, the energy, we’re much better musicians now than we were with some of the songs, where I love both versions but it’s a whole different version in itself. The art of live, you can do a lot of things with it. Some people just sort of clock it in. I think it’s just so much more engaging, artistic, and interesting for the artist if you try to make it a whole different artistic experience instead of just repeating the songs as is because I’m just like, “You can just go and listen to the recording.” I think it’s so much more fun if you focus on the experience and the connection the audience has to the performer.
AVSHA: To tie it in with the new record, now that the itch is scratched of wanting the more aggressive, getting people to move, our new focus is to try and be engaging while also having ebbs and flows in the performance; having moments of having people move in the crowd, but also having them sit still, watch us, and still be engaged, and not feel like, “Oh, okay good, it’s a lull song, I can just zone out.” It also helps when you go to shows a lot, and you know what you like and what you don’t like. We’ve been to shows and we’ve loved ambient sets with no singing, no drums, or anything, and been entranced, and we’ve been to hardcore sets where you can’t hear any voice, it’s just kick and snare, and we’ve felt what it is to be a good version of that and a bad version of that. We’re trying to use that experience to find a way to have a dynamic performance to support this next album.
OLIVE: Something that’s just different and sticks with you hopefully, that’s the goal.
WVAU: With this new album coming soon, what’s next for Lowertown?
OLIVE: We’re touring! We’re going on a tour in March and April. We’re dropping the record early next year. We’re dropping a remix done by our friends TAGABOW, They Are Gutting A Body Of Water; goated band, love them forever.
AVSHA: They’re doing a remix of a song from our previous EP called “Bline.”
OLIVE: That’s all the stuff that’s a hundred million percent confirmed, and that’s already a lot.
AVSHA: The record is in the first half of mixing.
OLIVE: We’re definitely going on our first full U.S. headline tour, which is really exciting because we’ve done some headline touring, but we’ve never done a full U.S. tour before as the headlining band, so that’s crazy.
Lowertown and TAGABOW’s remix of “Bline” is out now and available to stream here. Tickets to all of Lowertown’s upcoming 2025 U.S. tour dates are available here.
Feature image by Ben Ackman (benackman.com)