Interviewing Outsider Heart: How to deal with your growing pains.

Words & interviewer: Jesse Figueiras Osorio  (Referred to as SCENE)

Outsider Heart, a Columbus-based band that blends angsty lyrics with their alternative rock & metal-influenced instrumentation. Consisting of 5 members, Doug on vocals, Kovy on the guitar and vocals, Jonah on the bass guitar, Jeef on the guitar, and Jaxson on the drums, they recently kicked off 2025 the right way, dropping a new single the minute 2025 started. An incredible and vulnerable pop-punk single titled "Growing Pains" featuring Colie Hutzler, from the band Beauty School Dropout.

We had the pleasure to learn more about the journey of creating Growing Pains, the first time the two bands met, the inspiration behind the track and whats hopefully to come for the future of Outsider Heart. You can read the full interview down below.

SCENE: We just want to start off by congratulating you guys on the release of your new single "Growing pains", it's an incredible song and we've been absolutely loving it!

Kovy: Thank you!

SCENE: Just to get started, would you guys like to talk a little bit about what inspired "Growing pains"?

Kovy: Yeah, i mean, so when we first wrote it, it actually was Colie who first came up with, like the 1st chorus hook. And it definitely came from a place within him. And then we kind of started to collectively kind of make the song just about like, just overall things that that you go through that just kind of shape the person you are today. I think for Colie, specifically, he had some personal experiences that he was tying into it, and then so did Doug with his verse, like we all kind of put a little bit of our own unique experiences into the song. I think we're all kind of speaking on different experiences, but all kind of about the same thing, whether it's like family trauma or religious trauma for me personally. Like when I think of the song, that's what I think of. But it really is just about those traumatic experiences that happen, that just shape you into the person you are. Like we say in the song, "No thanks to you, I'm the man I'm meant to be." So, even though it is like a sh*tty experience, you almost wouldn't change it just because it's made you who you are today. You know?

SCENE: Yeah totally! And correct me if i'm wrong, but you guys wrote this song the first time you met Colie right?

Kovy: Yes, it was! It all happened really fast, I mean, we played 2 shows with Beauty School Dropout in Ohio, and when we got on the shows we just hit them up and we were like, "Hey, if you guys need like a place to stay at all while you guys are on your headline tour, like no pressure, but our place is open. If you need a place to stay." And they were like, "Sick! we'll let you know." Then we ended up playing that 1st show together, and we met Colie in the parking lot of the venue almost immediately, we just like hit it off right then and there and just kind of became buddies throughout the first show that we played. And then, after that 1st show they came to our house and ended up staying with us for, I think it was nearly like 5 days, right?

Doug: Yeah, because they had a show in Canada that got cancelled, So they were going to be playing Cleveland and then they were going to go to Canada and then come back to Columbus. So they cancelled Canada and stayed with us for the whole week.

Kovy: It was quite a week because we also had our manager, who lives in La, in town as well and then we also had a friend over for the songwriting too. So we had like at least like 10 dudes packed into our house for like 5 days. It was wild, but we were having like way too much fun with it. But literally that first night that they stayed, we just started writing the song together, and then as the 5 days went on, they ended up staying a lot longer than they thought they would, and we just spent all that time just like hanging out and being good friends, and then just writing the song in the background. So like I would go and take a break, and then somebody else would come in and work on the song. So it was literally like almost 5 days of like nonstop creation on the song and there are so many ideas that got thrown out and put into the song that didn't even make the song, like at least like one whole other verse that Colie wrote and we wrote 2 different bridges for the song, so the song has been through quite a lot. It was a lot of cooks in the kitchen, but it was really fun, definitely the most collaborative experience we've ever had making a song. It was a very unique experience.

SCENE: You guys have some features on some like previous projects, what was different about working with Colie compared to the other people you've worked with prior?

