Q&A: Sophie’s Body Starts From Zero
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
Asher Thomas
SOPHIE’S BODY FINDS FREEDOM IN NOT HAVING ALL THE ANSWERS — After graduating college in Boston, Sophie McMinn began questioning what she wanted out of life beyond music. That period of uncertainty became the foundation for Zero, the debut album from her bubble-grunge band Sophie’s Body, featuring Dylan Hughes (drums), Harry Van Der Meer (bass) and Adam Hurt (guitar). Set for independent release on October 30, the album explores the anxiety of change, the pressure of starting over and the search for meaning in an unpredictable future.
“Zero is an accidental concept album, in a weird way,” McMinn reveals.
The album emerged from a period of personal transition, as McMinn began reconsidering the direction of her life and the relationship she wanted to have with music. For much of her upbringing, music had provided a sense of structure and purpose. But after immersing herself in Boston’s DIY and grunge scenes, she discovered a new artistic autonomy.
“Zero is a collection of songs about experiences — songs about how I’m feeling,” she says. “At first glance (or listen), you might not see the connecting threads, but in every song, there is this dark shadow, great looming stress, gnawing feeling of uncertainty, and honest-to-god primal fear of failing before I’ve even had the chance to start. Life and the search for meaning is this amorphous, constantly shifting shape, and it’s horrible, and I hate it. Yet, it’s beautiful, and when I play this music and face it head on, I smile because it gave me this gift. Trying to make angles out of a shape like that is really hard, and I don’t think I’ll ever figure it out. But that’s alright with me, because it means I’ll have infinite opportunities to try.”
For Sophie’s Body, Zero marks the beginning of a new chapter, both as a debut release and as a document of McMinn learning to embrace the unknown. Like a soon-to-be butterfly, Zero wraps itself up in a tense ball of angst and energy, but once its potential finally cracks through, and all its guts have more room to function easily, then it can get lost in the whirlwind of the open air.
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?
SOPHIE: I feel like this project is more inspired by the world around me than a single artist or musical style. I think the music that I grew up listening to has subconsciously grafted itself into my artistic identity, but I'm not really thinking about music when I make music.
LUNA: Your background includes extensive classical and formal music training, while your more recent experiences have connected you with the DIY and grunge scenes. How has stepping into a less structured, more independent musical environment changed your relationship with making music?
SOPHIE: It's definitely a huge shift. I think all of us in the band come from musical training backgrounds. I know for me, this is the one outlet I have musically to just feel things raw and super real.
LUNA: What does creative freedom mean to you at this stage of your career? Has embracing a DIY approach allowed you to take risks or explore parts of your artistic identity that might have felt less accessible in a more traditional music environment?
SOPHIE: That's a really interesting question. I've been thinking about that actually lately, just in terms of artists that are working with labels and people that aren't. I'm just more and more grateful now that we have had the freedom to make all of these decisions ourselves, and to do whatever we want with this, which has been really cool. I think coming again from a classical background, there's all this structure and rigidity, and then playing wrong music, you want to leave that entirely, but also if you leave it too far, then there's not enough structure, and so it's about finding the right balance. I think the same goes with artistic freedom in terms of industry stuff too.
LUNA: You are about to release your debut album Zero and a huge congratulations is in order! Zero is described as an “accidental concept album,” with each song exploring different experiences and emotions. What does it mean to you, and what did you feel gravitated towards exploring for your debut?
SOPHIE: This album was written the summer after I graduated college, and I was going through a crisis of identity and existentialism. I was also at the time listening to a lot of heavy synth music, and a lot of heavy gaze, stuff coming out of Brooklyn like MX Lonely and Lip Critic. I just think it's really cool. So sonically going in that direction, but dealing with a lot of existential dread.
LUNA: Was there a song on Zero that challenged you to step outside your comfort zone, either creatively or personally?
SOPHIE: For me, it was “Star” with the synth. It's just not something that I've ever worked with before in a rock context. But now that I have, I'm like, why have we been limiting ourselves to just standard rock band arrangements, like it's blowing my own mind.
ADAM: There's another song on Zero called “Concrete,” and I have a guitar solo in this song. Normally, I like to write everything out and get it all figured out beforehand, but we went into the studio, and I wanted to let it out as it came. I went into it a little blind, and it came out really really nice. It was a good way to let my feelings out.
LUNA: Do you have a personal favorite song on Zero — one that feels closest to your heart or most revealing of who Sophie’s Body is right now?
HARRY: For me, it's “Indigo.” I feel like this band is one of the first times I've ever made music, and I feel like I've actually felt something, or at least felt something significant. I feel like that's the prime example of what I want every gig to be like is just being on stage. I just feel like a faucet of emotion where I’m in a flow state.
SOPHIE: I was also going to say “Indigo” for me. I have no words for that song. It's all just feedback and screams and it still makes me feel things now, even though I've played it a billion times, which says a lot.
ADAM: That one in particular, because we play it differently every night, it really allows each performance of it to be so in the moment and so intimate with the audience. It's not just us playing the music; it's us playing in this room with everybody, and they're part of it.
DYLAN: With each person being in the venue, it completely changes the way that feedback works for the song. Each room is different. Every single show. It's really interesting how that all plays out.
LUNA: What do you hope listeners who are experiencing their own periods of transition, anxiety, or uncertainty find in Zero?
SOPHIE: The most I could ever ask for people to do is let go and stop trying. Just stop it. It's music. It's deep, and it's the deepest thing I know. But it's also not that deep. Don't take yourself too seriously. You're not too cool to have fun.
LUNA: Now that you're preparing to introduce your debut album to the world, what feels most exciting about this next chapter of Sophie’s Body, and what are you hoping to explore creatively moving forward?
SOPHIE: We're on tour right now promoting the album before it comes out, and so we're just having a blast out here. I'm really excited to take this sound and run with it going forward. I have plans for 2027. I can't talk about them, but I have plans.
LUNA: What is fueling your fire right now that’s pushing you into this new era of your career?
ADAM: I feel like a lot of what Sophie was talking about with heavy electronic music, I've been listening to Bassvictim is something I've been checking out recently. We recorded all these songs for this upcoming album a year ago. So, what's fueling my fire now is being so excited to keep pushing the sound forward and make another record and keep doing it. That's what's fueling me.
SOPHIE: I'm pretty young. I'm 23, but I'm not getting any younger, and that freaks me out sometimes. Every day that I don't is another day that I didn't, so I'm just trying to get out here and make the most of every single second that I have.
HARRY: Being in the grind. Personally, I live for this lifestyle. I feel like I've grown accustomed to it to an extent, and I feel like I've just been away from it for a little bit too long. I think that being here on the road, having some really great shows and meeting some really cool people, makes you feel really really good.
LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like that you would like to share with Luna?
ADAM: I'm feeling good. I'm feeling tired from the drive. I've never been a part of something that has this much and so much could happen. I don't know what's going to happen, and I'm just super grateful and excited.
