Q&A: Weakened Friends Find Freedom in the Fire on ‘Feels Like Hell’

MusicQ&A

Oct 9

INTERVIEW

FOR PORTLAND-BASED TRIO WEAKENED FRIENDS — chaos has always been part of the process. Known for their emotionally charged performances, raucous energy, and unfiltered songwriting, the band has built a reputation for finding catharsis in distortion — screaming the truth and dancing through the noise. With their new album Feels Like Hell, they take that energy to its most personal and fearless place yet.

Led by vocalist and guitarist Sonia Sturino, alongside Annie Hoffman (bass) and Adam Hand (drums), Weakened Friends channel a sense of emotional release that feels both urgent and freeing. Feels Like Hell is raw and untamed, but it’s also self-aware. It’s a record about confronting burnout, rejecting toxic grind culture, and refusing to feign gratitude when everything feels like it’s falling apart. Rather than polishing away the mess, the band leans into it, transmuting frustration and fatigue into something raw and cathartic.

At its core, Feels Like Hell also marks a deeply personal turning point for Sturino. It’s the first record they’ve made since embracing their identity as a gender-nonconforming artist, a shift that fundamentally redefined their relationship to music and self-expression. “It was really important to me, and it makes me feel so much better about this record because I feel like I hear me,” they share. “I’m not scared to hear myself; I’m not judging myself anymore.”

The band’s signature grit remains, crashing drums, fuzzed-out guitars, and shout-along choruses, but Feels Like Hell feels more assured in its vulnerability. Sturino’s voice carries both defiance and tenderness, no longer softened to meet anyone’s expectations. Instead, it stands unflinchingly in its truth.

Feels Like Hell is both a release and a reminder that honesty, even when it burns, can be the most freeing sound of all.

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?

SONIA: I feel like in general, when I was younger, I grew up in Toronto, Canada, and I think there was a good representation of artists that, like, made me feel like making music. I mean, remember Metric was coming up and that was an early inspiration for me to make music after seeing them for the first time live at 14. As far as now goes, it's any and everything. It’s so hard to pinpoint.

ANNIE: Alternative rock and grunge radio baked its way into my DNA. Just hanging out with my dad and listening to all that, but inspiration is everywhere, especially with the bands we tour with.

SONIA: I liked music a lot when I was a kid, and I feel like a lot of my friends were really into the emo scene and that whole world of music. I would go to shows and I remember I’ve always wanted to be on stage. That's why Metric or artists like that are a huge influence. That was a big band for me when I was little because it was the first band I ever saw this powerhouse of a woman, Emily Haines, on stage, conducting herself as a rock star. I'm very inspired by women in music.

LUNA: You have released your newest album Feels Like Hell and a huge congratulations is in order! You’ve described this as your most personal record to date. What made this collection of songs feel so raw and necessary to you?

SONIA: It was a hard record to write because it was hard to get to the point where I felt comfortable writing again. Our last record we put out during COVID, and I started to be really strained and burned out with music in general, and with this record, there was this big lull where I didn’t even know if I had the capacity to create songs and write music anymore. I was just stressed out all the time about it. Then, I hit a point, at some point last year, where Annie and I started writing together. Instead of just me writing on my own, we were co-writing and it snowballed and we suddenly had this record. I was in this dark period of writer's block. It felt really personal, because when you know when you really face the reality of maybe I can't do the thing I've been doing for my whole adult life anymore. That feeling of I'm going to lose this, or maybe I should quit this, or this is not making me happy anymore. For them to turn around and be gifted with these cool songs and get to actually see them through feels really special.

LUNA: What sparked the initial idea for Feels Like Hell? What themes or emotions did you set out to explore?

SONIA: Looking around at the world and everything that's going on, it's pretty frustrating. I've always been someone to channel those spicy, frustrating emotions into music. Initially, I wanted to write songs that were happy. I wanted to write a record that feels good and upbeat and happy, and then that never really happened. We had this one single called “Awkward” that we released two years ago that was in that world. But for this record, I just need to scream my guts out about all the things that piss me off, or all the things that I find sad or upsetting or that make me feel blase or hopeless about everything.

ANNIE: You are the impetus for lyrical content. Then I jump in and help fine tune things and kick ideas back and forth. But as far as sonic themes go, I remember setting a goal of exploring more space than we ever have before, because we have a habit of taking up a lot of space, sonically. And space meaning not necessarily leaving things empty — we do that a couple times on the record — but more like a lofi-ness, or more like a third dimension, whereas historically, we're very up front. It feels right in your face. But I wanted this to feel like you could reach into it or see further. We accomplished that.

LUNA: Did you take any creative risks or experiment with new approaches on Feels Like Hell compared to Quitter? What felt different this time around in how you expressed yourself?

SONIA: There’s an ease to this record that wasn't really there on Quitter. We weren't touring, we weren't doing anything, so you almost had too much time, and it became over tweezed, where I feel like with this record, there's an ease of flow and really chasing the feeling of each song and not being too precious with the production and not being too precious with the details. We are a rock band and we're just going to make rock songs and follow the creative way.