Kovy: Yeah I mean, I think habitually, at least like going into when Covid happened, I forget where I saw it, but there was like there was a musician who was like "I think the number one downfall of up and coming musicians today is that they're too afraid to be collaborative or like collaborate with other artists". They work so hard to build their own brand that they kind of forget that it's important to be working with other bands and collaborating with other bands. So we do have our collab with Colorblind who are just freaking amazing dudes, but it's very different in style of writing compared to "Growing pains", because "I don't wanna be like you" with Colorblind, was kind of like sending back and forth a demo because Travis was living in Texas at the time and he ended up recording his verse completely remote in Texas and it definitely took a lot more time with that song, at least when it came to the first initial writing like it was over a longer period. But it was very, very different, because we had done collabs with other bands before, where it's just kind of like we send it out to somebody who lives really far away, and then they send it back. But this was just unique, because they're from LA but we happen to just like be forced together into this 5 day long writing session of this one song. So it was very, very different in that way.

SCENE: Obviously, it being the first time you guys had met, do you feel like there was any obstacles writing it? Did you feel like maybe it was tense? Or did you guys find that you were able to immediately bounce off each other creatively?

Doug: I feel like with you (pointing to Kovy) and Colie, it was pretty natural. I think it was mostly Kovy and Colie and we were kind of just like sitting back and let them cook for most of it. I truthfully don't work well with other people when it comes to writing music, I'm more of like a lone wolf and like to just be by myself when I'm doing it honestly. So that was kind of intimidating for me, honestly, to be in a situation where there's like 10 people in the same room all offering ideas. I think sometimes that could be kind of negative, because there's too many cooks in the kitchen, too many different ideas, and I think that did lead to overthinking certain things, you know? But for sure, it was definitely a good learning experience because that's how a lot of people do it nowadays. It's very collaborative and I think ultimately just comes down to what works best for you as a writer and an artist. But it was definitely cool to see Kovy and Colie to connect so easily.

Kovy: So yeah, it was pretty funny, when we 1st met them I intentionally was like, okay, they're going to be staying with us, I want to write music with them. That was like in the back of my mind. That was kind of one of my goals, I was like, of course, I want to meet these guys and be friends with them but no matter what comes with from it, I want to learn from these people and be able to write with them, because Beauty School Dropout was a band that we took a lot of inspiration from when we first started, because originally prior to Covid, backing up a little bit, like we were huge on playing live shows. We were playing live shows, like all the freaking time before Covid hit. So it was very different for us to go from that transition of promoting ourselves by just playing shows constantly to then having to transition to like, okay Covid hit, shows are gone and we have to figure out how we want people to hear our music now. And BSD was one of the 1st bands that, when we joined Tiktok, we were like wow! These guys really get it, and what it means to promote yourself as an artist in a very authentic way that didn't feel so corny and cheesy. So it was a little intimidating because we only knew them as the guys that we were almost blueprinting our Tiktok presence off of in a way, so it was really cool to be able to meet them, because it was like, this is a band that we like had already known about previously and we're already fans of. Not only that but also, we have played shows with tons of big bands and there are a lot of bands that have been really cool to us, but like to be on that personal of a level with a bigger band that you're playing shows with, almost like in a way of you're breaking bread with them, like you're sharing dinners with them. And also just for, a big band like that to treat us with so much respect as a smaller band, and to not just feel like they were too big or too cool to be able to make music with us was a super cool experience, because we've had lots of experiences with artists where they're just bigger, and they kind of use that like you know, we're too big to be cool with you kind of thing. And so that was like really, really cool, that not only did we kind of blueprint off of them in a way for our Tiktok presence, but also these guys are genuinely just really freaking cool dudes and treated us with so much respect and just talked to us like we were any band or like as if we were a band that had the same following as them or whatever, and that was something I immediately respected about them off the bat, and I feel like we learned so much from them in just that week that we spent with them, just picking their brain about stuff.

SCENE: And Doug, you mentioned that you find it quite hard to be collaborative right? Do you think there's anything you took from this experience with BSD that maybe helped you broaden your horizons and help you feel more comfortable with collaborating on something artistically?

