Q&A: Femme-Led and Fierce: APPALOOSA Release “Get It Together, Kid”
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
APPALOOSA WRITE WITH HEART, HIT WITH FORCE AND LEAVE NOTHING TIDY — Seattle four-piece APPALOOSA are back with “Get It Together, Kid,” a bouncy, bittersweet rush of femme-led power pop. Rooted in punk’s raw energy but shimmering with glam flair, the track shows the band’s signature blend of tight arrangements, melodic punch and unflinching emotional clarity.
Since their formation, APPALOOSA have built a reputation for their ability to balance grit and gloss. With “Get It Together, Kid,” they sharpen their melodic edge while preserving the raw charm that first put them on the radar.
The project was born when singer and guitarist Erica Rose moved back to Seattle after six years immersed in New York’s punk and indie scenes. At the same time she was preparing to start a family, she found herself compelled to write the songs that would become APPALOOSA. “I was pregnant with twins and couldn’t stop writing,” Rose recalls. “I knew exactly what I wanted this to be: melodic, loud, emotional and real.” Joined by Leif Anders (lead guitar), Kevin Voss (bass) and Ian Sides (drums), the group quickly locked into a sound that fuses punk grit with power pop precision.
“Get It Together, Kid” reflects that balance. Originally conceived as a sprawling five-minute ballad, the track found new life once the band began to play it together. “It wanted to be fast. It wanted to move,” Rose explains. The final version clocks in under three minutes. “It’s about the ambiguity of being ‘mature,’” Rose says. “Whatever that means.”
Recorded by Johnny Sangster at Crackle and Pop and mastered by Kurt Bloch, the single captures the full-throttle immediacy of APPALOOSA’s live presence while leaning into glossy hooks and lyrical richness. With “Get It Together, Kid,” APPALOOSA reaffirm their place as one of Seattle’s most exciting bands, proving that power pop can still pack grit, heart and teeth.
LUNA: Thank you for talking to Luna. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. For any readers who aren’t familiar with you yet, what inspires your artistic style and sound?
ERICA: I'd say for this band, definitely, we have a lot of power pop influences, like The Shivvers or Dwight Twilley, Phil Seymour and the Ramones, of course. But also for me personally, I love Hanoi Rocks and Mother Love Bone.
LUNA: Are there particular moods or themes you find yourself gravitating towards when writing and performing? How do you channel these into your music?
ERICA: Thematically, I tend to go to more introspective themes, personal things I've dealt with, or I'll play with borrowed language and twist it into something I would want to say, or starting with a fragment of a sentence or a thought and then building from there into a story. Of course, life affects things or experiences. Starting from the interpersonal and then broadening out to life experiences that I feel I need to write about and for this band. I try to make it as melodic as possible. I want it to be catchy. And then when I bring it to the band, I'll bring the skeleton of the song to the band, and then we all build it out together so it's everyone's song at the end of the day.
LUNA: Seattle has such a rich history of punk and indie music. For any readers who aren’t familiar with Seattle’s music scene, how has the scene and its community inspired or impacted your sound?
ERICA: It definitely is always inspiring us and it continues to do so. There's a good community out here for power pop and rock n’ roll. There's not a ton going on, but there's still a lot of great bands that we’re lucky to play with, and it's always inspiring to see them and feed off their energy for this band. I am from Seattle. I grew up here, and I moved away when I was about 23 and I lived in New York for about six years. When I came back, I hadn't even gone out that much yet since I was pregnant, so a lot of the writing came from that transition originally, and then as I've gotten reacquainted with the scene. It's really cool to see how all the bands interact with each other. There's this one rad band Small Yards, and they have these really cool vocal harmonies that are really inspiring.
LUNA: What sparked the initial idea for “Get It Together, Kid?” What themes or emotions did you set out to explore?
