Photo: Neelam Khan Vela
We had a chat with the ever-euphoric Drug Store Romeos about their captivating new release ‘What’s On Your Mind’
Since we got to know Hampshire trio Drug Store Romeos a little better in 2020, the outfit have continued to go from strength to strength, developing and expanding upon their unique and beloved brand of ethereal, dreamy indie pop.
The outfit now announced their debut album The world within our bedrooms which is set for release on June 25th. The first taste of what is to come from the record is new single ‘What’s On Your Mind’ which sees the outfits trend of releasing beguiling and memorable tunes continue alongside a wonderful video directed by Qianhui Yu. Upon hearing this track, we felt that we had to have a catch up with the outfit and find out some more about their new track and how it came to life.
We love your new release ‘What’s On Your Mind’, what can you tell us about it?
The song is an almost detached perspective of the changing nature of relationships. It walks you through the inner and outer monologues, leaves space for contemplation and then hopefully at the end sends you into an embrace that, whilst comforting, is moving you to the end of the familiar and out into the unknown.
What was the process like putting it together?
This track from our album was the one most subject to studio transformation. When waiting for our producer to fix up some disobedient bleeps and bloops during the recording of the track, we started playing to occupy ourselves whilst our minds were still occupied by the song. The vocal melody was one that had been playing around in my head for a few weeks though lyric-less and sketchy. I think it sounds like someone humming a song they’ve heard on the radio with the odd few remembered words here and there.
What was the thought process behind the music video for the track?
We wanted grain and a lot of it. Morphing granular colour gradients, somewhat like the moving of colours that can sometimes be seen behind the eyelids representing an insular journey down rabbit holes of thought.
There is a very dreamy and almost euphoric nature to a lot of your work, is that something that you aim for?
It’s one of the feelings that’s important to me for sure and whether I take it too literally sometimes is something I’ve been questioning. I don’t want to just be a dynamic-less numbing pleasure machine. An element crucial in the journey we wish to take people on is dreamy euphoria, spiralling up the lateral whorl of a shell in the sky to a place the feeling two hands intertwined. Though you need night and day, light and dark. Make music like this alone and you feel nothing and say nothing.
How does the track fit into your upcoming debut album The world within our bedrooms?
I kind of see What’s On Your Mind as the plateau between a period of this ‘dreamy euphoria’ to increasingly darker more nocturnal spaces within the journey of the album.
‘What’s On Your Mind’ is available now.
The world within our bedrooms is out on June 25th via Fiction Records.