Doug: Yeah, I think honestly, it's not that I can't be collaborative, but like, I just want to feel comfortable with the person. For instance, Kovy, I've been writing music with him since I was a freshman in high school and my friend Matt, like I work with him on weekly and that's super comfortable! I think it's just that process made me realise, it's okay to throw out ideas and for them to not always land. I think I just get in my own head easily and kind of think to myself, like, okay I have ideas but I don't want to put them out there, because, they're already too busy doing something, or my idea won't get used. I think it kind of made me realise it's okay to suggest things that don't get used. I don't know but it definitely did help me to not overthink because I remember we were very much like "this all needs to be done before they leave. It has to be done" and I remember there was like one night when I was getting off work and Kovy called me and he's like, "You gotta get over here and get your verse done," and I was like, Gosh! I haven't even had time to sit down with it yet or even think about it. So I was like, I just worked a 12 hour shift, I've slept like 2 hours, but let me drive back to Delaware and try to get this verse done, and then, you know, it didn't really go well, and it's like, Oh, man, I suck like, why, what's the point of point of this? Then I woke up that morning and I was like, Oh, okay! I actually have an idea now! So it kind of did help me just break down my walls a little bit and work faster and not be afraid to just try something new.

Kovy: And songwriting is like, especially for us, being kind of almost in a way, out in an "island" that is Ohio compared to like the big music cities like Nashville and LA, it is very different for us. Collaborative writing is not popular in Ohio at all and usually it's like you're spending those dark hours in the night pouring out your heart, and it's a very vulnerable thing to be creating music and really thinking about like the lyrics and stuff like that. So it is really different when you're going from that setting to then being here in a room with 10 dudes, 5 to 6 of them which I just met, and I have to be able to be vulnerable and put my heart into the song, but also feel like my ideas are going to be good enough. And so, even I share that same feeling, especially because I was producing the song, at least at the time I was like mainly the one producing, so I did have a lot of like insecurities like I really got to be on my a game producing this song because we don't have a lot of time and we want to create something really cool. That's a very like alone and personal experience for us usually so, it was very, very different than what we're used to.

SCENE: And obviously you mentioned before that Colie was the one who started writing the hook and was very involved with the process, but is there anything else that made him standout as feature on the song rather than featuring BSD as a band?

Doug: I think it just happened to be that they were there, honestly. You know, we were writing a song together and like you said Colie, you know he wrote the hook and then kind of nailed down his verse, and we were like, well, let's keep him on it, there's really no reason to pull him off.

Kovy: Well, yeah and also, I think that Colie, he had some shit on his mind that he needed to write about because it just happened very, very fast. Like we started with this original riff idea, but then we ended up coming up with the main riff that is in the song now and then almost from that point on, he just got on the mic and started like shelling out these like very specific lyrics and ideas. And I was like, okay, he like knows what he wants to do for this and then we kind of took inspiration from like where he was drawing from. The rest of the BSD dudes were kind of just like watching the process come out, and then they would just kind of like jump in and be like, "I think this would be cool." And even Bardo wrote part of the lead in the chorus and stuff, so we intentionally kind of got everybody's ideas in there a little bit. But I think it was very much Colie's on his own, in a way that he was just really pouring his heart out into the song, but also like the whole band, too, especially Michael Rose, who was playing drums for them at the time, like shout out to him because he was, I think, as equally invested on the production side and genuinely trying to offer ideas that would be best for what the song needed. So I think like Colie just kind of stood out in the way that he obviously was coming from a very emotional place when he first wrote some of the lyrics and then we ended up writing the rest of that chorus together. So it really was just kind of a beautiful collaborative process that Colie really sparked the initial like "I'm feeling something to this right now" and it just like flew off from there!

SCENE: Also just looking back at your previous releases, i feel like they feel a little bit less vulnerable than "Growing Pains" and even "SAD REALITY", and this is just my opinion so please correct me if I'm wrong. But what would you say is making you lean into that more vulnerable songwriting? And do you feel like that's something you guys want to start stepping more towards to?

