- -_ - wabe (mid-tempo guitar music) - We're Lowertown.

♪ I am so confused ♪ Just don't know what to do We started this band when we were 15, and now we're 21.

So there's been a lot of growing in between those years and a lot of changing.

♪ Get your pride out of my face ♪ (discordant music) (traffic noise) - [Performer] One, two, three, four.

(discordant music) (soft guitar music) (song ends) - That song was called "It's Easy for Me."

It's the closer to our last album, "I Love to Lie."

I'm Avsha.

- I'm Olive.

- And we're Lowertown.

- This next song is called "Antibiotics."

It's about a toxic relationship and sort of how it feels when it's ending and it's over.

(soft guitar music) ♪ Antibiotics in the water ♪ They've poisoned someone else's daughter ♪ ♪ Slaughterhouse floors painted of the boys' blood ♪ ♪ Look what you've done ♪ Seems like they've won ♪ Beaten up, fallen and blue ♪ Your eyes deceive you, swollen shut ♪ ♪ I don't love you any more ♪ Peel yourself off of my floor ♪ ♪ Stop tearing into my skin ♪ I won't let you in ♪ I won't let you in ♪ Defibrillate me ♪ Shine a light into my eyes ♪ See if I'm still alive ♪ Or am I just a walking corpse in disguise?

♪ ♪ Beaten up, fallen and blue ♪ Your eyes deceive you, swollen shut ♪ ♪ I don't love you any more ♪ Peel yourself off of my floor ♪ ♪ Stop tearing into my skin ♪ I won't let you in ♪ I won't let you in (mid-tempo guitar music) ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ Oh, oh, oh (laughs) Our songwriting process has definitely changed a lot since we've first started writing together.

I really couldn't play music very well, like instrumentally.

When we first met, I just started learning how to play guitar, and my songwriting background sort of starts with poetry.

I would write a lot of poetry, and Avsha started with classical piano.

So he can play, honestly, most instruments.

But yeah, he would write all these really, really cool instrumentals, and I would sort of bring my poetry and find a melody on top of that.

But now he's very like much more confident in his singing and his poetry, and I'm honestly a lot better at guitar now.

So we sort of switch it up every now and then.

But I think the general thing that we do is Avsha will write like a basic instrumental and I'll bring lyrics or a general idea of what I want, and we'll shape the song together.

But yeah, we usually bring two pieces and then sort of bounce back and forth with each other.

I think definitely people and relationships we've had, just friendships, relationships, that used to be the biggest source of inspiration.

I think growing up is also one of our biggest sources of inspiration because we started this band when we were 15, and now we're 21.

So there's been a lot of growing in between those years and a lot of changing.

Growing into adulthood also, yeah, just internal struggles and things like that and grappling with the world, I think.

- Yeah, I think we also are very inspired by each other.

We grew up like through a lot of very formative years together.

And I think a lot of the things that we choose to write about or influence us directly is sort of how the events that happen to us impact us individually but also us together and how our friendship kind of changes and kind of how we sort of have to maintain the friendship and change the friendship and our relationship with each other.

That's a big inspiration, at least for me.

- Yeah, and I think definitely the relationships and people one pertains to this one, because this one is about somebody that I knew that I really cared about, but they were very aimless and they didn't really know what they wanted, and it caused a lot of chaos in my life and in a lot of other people's lives.

So this is what that song's about, and this one's called "Best Person You Know."

(up-tempo guitar music) ♪ I'm so confused ♪ Don't know what to do ♪ I feel lost ♪ Sitting alone in my room ♪ Get your pride out of my face ♪ ♪ You tell me it'll be okay ♪ The words that you say don't make you any more of a man ♪ ♪ Miss seeing things being done with your hands ♪ ♪ Do you believe in God or anything at all?

♪ ♪ What morals do you stand by?

♪ Have your standards started to fall?

♪ ♪ Do you believe in God?

♪ What makes you build yourself so high?

♪ ♪ Can't see you anymore ♪ It's almost like the features of your face ♪ ♪ Are indescribable ♪ Eat the mess that you've made ♪ ♪ Go sit in that grave ♪ The one that you've dug for yourself ♪ ♪ I don't care, your body isn't mine ♪ ♪ I no longer mind ♪ Do you believe in God or anything at all?

♪ ♪ What morals do you stand by?

♪ Have your standards started to fall?

♪ ♪ Do you believe in ♪ Do you believe in ♪ God?

♪ God (soft guitar music) (up-tempo guitar music) (song ends) Thank you.

(laughs) - That song was "Best Person You Know" from our EP, "Honeycomb Bedbug."

- Yep.

On tour I feel like we don't have enough time alone at all.

Like you really are just go, go, go all the time, and you're around your band all the time.

And then, once you're done with the show, you go to your hotel room with everyone or someone's house.

So usually in those periods of time, I'm just writing poetry and like collecting all of that information.

Avsha journals a lot.

But usually after tour, we're pretty worn out and we take about a few weeks to a month to recoup, and then, I don't know, and then we sort of come back and have all this new information and all these new experiences and this new excitement about music.

- Mm-hm.

- But yeah, it's very draining being on tour.

You don't usually have a lot of time to really write if you're doing like, I don't know, a tour on our level.

- Luckily though, it does connect us sort of in our periods of processing, and a couple like weeks, months after that, that's usually when we know, we can't really write or we won't really write together.

And then usually at the same time, we'll both be like, "Okay, we're ready.

We have something to say."

- This one was written in sort of a day just for fun.

This one is called "Bucktooth."

