Weathers Show The Manic Side Of Depression On Their New Single

You have to give it to Weathers: for a band who sounds so happy, they've never shied away from wearing their hearts on their collective sleeve. Since emerging onto the scene in 2016 with tracks like I Don't Wanna Know and Happy Pills, this shimmery alt-rock quintet have combined pop-driven guitars and singalong hooks with honest themes of loneliness, mental illness, and the human condition. It's rare tales so honest and harrowing can be so fun to dance to.

The band's latest single, Lonely Vampire, exemplifies this to a T. Though the song might sound to some like it's the soundtrack to a top-down drive along the California coast, its fast-paced and high-fructose moments have an intrinsically manic aspect to them. When lead singer Cameron Boyer says, "I really want to scream shit, but can't find my mouth", the listener can't help but wonder if this song is, in fact, his scream.

We caught up with Cameron to learn a little bit about Weathers' tone, legacy, and how he'd deal with becoming a lonely vampire.

Weathers' music mixes genres like pop-punk and synthwave -- is there a middle ground you're looking for, or is it just an amalgamation of your influences?

There’s no set goal we are trying to reach with our sound. I think it just comes naturally. We write what we want and that’s how it sounds. I would say we have lots of new wave and post-punk influences that we like to mix with our own flares if that makes sense. We just want it to sound new and different. We want to stand out.

How has Weathers' sound most evolved or grown since you first hit the scene with Happy Pills and I Don't Wanna Know?

We’ve definitely changed a lot. And when we change as people, our music will change with us. When we first started, we wanted everything to be dark. I definitely felt like I was a darker person back then. Still am. But we took a break to kind of figure out who we were becoming. Because I felt like those two songs came out in the middle of a lot of changes. So we took a second to get our feet on the ground.

And then we assessed who we were and then wrote our first album, Kids In The Night. And I realized that, while I still like the dark stuff, I wanted to loosen up a bit and have more fun. I was going through a period of self discovery. Some shit had happened right before we started writing the album that wasn’t too great. And I realized that I wanted to focus on myself and just learn to have fun with life and not waste it. And that’s why the album is so different. Even I discovered my voice and who I was as a singer and front man. That’s why even my voice sounds so different.

Tell me about the single -- why a lonely vampire? Where'd that theme come from?

Something I struggle with a lot is social interactions with people I’m not familiar with. I can get very in my head about whether or not people like me or if I’m making a good impression on someone. And while wanting to focus on myself, there was a struggle to also be in a band where half the job is meeting new people and creating relationships that can help your career. And something I’ve come to learn is that a lot of that is based on just whether or not someone likes you. And growing up, I’ve had some dumb but slightly traumatic experiences with that and it’s stuck with me so it’s definitely really frighting pretty much 100% of the time.

That’s why I like to bring my guitar player, Cameron Olsen, with me a lot to certain things. He’s been the only one to make me feel comfortable enough to function when I’m pressured in social situations. In 2016, he really helped me come out of my shell a lot. So together, we wrote Lonely Vampire with a couple friends of ours. And I remember saying something like, 'I want to write a song about being a person who struggles with social interactions while being in a career where social interactions are crucial to your survival.' And that’s Lonely Vampire.

In the spirit of vampirism, if you were immortal, what album would you drag around with you through the ages to keep you company?

This question is almost completely impossible to answer. And I don’t even know if this would be my final answer if I could see a list of every album I’ve ever loved right now, but first one that comes to mind is Hot Fuss by The Killers

Listen to our exclusive stream of Weathers' Lonely Vampire below:

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