Kovy: Truthfully, I think vulnerability has actually always been really important to us as musicians. Part of what happened to us specifically is, we used to be a metal band, and before we were Outsider Heart, we used to to write like really, really, not just heavy music in the way that it was like metal music but like really heavy, as in, we wrote like about really, really vulnerable topics. We were making just insanely vulnerable music and part of our growth as songwriters, kind of around the time that outsider heart started to to come into fruition, specifically when we wrote "LIKE THE REST", which was about a very true situation that happened to us, and it was like, I would say, in a way, it was a very vulnerable song, but we kind of shelled everything in this like we wanted to make more pop, rock music, and we wanted to be more accessible and not make people want to cry every time they heard our music. So we started to focus more on like we wanted to have fun with our music and we wanted people to be able to dance to our musicand feel more emotions than just like this deep sadness inside of myself about something. You know?

Doug: We definitely went through a phase where you know, especially me, you know, in like "ANYONE BUT YOU" or "I'M NOT THE ONE" I definitely wrote about some girls, you know, Got that out of our system a little bit.

Kovy: We're just trying to have more fun with it though and not take everything so seriously. But even in a way, "SAD REALITY" is a pretty vulnerable thing too because we all, and I feel like I can speak for all of us when I say this, but we all struggle with like the mental health sh*t and I think connecting with our listeners on that level has always been super super important to us. Especially because our favorite bands, which is how Doug and I met, like connecting over bands like Bring Me The Horizon and just bands that really connected with like the sh*t that we feel and and just being able to get those like bad emotions out through music and that was something that was really important to us, like our mission from day one was like, we want our listeners to feel connected and to feel safe and to feel seen through our music. I think growing pains was a really cool way of talking about a little bit of a different issue but I think moving forward for us is actually a little bit more cryptic now. We're not going to be as on the nose as growing pains when it comes to vulnerability. We still are going to be talking about very vulnerable subjects, but I think we're doing it in a much more like metaphorical and more of a like interpretable way, if that makes sense, to where it could be more broadly applied to a lot of people. A little bit more artistic in in that way.

Doug: I think it always depends on where you're at in your lifespan, like I think you know, we're just going through different things or we even have movies or books that inspire us for certain things. It just depends like what we're feeling at the time. So I will say, you know, the band started officially in 2020, were we 20 or 21? Yeah, we were definitely pretty pretty young still. So I think we were still in the mindset of let's just write what we're feeling, you know we're depressed, let's make sad songs. Or like let's talk about this girl that hurt me, or let's write about this friend. All the stuff that 20 year olds go through. So I think that's kind of where we're at but for the newer stuff we're trying to be a little bit more thoughtful about about the topics we're choosing.

SCENE: We're looking forward to hearing it! Obviously like you said, you want your music to resonate with people, and I think growing pains has done an incredible job of that, because I can confidently speak for both of us when I say it's resonated with both of us and for sure with alot of your fans, which we've been seeing in the comments. Is there any other messages you really want your fans to take away from that song specifically? and all your work as a whole?

Doug: I feel like for me personally, the process of writing "Growing Pains", getting it together and everything, like we we did sit on that song for a really long time. I mean, it's like 2 years old at this point or 3 years old maybe? I don't even know but I think, at least for me personally, as cheesy as it is, the process was like to not be afraid to, you know, put yourself out there more and like, don't be afraid to give your 2 cents in a situation, because if you're an artist and you're a songwriter, it's very easy to feel insecure about who you are and your work and what you like. So for me, at least, when I think about that time period, that's what I think of. It's okay to put yourself out there.

Kovy: So yeah, I was gonna piggyback off that. But I completely lost it. You did a great job!

SCENE: Oh no, I was also going to ask a follow up based off what you've said but it's slipped my mind now too haha

Kovy: We're all so blown away by your answer, Doug. We're all speechless!!