ANNIE: If something's not working, you can abandon it. But what I did challenge the two of us to do this time around was to really focus on the character of the vocal delivery. Sonia is an amazing singer, and in the past, I would gather up takes. It was fun to explore the character of each song. Like, what is this character feeling in the emotional delivery of it, really dialing

SONIA: Fortunately and unfortunately, I have a really expressive voice, which I know right now it's seemingly on trend to have the whispery, blase, quiet voice, which is awesome. A lot of artists like that, and I get a little self conscious because I'm just not that. I think Annie helped me lean into my thing and chase these characters and these emotions, and that's okay to have a big emotive voice.

ANNIE: There's a lot of feelings in your voice. But there’s a way to really harness that and really make it clear how you're feeling, along with not just by what you're saying, but the character's emotion of it.

LUNA: Sonia, this is the first record you’ve made since embracing your identity as a gender-nonconforming artist. You’ve spoken about redefining your relationship with your voice — what was that journey like in the studio, and how did it impact the way these songs sound?

SONIA: It was exciting. For most people, they're probably not going to hear too much of a change. It's still me. It still sounds like how I sound, but I wasn't constantly second guessing what I was doing, or feeling like I had to femme up my voice. I guess in the past, that's been something that I subconsciously had been doing, or would sometimes even consciously feel myself doing. With this one, it's like I just could be me. I wasn't trying to present in any sort of way through my vocal delivery,

ANNIE: Now that you mentioned it, if I think back to earlier songs, for example, “Blue Again,” I remember being in the studio, you would ask me, ‘Can you take my voice out of the headphones? I don't want to hear it.’ This time, we've got “Smoke and Mirrors” where you scream on it.

SONIA: I also feel like screaming in general, I still pull an ear off because I feel like it's weird to hear. The whole idea of a scream is you're trying to be heard through the noise. In order to scream properly, I feel like I don't really like hearing my playback. I also don't really like that much vocal in my ears anyway. But I felt like I definitely felt more comfortable with the screams and with everything.

LUNA: Do you have a personal favorite song on the album — one that feels closest to your heart or most revealing of who Weakened Friends is right now?

SONIA: I love “Queen of Town,” that's my favorite slow burn song, and it was one of the first songs I wrote for this record. It was the first time I felt like in a long time that I can still write songs and still make music. I like how it flows.

ANNIE: I go back and forth a lot. I really like “Smoke and Mirrors.” It's the heaviest one on the record. But I have a really soft spot for track two, which is called “Light Speed” and “Not For Nothing,” which is where the title of the record comes from. The whole record, I feel like there's no skips on it. I stand by every song.

LUNA: What do you hope fans take away when they hear this record for the first time?

SONIA: I like to think that this record is something that through every song, there's a different emotion that I've connected to throughout my life and as a person, and I think that's always been how people connect to our band. We're not the most technical musicians or on trend band, but we've always put our heart into our lyrics and the feelings in the songs. So if people leave feeling that feeling of this song sounds like it's speaking directly to me. Because when I listen to records, that's what I'm searching for, those songs which feel like they were written for whatever situation that I'm going through.

ANNIE: I feel like there is a thread, if you dig for it, there is a thread of hope throughout the album. I know we're touching on a lot of difficult situations or relationships, but you're fighting your way through those, or finding your way out or to be victorious over those situations. I feel like it is a motivating album for anybody going through a hard time, and then that's where the hope is.

LUNA: What is fueling your fire right now that’s pushing you into this new chapter in your career?

SONIA: I think that I'm at a point now in my life where it's like, if I don't do this now, I don't really know when I'm going to do it, and I've also invested so much time in it. It's the reality that I'm at this point where I've been in a band and doing music since I was a teenager, and now I'm 35 years old. Unfortunately, the way things work, I don't know how much longer the world's going to find what I'm doing relevant. Unfortunately, that’s the sad kind of truth that I feel sometimes, which is bullshit, and I don't want to feel that way, because if I felt that way, I should have quit it.

I generally feel like sometimes I'm at a point where I don't know how much longer I can do this, like, I don't know how much longer I'll get to do this, how much longer I can do it in this capacity. It's been the framework of my life. I feel like I'm chasing it extra hard, in a sense of I just want to keep being creative and keep putting music out and keep doing it. I'll still do it, even when I'm not relevant, because I still love it and accept that. When I was younger, I just wanted to do this.

ANNIE: The creativity definitely snowballed upon itself. I remember early days when we were just starting to put the songs together. I was on the phone with my best friend at home, and I was like, ‘this might be the last one.’ We just want to give it our best shot. And she was like, ‘what do you mean the last one?’ Once we started digging in, and it just started going, going going creatively, I was like, this is what we do together.

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?

SONIA: I feel great. I feel excited. I actually feel like there's a new spark to it all. With the last record, or just for a long time, I was feeling burnt out. I feel like there's a lot of momentum happening and excitement, even compared to previous releases, I feel like there is an electricity in this one. The rest of the year, we're going to be touring, so we headed on tour this month. Well, it's already happening October through November, and then we're going to be announcing some more dates in the West Coast early next year, and then some other tours. It's touring a lot, and a cool support tour that we're not allowed to announce yet in the spring. We got a lot of tour dates on the books.