And this is on our last album we dropped, "I Love to Lie," and a lot of this album is very intense, like angry and very emotional and sad, and this is like the one song, I just wrote this song because I was very into Johnny Cash at the time, and this was when we were in London, and I just wrote it for fun because all of the songs we were writing were very intense and very serious.

And I showed it to Avsha, and he was like, "Wait, this is awesome.

I love it."

Like, it's one of the most lighthearted songs we've ever written, and I was just very into storytelling and writers that could like paint a picture, and it doesn't have to be so serious all the time, which is honestly very different than our normal kind of song.

So that's how this one was written.

- How our demeanor in general is.

- Yeah.

- Not so much anymore, but we were pretty serious.

- Yeah.

It was a very intense period of time.

Now we're more jovial.

(laughs) - All right, "Bucktooth."

(up-tempo guitar music) ♪ Bucktooth Willy and his friends love to mess with me ♪ ♪ And I let 'em ♪ He loves to dance and sing on the table ♪ ♪ Before someone gets him ♪ Shoots stray bullets into trees, ♪ ♪ Hide in tires, drive in circles ♪ ♪ We like to go around and round and round ♪ ♪ And round and round and round and round ♪ ♪ They're extremists and I don't like it ♪ ♪ I just wanted to have a good time ♪ ♪ They're playing with the law ♪ I don't wanna be on the run ♪ They're enemies of the federation ♪ ♪ I can't handle anymore, can't handle anymore ♪ ♪ Can't handle anymore guns ♪ I can't handle anymore, can't handle anymore ♪ ♪ Can't handle anymore guns (up-tempo music) ♪ Gimme some fun that isn't in trouble ♪ ♪ Gimme some words that don't mean something trouble ♪ ♪ Gimme a job that doesn't wear me down to the bone ♪ ♪ I come home at night and I don't wanna be ♪ ♪ I don't wanna be alone ♪ They're extremists and I don't like it ♪ ♪ I just wanted to have a good time ♪ ♪ They're playing with the law ♪ I don't wanna be on the run ♪ They're enemies of the federation ♪ ♪ I can't handle anymore, can't handle anymore ♪ ♪ Can't handle anymore guns ♪ I can't handle anymore, can't handle anymore ♪ ♪ Can't handle anymore guns ♪ They're extremists and I don't like it ♪ ♪ I just wanted to have a good time ♪ ♪ They're playing with the law ♪ I don't wanna be on the run ♪ They're enemies of the federation ♪ ♪ I can't handle anymore, can't handle anymore ♪ ♪ Can't handle anymore guns ♪ I can't handle anymore, can't handle anymore ♪ ♪ Can't handle anymore guns (up-tempo music) (song ends) - That was "Bucktooth" from our album, "I Love to Lie."

- Probably the silliest song we've written, in a good way.

- [Asher] Mm-hm.

This next song is called "The Gaping Mouth," which is the title track of our second to last project we put out called "The Gaping Mouth."

- It's a little intimidating to perform because it really has no verses or no choruses.

I don't know what we were thinking when we wrote this one.

We were just crazy.

But it's a little intimidating.

It's our third time performing this one ever, so.

- The thing that we like.

The thing that we like about performing this song is that it kind of is its own entity or like form.

So every time, the three times that we've played it, or that we will have played it, the two times that we've played it, it's been pretty drastically different, kind of different each time.

But that's what's kind of fun about this song is to watch it grow and change into its own kind of song different than the recording.

- Yeah, I also think we play off of each other a lot in what we're both doing.

So I think it's sort of artistic and sort of, I feel like we're altering it together each time we play it.

- It's our most communal song.

Yeah, "The Gaping Mouth."

(soft guitar music) ♪ It'll be nice ♪ It'll fit like a glove ♪ Take two steps back and close your eyes ♪ ♪ If you try now ♪ It'll be comfortable ♪ Take a step to the side ♪ Long shower to relax your muscles ♪ ♪ Not much effort but a quick fix to ease your mind ♪ ♪ It's only starting, the falling, the falling ♪ ♪ The tripping over myself ♪ Leaving my shoes and tie ♪ Being with purpose ♪ Of my own delight ♪ Being stupid and being 15 and being older ♪ ♪ And thinking I know who I am and what I want ♪ ♪ Creating pointless fantasies ♪ The simple mania of no responsibility ♪ ♪ Either way I stay the same, I never change ♪ ♪ Old habits die too hard ♪ So I hold onto them for the rest of my life ♪ ♪ Sandbags I keep tied to my ankles ♪ ♪ Weigh me down, but comforting at the same time ♪ (soft guitar music) ♪ You are the iris in my eye ♪ The more light, the more I shrink away ♪ ♪ The more I try to hide ♪ And you are the sun in the sky ♪ ♪ Wake up too late and miss most of you ♪ ♪ Before you dip behind the tree line ♪ ♪ You are the iris in my eye ♪ You are the iris in my eye ♪ In my eye (mid-tempo guitar music) ♪ Being stupid and being 15 ♪ And being older and thinking I know who I am ♪ ♪ And what I want and creating pointless fantasies ♪ ♪ Simple mania, no responsibility ♪ ♪ Either way, I stay the same, I never change ♪ ♪ Old habits die too hard ♪ So I hold onto them for the rest of my life ♪ ♪ The sandbags I keep tied to my ankles ♪ ♪ Weighing me down but comforting at the same time ♪ (Avsha vocalizing) ♪ You are the iris in my eye ♪ You are the iris in my eye ♪ In my eye ♪ You are the iris in my eye ♪ You are the iris in my eye ♪ You are the iris in my eye ♪ In my eye ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ Oh, oh, oh (soft guitar music) (song ends) - Thanks, guys.

- Thank you.

- Thank you, everyone.

- We're Lowertown.

Thanks for having us.