SCENE: Unrelated question then, but in terms of like, what's coming for 2025. Is there a new sound? Like maybe a new direction you're heading? You kind of touched on that already, but like more in depth, Is there something that you're following after "Growing Pains"? Or should we expect something completely new?

Kovy: Yes! Oh my God, Is that a loaded question! I think for us right now and our history as songwriters is, we songwrite very reactively to situations we're going through. Those who have been following us know that we've been talking about this body of work for literally forever, I mean, it's been we have rewritten this EP at least like 3 to 4 times over, just banging our heads against the wall, I think what's going to be really important to us, that I hope our listeners and our fans can appreciate about it, is we're really trying to write less reactively and really think about, like you said, the message that we want our fans to walk away with. But not only that but like create something of like artistic importance and something that's not just a reaction to an event, but something that is a well crafted. A well thought out piece of work that has a story to tell. Because I think, historically, we typically tend to write things one song at a time, because every single release prior, even our first entertainment EP That we put out every single song was written, mixed and mastered independently. So the process is drawn out over so long, and we've never taken the time, at least in this band, to be like we're gonna put together a body of work where every single song is hitting a vibe that is all cohesive to each other and all the topics are tying into each other. So like, we're like so unbelievably proud of like this body of work that we're about to put out very soon! I don't want to say how soon, because things always change, but we finally feel like we've landed on it. Gosh! We have done a lot of soul searching and writing. Not to mention how this song, "Growing Pains" resonates with our band, like we have been through a lot of f*cking growing pains as a band, just like in our personal friendships, and him (pointing to Doug) going to school and me with my personal experiences. And we all kind of went through that transition of like okay, we're coming out of high school, and we're in a band, and we've had some success. It's really fun, but now we're adults and now we have real life shit that's getting in the way of music. And I think that, what I love about dropping this song at the beginning of the year, as we are about to put out this new stuff that we've been working so hard on is just that like ,we HAVE gone through a lot of growing pains and honestly, I feel like I'm just so glad that things honestly haven't taken off more for us than they have, because I don't know that we would have been ready for it. I think that now we've been able to go through the things that we were allowed to go through in the time that we took a little bit of break from dropping music constantly, we're all kind of set up our lives for success in a way, but also setting up like just our personal mindsets about music and just learning to like, enjoy the process and not being so stressed out about how many likes are we getting on Tiktok? How many followers? How many this, How many that. Like we're just enjoying the process right now and just enjoying being artists and not chasing virality and not chasing this hopeless dream of of something that's unattainable because the reality is is like there's always the next opportunity of like maybe we'll get what we want like. We'll get this tour, or we'll get a record deal or whatever. But there's always the next thing that you're gonna want, and your heart's always going to be longing for something. And I think that we've kind of all finally gotten to a place with our music where we're not chasing anything and instead we're chasing being good friends with each other and having fun with the process. Everything that comes after that is just stuff that comes after that. I don't know that we would have gotten to this place if we didn't just allow ourselves to mature and develop as people. That's another thing, like I said about what this song means to me, talking about growing pains, it just felt like the perfect way to set up this year!

SCENE: The other question has just come back to me! And it kind of ties into this, but what made you guys sit on that song for so long? 2, 3 years like you guys said? And what made you guys want to put it out at the start of this year?

Doug: Yeah, that is a good question. I think it just got to a point where it was a little confusing, because obviously, you know, Colie was on it, we didn't really know how to go about it with them being on a label, and like, I think they were pretty active and like finishing their next record as well and putting that out. So we technically weren't allowed to.

Kovy: We weren't sure where it was gonna fit like to where it made sense for them.

Doug: Yeah and it just got it just got to a point where we kind of put it off so long and we wrote enough new material that we were like, okay well, this is probably not gonna happen because it's after like a year or so. We were just like let's focus on the new stuff and not really worry about this.

