Q&A: Common People and The Sound Of Something Becoming Itself
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY DANY MIRELES ☆
Photo by Eric Crain
Common People exist in the fleeting space where everything feels possible, where instincts matter more than certainty, and momentum builds before anything is fully defined. Formed at the University of Southern California, the five-piece came together through shared spaces and late-night jam sessions that felt more accidental than intentional at first, gradually evolving into something with weight.
What began as an effort to bring live music into their immediate world, house shows, crowded rooms, a need for something louder and more present, slowly turned into a project that demanded commitment. Their early releases shift, capturing a band learning its musical identity in real time, holding onto what feels honest while letting the rest fall away. After sharing stages with Cage The Elephant and Rainbow Kitten Surprise, that sense of possibility has only expanded – less about arriving somewhere definitive, and more about continuing to evolve without forcing the outcome.
In conversation with The Luna Collective, the band reflects on their formation, the weight of their first releases, and why the most honest music might still be the music they haven’t made yet.
Photo by Eric Crain
LUNA: Take us back to those early USC jam sessions; what first brought the five of you together, and when did it start to feel like something serious?
COMMON PEOPLE: We all met in college, kind of across a few different years, but we were all close in age. We were in the same fraternity, and a couple of us lived in a house where people would just come through and play music. It wasn’t anything formal at first—just whoever was around, hanging out and jamming. But at some point, it ended up being the five of us more consistently, and it just clicked in a way that felt different. We were all really into the idea of bringing live music back into the social scene at USC. It felt like there weren’t enough parties or spaces where bands were actually playing, so we started doing it ourselves. We played a few shows at parties, and pretty quickly, it went from being something casual to something we wanted to take seriously.
LUNA: Throughout 2025, you released a run of singles—how did that period shape your identity as a band leading into Games?
COMMON PEOPLE: Those songs were recorded over a pretty long stretch of time, so by the time we started releasing them, it felt like we were finally putting something out into the world for the first time, even though we’d been sitting with the music for a while. Every release made it feel more real. Like, each time a song came out, it was another step into actually being a band, not just thinking about it. At the same time, we were starting to play bigger shows. We opened for Cage the Elephant basically right after our first song dropped, which was kind of insane. Things started moving really fast, and we were figuring it out as it was happening.
LUNA: What was the creative process like while writing and recording these songs together? Are there any themes or emotions that tie the entire EP together?
COMMON PEOPLE: Honestly, the songs come from different points in time; some of them are almost a year apart, so it wasn’t like we sat down to make one cohesive thing from the start. But looking back, they all come from this same period where we were really deciding to commit to the band and see what it could become. That was exciting, but it also came with pressure. So if there’s a through line, it’s probably that feeling, being in this moment where everything feels like it could go somewhere, but you’re still figuring out how. There’s a mix of excitement and uncertainty in all of it.
LUNA: How does the concept behind “Propaganda” connect to the band’s overall perspective on human experiences and emotions?
COMMON PEOPLE: I think a lot of it came from just noticing how much information there is all the time now and how hard it’s getting to tell what’s actually real. Especially with things like AI, it feels like that line is getting more blurred in a lot of ways. But it’s not just about the internet. It’s also about people. Everyone has a version of themselves that they present, what they choose to show and what they don’t.
So there’s this connection between the digital version of that and the real-life version. It shows up in relationships, too, how you see someone versus who they actually are, or how they want to be seen. That was kind of the idea behind the song: exploring that space where identity and perception overlap, and where it gets harder to separate what’s real from what’s presented.
LUNA: You guys have toured with incredible bands such as Cage The Elephant and Rainbow Kitten Surprise. How has touring at this level changed your perspective on your music and audience?
COMMON PEOPLE: Touring with bands like that has been huge for us. You realize how much there is to learn just from watching people who’ve been doing it for a long time. It’s not even just the music; it’s everything. The way they carry themselves on stage, how they build energy, how they connect with a crowd. You start noticing all these little things. And seeing it live is the best way to understand it. Like with Rainbow Kitten Surprise, the way they structure their set and create moments where the audience really feels involved is something you can’t learn any other way. You take those ideas and think about how they could translate into your own shows. It’s been a big part of how we’ve grown.
LUNA: With Games officially out, how do you feel it captures this specific chapter of the band’s journey so far?
COMMON PEOPLE: It really feels like a snapshot of us becoming a band. It’s the first time we were actually learning how to write together, how to play together, how to figure out what we even sound like. And you can kind of hear that in the music. There’s something raw about it; we’re still figuring things out, and that’s part of what makes it feel honest.
LUNA: Looking ahead to the rest of 2026, how do you see this EP leading into what’s next for Common People, both sonically and in terms of where you want to go as a band?
COMMON PEOPLE: I think we just want to keep changing. We don’t really want to make the same thing twice. Ideally, everything we do next feels different from what came before. It’s hard to predict what that actually looks like, because you never know what’s going to inspire you next. But the goal is to keep following whatever feels interesting and fun to us at the moment. As long as it feels new to us, that’s kind of what matters. Hopefully, that translates to other people, too.
