Q&A: Not the Main Characters Is Writing The Best of Hyper Pop with "evian (boohoo!)"
IN THE SUMMER OF 2020 - songwriters Gabi Gotts, Perrin Xthona, and Tammy Gonzalez jumped on a Zoom call and started writing together as a creative outlet. They had no intention of starting a band when they first started working together, but eventually, the girls released a handful of tracks on a whim. Inspired by the main character TikTok trend, they chose to call themselves Not the Main Characters because they’d always pictured themselves in supporting roles.
Even after releasing their first songs, the band still didn’t see themselves as artists until their singles “bev hills” began to get noticed by playlists. When faced with questions over whether they were formally a band, they decided to formally solidify the project and cross the bridge from songwriters behind the scenes to artists in their own right.
Since choosing to take control of the spotlight, they’ve begun work on their debut EP expected in the early spring of 2022, and they’ve continued releasing new singles in the meantime. Their latest release “evian (boohoo!)” takes the mundane and casts it as aesthetic using maximalist hyperpop sounds.
Read on for our interview on the logistics of forming a band over Zoom, songwriters stepping into the spotlight, and the rise of hyperpop.
LUNA: Your bios mention that the three of you come from the UK, Oregon and New York. How did you first meet and form the friendship that became the basis for the band?
GABI: We all went to college together, though Tammy and I met Perrin separately, in different classes. When quarantine started, we all moved back home to stay with our parents and Perrin suggested we all write together on Zoom around May of 2020. So technically Tammy and I officially met through the interwebs. We wrote a ton of songs together and around August we decided that since we were in the midst of an apocalypse, it couldn’t hurt to just release some songs together despite that never having been our initial intention.
TAMMY: The 3 first songs were meant to be the extent of the project, but when “bev hills” got playlisted in October and people started asking us if we were a band, we figured why the hell not. And that was the beginning of Not The Main Characters.
LUNA: I know before the band was created all three of you aimed to be songwriters individually. What drew you to songwriting originally, and what led you to want to write for other artists in the beginning instead of yourselves?
GABI: I think we all loved the craft of writing more than the performance aspect. We wanted to be able to hop from session to session helping other artists explore their sound creatively; and the variety in different artists’ sounds means you never end up doing too much of the same thing.
PERRIN: That’s why working on music for the band is so much fun for us. From the beginning we decided to keep the sonic very open ended so that we could go from hyperpop to hip-hop to dark pop within a single project, and have our consistent lyrical style be the glue.
LUNA: As with most things in 2020, your creative partnership as a band started over Zoom. Did the physical distance make it harder to establish the foundation of the band or did it actually present some surprising positive aspects?
GABI: We spent literally every day together during those first few months, so much so that we all began to forget that we were even in different states. I’d bring the laptop with me to make lunch or even go to the loo, and then in the evenings we’d play jackbox games and drink together. Given that everything during that time was remote, it didn’t really feel that strange. I also think that making music over Zoom was kind of like altitude training for us. Now that we’re back in person, we write 3 times faster than we ever did before as a result, so that’s pretty cool.
LUNA: Hyperpop seems to be the connecting thread between the NTMC songs so far. What draws you to creating in the genre?
GABI: We’re all huge fans of hyperpop artists like Charli XCX, Slayyyter and Alice Longyu Gao (who we got to write “evian” with!). I think the sonics of hyperpop and industrial hip hop are very compelling to us, and -- partnered with a classic pop hook and lyrics -- it creates a type of sound we’ve never really heard before. We’re trying to create playful (but hard hitting) music that makes you want to put the volume at max.
LUNA: Your newest track “evian (boohoo!)” as well as your prior releases like “bev hills” have super witty lyrical hooks to go with the dynamic production. Do your songs tend to start with a lyric, melody, track, or something else entirely?
TAMMY: We usually start with lyrics only because all three of us are suckers for a good concept. We always joke that our songs start out as slam poetry and then we add melodies last.
PERRIN: For the first hour of writing it's basically just the three of us communicating in the google doc making a ton of jokes in complete silence. The funniest part is if you were in the room with us, all you would hear is the click clack of a keyboard and slight giggles. It makes no sense how it all works but it just does.
LUNA: Tammy, in a past interview, you mentioned Amy Allen, Julia Michales, and Sasha Sloan among the influences who made you realize that you could be an artist and a songwriter. In recent years, it seems far more common for artists to step into the spotlight. What do you all think is driving this trend? Do you think it’s easier to do both now?
TAMMY: I feel like the reason more songwriters are coming out as artists as well is because of the internet. Having random songs blow up with no budget is way more common because of TikTok.
GABI: Also, when you hear songs from big artists, their Genius lyrics/writer credits are one google search away. I feel like more people are paying attention to who’s writing their favourite songs, especially with the rise of podcasts like “And The Writer Is.” That creates a platform for the writers themselves to step into the light.
LUNA: Your band name, Not The Main Characters, was inspired by the TikTok trend about living your life as the main character. Is there something small you do in your day to day life that makes you feel like the main character?
PERRIN: So we actually named the band Not the Main Characters because none of us felt like main characters since we were all writing for other peoples’ artist projects. But the more we stepped into the artist world ourselves, the more we had to start thinking of ourselves as main characters. Especially with things like photoshoots and meetings about what creative direction we wanted to go in.
GABI: I think the little things that we do to feel like main characters in our everyday lives are going to parties together because there’s no way to not feel like the protagonist when you walk into a lit house filled with your besties. We also like to put on cute fits and go to Courage Bagels in Silverlake when we’re hungover, and if that’s not the ultimate main-character-in-LA movie trope, then I don’t know what is.
LUNA: What’s next for you as the year wraps up, and what can we expect from Not the Main Characters in the new year?
GABI: We’re currently prepping for our debut EP, which comes out in early spring of 2022! We’re so stoked to put out a cohesive body of work and get to do all the visuals and creative stuff around it. The project leans a little more into the ~party girl~ aspect of us, and we’re beyond ecstatic to invite listeners into our world.
TAMMY: The project is a culmination of what we’d wanna blast at a party with all our friends.
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