Kovy: Also the song is a little bit softer in flavor than we're used to. It's a little bit more of like a pop punk kind of deal, and I mean, we do have little bits and pieces of that but I think, generally speaking, I feel like a song like "SAD REALITY" better describes us as musicians. We've always been fans of heavier music and I think that was part of the equation for us as well, like we went, and we wrote "SAD REALITY" with Bardo from Beauty School Dropout after we wrote "Growing Pains" and they're both very different in flavor, so we were kind of just like, what do we want to do? Because we have this stuff, that sounds way different and I think a lot of our other stuff is not going to be similar to growing pains in flavor. So I think we were just trying to figure out like, where in the story of Outsider Heart, and not to mention Beauty School Dropout and Colie, where does this make sense in everyone's story? And where does this make sense in the grand scheme of how everyone is shopping music when it comes to the specific vibes and and flavors of even just the way the music sounds. I think we were kind of tripping up and getting stuck on what the aesthetic and the vibe that we're trying to chase for what we want to do next was. We obviously loved the song and wanted to put it out with Colie absolutely, because we just love them and the experience behind writing the song is awesome. I think we kind of had trouble for a little bit, figuring out where it fit in our discography and where it fit in our story at first but like I said, dropping it at the beginning of this year, and just being like, Hey! We're back releasing music again! Like we only put out one song last year and I think that growing pains is a perfect example of like just the shit we've been through as individuals and as a band and it all kind of became the perfect storm leading up to the drop in January, and we kind of finally felt comfortable with where it fit with everything so.

SCENE: You said that "Growing Pains" is a bit more pop punky than your other music. Do you think that was influenced by the fact that you were working with BSD? Because, obviously, like listening to their stuff, it is a little bit more pop punk in a way, or is there a specific reason you guys settled on that sound rather than sticking to that heavier sound you have in your songs?

Kovy: The way that I think about songwriting is like, I almost think about songs as people, and you can do everything you can to force someone in your life, or a person to be any kind of way. Like your image of what you think this person is. But you just can't do that because people and songs are going to be what they're going to be, no matter what. It's almost like you have like a big piece of granite and there's a statue inside of it that is supposed to be what it's supposed to be, but you can't force it to be something that it's not. And I think that just naturally, the way we were writing the song, It just naturally kind of ended up sounding more like that, which is honestly like what I love about how we wrote this song. I feel like if you put yourself in a box too much and you're like we want to write a song that sounds like this or like this, you actually get hung up on so much and you start overthinking too much because you're just like I want this song to be this, but we're writing this song, and it doesn't sound like it. And that's what I think I loved about this song like we didn't try too hard to force it to be like, neither of us really want to be making pop punk right now but here we are writing a pop punk song! I think we just allowed the song to be what it was going to be, and you know, it's one of those things where it's like, you can always write another song if we didn't end up loving the song. I think that's where we stand with music and that's even something we've learned pretty recently, and at least with myself, that It's really hard to just not force yourself inside of this box of like I only write this kind of music because we all take music from all kinds of different sources. I mean, I love pop music, but it's not generally what I am aiming for the band. But that's what I love about the song, we just allowed ourselves to write and to be creative and not force it to be anything that it wasn't. Sometimes you do write those. I can't tell you how many songs we've written, where you just allow the song and you just end up sitting back and you're like, what the f*ck did we just make? This does not even make sense for us, but it's a cool song! But I think "Growing Pains" did end up kind of falling into place and making sense for us in our discography and I'm really happy it did because it's an amazing song. But to answer your question, I don't really think it had anything to do with the fact that BSD sounds any kind of way. I just think that it kind of just was the way the cookie crumbled. It just kind of ended up sounding the way it did and I wouldn't change a thing about it. You can always write another song, you know?

SCENE: Yeah! And you mentioned that there's like a direction you want to head with you music, and this is like a very stereotypical question but like, is there any artists that you personally look up to that you maybe are taking inspiration from?

