Strange Neighbors is a power-pop group that is performed by Aidan on vocals, Dana on bass, Tracey on drums, and Zach on guitar. Their sound is known for having sparkly guitars, walking bass-lines, rock solid drums, and passionate vocals that lift the song. In July of 2019, Strange Neighbors released their debut album, "How to Human", which features 28 minutes of musical songwriting that ranges from middle school dance to time in fancy Cairo apartments.
The group recently released their single, "Cavities" from their upcoming EP accompanied by an eye-catching music video. “Cavities" is a fun, high energy track. It features edgy drums (Strange Neighbors signature sound), twinkly guitars, and soft moving vocals. The song opens with a high tempo solid drum groove and then leads into verse with Aidan's vocals and twangy guitar. The song moves to a hooky chorus before continuing its journey. The music video belonging to "Cavities" captures the mood of the song perfectly. It focuses on band members, their instrumentation, and their singing. The video has its charm by singers switching to comedy every few shots. Some are eating a popsicle or shaving. This charming approach provides the perfect touch to "Cavities”.
Listen to "Cavities" here.
Hello, Strange Neighbors welcome to BuzzMusic! We've been jamming to "Cavities" and couldn't help but wonder, how did the song come to be? What influenced the songwriting and production?
This song started when Aidan brought the lyrics and melody to practice one day. The first lines were odd enough to catch everyone’s attention, especially for a pretty dark song. It turned out upbeat and silly, like us. This is typically how our songwriting process goes - either Aidan or Zach will bring the bones of a new song to the table, and the band approaches the composition process collaboratively. Our sound has gelled together as the band has gotten closer and shared more unique experiences. We start off playing what we hear in our head off the bones of the song, and it takes life from there. Tracey (drummer) tends to create her drum parts based upon the riff and vocal stylings. She just listens to a song once or twice and creates her parts piece from the piece, intro to verse to chorus and so on. She is highly influenced by oldies and classic rock, so the drum parts in “Cavities” are definitely a derivative of that style sound. Zach’s guitar parts on the song draw a lot of inspiration from Johnny Marr and George Harrison. “Cavities” two solos seem “especially Beatlesque” to him.
Aidan’s songwriting style is Tongue-in-Cheek Moody. Strange Neighbors always tries to bring out the fun side in things, but there are always a lot of hidden meanings and deeper stories within the lyrics, which makes it all even more fun for us. Even if it can be kind of sad. And that’s kind of what Cavities is about in a way. Enjoying the sweetness of things even if it ends up bad for you. Being able to look at the most horrific moments of your own life or history and laughing through it, but genuinely belly laughing, because there still always has to be a joy.
Our producer, Mike Dwyer of the Bunker Recordings, is great and we’ve built a great relationship with him over the years. When recording our upcoming EP “Illuminasti” (Cavities is the EP single) it was clear we had developed more of “our sound”, and consequentially, Mike captured that sound so damn well. We are so happy with how the upcoming EP’s songs fit together.
Hearing how musically well the different parts in your music jells together, there must be a lot of chemistry within the group! How did Strange Neighbors come to be?
Thank you! Strange Neighbors was born in late 2017 when Aidan (vox) and Tracey (drums) met through Instagram and would DM each other fawning over fellow beloved female musicians, and their mutual desire to be in womxn energy-driven band. We shared stories of music in our lives and we decided then and there to make this happen. Zach (guitar) responded to Aidan’s Facebook that was something along the lines of “Looking for a rad lead guitarist for a rock band with 2 queer femmes” in an NYC Musician Facebook group, and he was the perfect ingredient. That’s when we happily settled into our little family, the current lineup of Dana (bass), Zach (guitar), Tracey (drums), and Aidan (vox), and it’s been full speed ahead.
What inspired the music video to "Cavities"? Were there any challenges faced during the creation?
We tried to come up with the simplest idea possible. We didn’t really have any sort of budget or anything like that, so we came up with a concept we could shoot in an apartment. Then the wonderfully talented filmmaker Natalie Vinciguerra lit us and shot it beautifully. The biggest challenge was finding that fine line between funny and visually interesting, and just plain gross.
It must be exciting for the new EP to finally be coming out! We can’t wait to hear it! Once the music is out, are there any planned goals for Strange Neighbors? Any new shows to come?
It’s incredibly exciting, and we get antsy when we aren’t making or releasing new music. We’ve been playing these songs around New York for a little while now and so many local fans and friends have been begging for particular songs on recording. We’re very excited for them to hear it recorded and produced finally. But also we have neighbors all over the country and internationally which has been wild with the kindest social media responses we’ve been getting. We just did a small bracelet giveaway and were packaging them up to send, and realized every package is in a different state. It’s very cool to know there are people out there who somehow found us, and are really excited to hear what we’re about to put out.
What can we expect to see from Strange Neighbors this Spring/Summer?
Spring and Summer 2020 have a lot of exciting things planned for us. We are traveling farther than we’ve gone yet as a band, and are playing Belltown Bash Music Festival in Seattle in April. We are so honored to be invited to play alongside so many other incredible artists in such a wonderful city.