ERICA: I started that one when I was pregnant. I moved back to Seattle. It seems like yesterday, but with the pandemic and everything, time has been weird lately. Before everything shut down and I was pregnant, I was writing a bunch of songs because I wanted to get a band together as soon as possible. I had most of my pregnancy in New York, and the end part in Seattle. I was playing in my bands up in New York until the last little part because I have twins, so I was writing and wanted to get these songs together so that as soon as I find the right people or people who want to play with me, I'll have this together.
“Get It Together, Kid” was one of those songs that I wrote in that initial batch. I was exploring themes of what it means to mature. As we age, what it means to get it together falls apart, expectations, what we expect of ourselves, that kind of thing. I wanted to explore it in a vague way, so it wasn't pushing ideas on anybody and letting the listener interpret it for themselves, and using a little bit more sparse language and lyrics in doing so.
LUNA: You’ve mentioned the song started out as a slower, five-minute ballad. How did the single evolve from the initial idea to its final version?
ERICA: It started out as a really slow, long song, which is really funny, because it's now like two minutes, but it was initially five minutes. It was really slow. When I brought it to the band, we sped it up, and I brought it to the band pretty quickly. We got a new drummer, because our old drummer moved. We never really played it, so we just brought it back until we reworked it and recorded it, and it's really in its best form.
LUNA: How do you hope listeners connect with this new era of music from APPALOOSA? What emotions or messages do you want to leave with them?
ERICA: We want people to connect to it for their own personal reasons. For me, when I hear a song, a melody and the chords really, before we even get to the lyrics, that really resonates with me. I try and write stuff whether it be minor or major, the blend just somehow sticks with you. Lyrically, just exploring things that are important to me, themes of being a mom, but not agreeing with what's expected of you. I like to keep my lyrical options open, and just write about things that are important, that I feel important, that I feel strongly about, that I hope would resonate with others. Especially as a single mom and having started playing music immediately after I had my kids, and it's kind of the pushback and the double standards that's something I always go back to. But there's so many other themes too about anxiety and emotional unwellness and wellness, and it goes on.
LUNA: What’s fueling your fire right now — musically or personally — that’s pushing you into this next chapter?
ERICA: Lately I've been listening to Lucy out of New York, and they're rad. I’m always trying to listen to these bands that I like that are contemporary, and it's stuff I always love, and power pop, and then channeling that and using it to propel us. I'm trying to be more attentive to what I'm listening to, and obviously not copying anything, but drawing inspiration and writing my own songs.
For this new era for us, it's really honing in on our songwriting composition and being really specific about everything, which is really exciting. I feel like we've always tried to do that, but we've had a couple changes. Our new bass player, Kevin, he's really good about just combing through it and making sure everything sounds solid. He's been in the band for about a year now, but he's been a big part of the new sound and transition. Our guitar player, Leif, I call him the glue of the band, his leads are perfect, and they tie everything together. Our drummer Ian also ties everything together. With all that trying to be very intentional about everything we do.
LUNA: When you feel a creative spark coming on, what do you need in your space to nurture it? Are there any rituals, objects, or energies you always return to?
ERICA: I get to my guitar as soon as I can. If I have an idea, I just need to pick it up and start trying this out right now. It could be in any room or anywhere.
LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like for you that you would love to share with Luna?
ERICA: I'm feeling really good. We're at a really cool spot. We've done some cool things that I'm really stoked about in the past, but I hope that we can push it forward. I'm feeling really happy about the group that we have going on right now. This is the best lineup. I just love everyone. I’m really excited about where we're at, musically and the way that we connect. In the near future, we are working on putting some shows together. We played all summer, but we also recorded. So getting some shows together, getting down to Portland, and then hopefully late this year, we're trying to decide if we want to do a long weekend in New York or LA area. We do want to tour eventually, but we want to test out where we want to be first. It's always fun to just do a longer four day thing somewhere to start with. Then getting back in the studio, because we want to chip away at our full length. We've been putting out a lot of singles and little seven inches over the years.