Kovy: I think where we have been at is we're trying less and less to like put ourselves in a box of like we want to sound like a certain band, although I will say we've always taken inspiration from bands like Deftones, Bring Me The Horizon, Twenty One Pilots...It's all over the place! If you listen to our music, you can kind of tell we're a little bit all over the place when it comes to sound, to say the least. I think, moving forward, we're just trying to tell stories and we're just trying to do it in a way that makes sense with what we really love to make. We want to make timeless music, I think we've written stuff that's very, very intense on a certain genre or flavor, and I think it makes the song almost like it could sound dated within a couple of years sometimes. So I think mostly our focus has been choosing more natural sounds and choosing more timeless stories and and production with our music. But yeah, if you take anything away from that, we're all over the place.

SCENE: And like aside from obviously the actual songwiritng, when you were writing Growing Pains, do you guys have like a specific story or memory of that happened that is like a standout moment for you guys? like maybe a funny story, or like something that you realised that helped you overcome something?

Kovy: I will say a funny thing about everybody staying there was, my parents, they love hosting and I think just the funniest thing was how much like BSD and their crew got along with my parents and loved our parents as much as our parents loved them. My parents were making like steak dinners for everybody, they'd open up bottles of wine and do wine tastings for the band, like my parents were going all out for them. It was really awesome to experience that with them but also it was really cool to see the respect that they showed for my family and that these are the type of guys that you'll do something like that with them and they're helping do the dishes and they're just like cleaning up after themselves. They're just like just really solid, humble human beings and I thought that that was a really cool part of the process as well. Not to mention there was not much to do because it was like winter, so we had a sheets gas station within walking distance of my house and we'd wake up the next day and be like, "so... who wants to go walk to sheets?", like that was the one thing we would do besides writing the song. So it was just kind of a funny like experience. We were between going to the sheets gas station and just getting red bulls or whatever and having wine tastings and dinner with my parents and then writing the song whilst Beepus is playing Rocket League on my Xbox in the living room. It was just such a funny combination of so many different things happening at once.

Doug: Yeah, it was wild. I was in my OB rotation of school, I'm a nurse and I was in the thick of nursing school at that time as well. So I was in the parts of women's health, so I had to be studying while we were doing all that. So it was a rough week for me, truthfully.

SCENE: Yeah, just before you joined the meeting, we were actually having a conversation about how Doug is a nurse, because we were watching the idobi Out of Pocket episode!

Kovy: Oh my gosh! I forgot about that!

SCENE: Yeah so what would you guys like- Actually I'm assuming you guys are all working on the side of music? If you don't mind me asking.

Kovy: Yeah, we all unfortunately still have day jobs. I'm a bartender outside of this, and I record and produce music a little bit on the side, but I only have so much creative juice, so I I kind of pick like a few passion projects that I'll invest a little bit of my extra songwriting and production time into when I'm not working on the band stuff. But I bar-tend outside of this!

Jonah: I'm a software engineer so I'm a computer guy!

Jaxson: I'm a floor technician so I make floors look cool and shiny and clean.

Jeef: I do like video editing, I've been doing a lot of that lately.

SCENE: How do you guys like find a way not to get burned out? Because obviously that's a lot to juggle, especially with stuff like nursing.

Doug: What happens is you do get burned out, and you just keep on going until you look back you're like, Oh, I was really burned out!

Kovy: Oh, my gosh! I can't even tell you when he was in the thick of nursing school, we were trying to get like vocals tracked and songs done, and he would be on just a couple hours of sleep showing up to the studio just his face is white and he just sits down and he like pulls out his computer and just starts like studying while we're working on music, like he was a shell of a human being for a little bit.

Doug: Yeah,I was definitely having some stressors and my health was not well. I mean, we had some of our best releases when I was in nursing school. I think we did the entertainment EP all when I was in school, we did a lot of music videos and stuff. Shout out to our friend Matthew Bonder, who did a lot of our videos. He actually was living in LA at the time and he would fly here and help us with that, so we did pull a lot of all-nighters and then I would go to class the next day after pulling it pulling an all-nighter.

Kovy: Yeah, we'd be up until 4 or 5 in the morning filming a video and then Doug would go to to nursing school at like 7 in the morning.

