Q&A: Babygirl on Nostalgia, Growth, and Their Softest Single Yet, “After You”
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY SHEVON GREENE ☆
Photo by Ryan Faist
AFTER A BRIEF HIATUS — following the success of their EP Be Still My Heart in 2023, Toronto-raised duo Babygirl are back with a soft and shimmering return. Their new single, “After You,” is a tender dive into the kind of love that raises the bar for everything else that follows. With breezy synth textures and delicate vocals, their dreamy and emotional style continues to earn recognition in the world of bedroom pop—and they’re not slowing down anytime soon.
Known for their balanced blend of pop, indie, and alt-rock, Babygirl are experts in writing songs that feel like the soundtrack to a teen movie—emotional, nostalgic, and cinematic. “After You” is a continuation of that tradition with a patient tempo and a chorus that especially sticks with you. It’s a release that showcases their thoughtful songwriting and steady creative growth.
We heard from the duo about the inspiration behind their latest single, their evolution as a band, and what love means in their music today. Read below for more.
LUNA: “After You” is about the idea of someone setting a new standard for love. Can you share the inspiration behind the track and how it reflects your personal experiences?
BABYGIRL: It started with the chorus—we wrote it with Cam’s brother, Miles, who’s our drummer and a frequent collaborator. We talked about a feeling we wanted to capture in the melody, something high and pure and sweet. The lyrics followed that, tonally. Just a collage of stuff, some true, some fictional, that felt like it was at home in that falsetto melody. After that, we brought the chorus into a session a few months later with RISC, who co-produced the song with us. I remember being led by tempo that day, wanting to do something that felt patient. We wrote the rest of the song in the room that day as the production took shape.
LUNA: How did you approach crafting the track’s soundscape, and were there any new techniques or instruments you experimented with?
BABYGIRL: I think we just followed our noses that day—we knew the tempo we wanted, and that we wanted to make something that felt sincere and a little melodramatic, with big bright acoustic guitars and a gentle vocal. RISC was great to collaborate with and really helped shape the sound—that big contrast in the verses, that noodly mono synth line. Funny enough, his room was also the room where we wrote our song “Always,” because Ryan, the producer of that song, used to occupy that unit. Total coincidence, but we’ve gotten a couple singles out of that spot!
LUNA: Can you walk us through your songwriting process and how you translate complex emotions into your music?
BABYGIRL: We often show each other pieces of writing and if we both feel compelled to finish it, we finish it together. Sometimes it’s a chorus or a verse, sometimes just a title. We are usually chasing that “golden nugget—” the concluding phrase in the chorus, melodically or lyrically. The title. The thematic nucleus of the thing. It usually feels a little untethered as a process until we have that. It’s like drawing the bullseye early in the process so you know how to hit the target later on. Usually it then just comes to mining whatever complexity is already present in that little piece.
That said, we’re often driven by lyrics, but some of our favorite songs have started with a melody first, so it really depends. We’ve both been writing songs since we were kids and have long been processing our emotions through them. Now it sometimes happens in a more roundabout way, where as the song gets close to the finish line it comes into focus and it’s like, “Oh, I think my emotions might be in there!”
Photo by Ryan Faist
LUNA: Your EPs showcase a diverse array of genres and styles. How do you decide the direction of each project, and what guides your experimentation with different sounds?
BABYGIRL: Some of our favorite artists have jumped around and tried different things rather than kept on making songs with the same sound. If we feel like it sounds like a Babygirl song, then it is one. We never want to feel like we’re doing a Xerox of a Xerox creatively, or trying to just replicate the sound of songs people already like from us. That being said, we do like to share our songs with friends and hear what they think—we’re in our own echochamber so often and it’s nice to get a different perspective.
LUNA: Do you draw inspiration from films or visual media when creating music, and if so, can you share some examples?
BABYGIRL: Definitely. It’s fun to be inspired by a character's storyline, or to write something from their perspective, especially if it’s aligned with something you yourself have experienced. Sometimes a little phrase or word jumps out at you, and you write it down for later. We appreciate great writing in every form. It may not be that there’s a single show or character that a song is based on, but more like, as the narrative of the lyric comes together, we realise its common ground with other stories we love.
LUNA: Reflecting on your journey from Lovers Fevers to Be Still My Heart to now, how do you feel you’ve grown as artists and individuals?
BABYGIRL: Every project we’ve put out has taught us a lot. The music we’re making now feels like the culmination of all of it. It’s more intentional. We have gained the confidence to trust that inner nagging feeling that something is not good enough, and the competence to either scrap it and move on or fix what isn’t working in it. I think we’ve also gotten a good read on what types of experimentation fit within the world of Babygirl—we better know how to push up against the boundaries we’ve created while keeping everything cohesive.
LUNA: Looking ahead, are there any new themes or concepts you’re excited to explore in your upcoming music?
BABYGIRL: A lot of our new music has positive sentiments—I think we’ve leaned towards sincerity in favor of rolling our eyes. It just feels like what we need personally. There’s always room for cynicism in some of our songs, but generally we’ve been writing about love. We want to create glowy and warm energy if we can. Make our music a place of respite.