Doug: I'm at a point now in life where I'm like, no more of that. I need 8 hours. Though I was like, this is okay, because I'm pursuing my dreams. and I need to, be killing myself for that but then I realized, you don't need to kill yourself that hard.

Kovy: So to answer your question though, Yes, we burn out a lot but I think what's most important, and why I said it's good that we kind of took a break from dropping music so much, I think we were all kind of learning to just take some time to grow as individuals. I think we were just going so f*cking hard on the band and it was all we were focused on and we kind of neglected ourselves in a way. Which is why I'm really happy that like now that we are going to be consistently releasing music again I think we're more ready for the burnout this time and we know what our limit is. And also we're just enjoying the process and not killing ourselves trying to get stuff done. We're just trying to have fun with it.

Jeef: For sure we've been working hard for a while.

SCENE: And you said you had a mindset change and all your stuff is heading in that more like artistic direction. Do you think that had like an influence on "Growing Pains" finally releasing?

Kovy: No, it definitely had a play in it I think. Also, in a way like you talking about burnout too, I think we were really burnt out on promoting the band. I think if you could just like describe us as musicians, our First love is playing shows to be honest, I almost would say I love playing shows more than even writing the music, although writing the actual music in the process of creating the music is either first or close second. But we had to change our strategy when we weren't playing as many shows and just being like we have to have an online presence and actively promoting ourselves and I feel like we did it for so long and we didn't see like the massive blow up results in the way that we actually got what we wanted out of it, which is tours. The only reason we promote ourselves is so that we can hopefully eventually land that tour. Literally the day that we get our first tour, I will fall to my knees crying. I'm not even kidding, like I know it sounds dramatic, but like that is all I want out of music is to just like be on the road with my best friends in the world and just be playing shows.

Jeef: Yeah, I'll say, definitely when we're all feeling burned out playing a show is the one thing that I feel like reminds you of like why you're doing it.

Jaxson: So worth it. Yeah, so worth it!

Kovy: But at the end of the day we're all kind of waiting for our moment where we finally land that like awesome tour and I will literally fall to my knees crying when we finally get it because that's like all we've been working towards. So it'll happen, it's what we're chasing!

SCENE: Hell yeah, we're looking forward to seeing it happen!

Kovy: Oh, absolutely, thank you. That means a lot.

SCENE: And hopefully, one day, London, that'd be awesome.

Kovy: Oh, yeah absolutely! I mean that's on my list even just to go for a couple of days. Yeah, we'll play in your living room, just let us know!

SCENE: Deal! Does tomorrow sound good?! Also just a couple more questions but is there anything you guys want people to know about "Growing Pains" Specifically?

Kovy: If I could just say anything about Growing Pains, if anybody could take away anything from it. It's first of all, don't be too hard on yourself in the process of going through the things that you need to go through, whether it's just stuff from when you're switching from being a kid and coming out of high school to being an adult to or even just any struggle with either your family or whatever it is you're going through, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. Not to sound cheesy but it really is all worth it eventually and I think that, that song is a perfect example of like trying to make everything work, making the song make sense and to finally put it out. I think it's a beautiful representation of life and how so much stuff gets in the way, but at the end of the day, just enjoy the process. Don't be too hard on yourself,and just know that you are on the track to being the person that you were always meant to be, it'll be dark sometimes, but you will always you will get there.

SCENE: Yeah, I feel like that pretty much answered the the question I was just about to ask, which is somewhat similar, but what advice would you give anyone who is maybe going through those "Growing Pains" right now?

Jonah: Never blame yourself for like struggling through a transition. Transitions in general are really really hard and I think a lot of people will blame themselves, like "why can't I just deal with this immediately?" Because it's not something you've ever experienced before, and that's okay. I don't know, that's just my take!

Kovy: I couldn't have said it better myself.

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*This interview has been edited for clarity*

Links:

Listen to Growing Pains on Spotify.

Watch the Growing Pains Lyric video

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