As the cold pandemic winter melted away, and we emerged into a somewhat normal summer, a new super group formed to bring us warmth, joy, and laughter while we process our collective trauma from the past year. L.A. Exes is comprised of Sam Barbera, Jenny Owen Youngs, Rachel White, and Steph Barker. The idea for the group came from Jake Sinclair, a producer known for work with bands like Weezer and Panic! At the Disco.
“He was a mutual friend of all of ours,” vocalist and bassist Barbera explains. “We all kind of, a little bit knew each other through Jake, and he pitched the idea to us. He was like, ‘Would you guys be down to make this record together?’ And we talked about exploring those sonics from the ’60s that we all loved.”
With harmonies that could rival The Beach Boys, L.A. Exes locked in the pop melodies of the 1960s perfectly, while giving the sound a different perspective than it has had in the past.
“All four women in the band are queer,” Barbera explains. “So, there is a little bit of a language there between us, and shared experiences and things like that, that you don’t really get to relate to other writers a lot of times. So, it was really neat for us to have our own language within the band.”
The camaraderie Barbera found in her new bandmates couldn’t have come at a more necessary time in her life. Having just gone through a breakup, the writing sessions with L.A. Exes became a much-needed source of catharsis.
“The first day that we were gonna write together, I showed up, and my girlfriend had broken up with me the night before,” she says. “I had been up all night sobbing, and I opened the front door to start our session, and I was like ‘I got dumped!’ Then I just cried the whole session. Even with the kind of bummer breakup and all that, it was immediate chemistry. We had the most fun, just telling our ridiculous stories and then turning them into songs.”
Because she was writing songs in the moment that she was processing a breakup, the lyrics feel more present, as opposed to breakup songs written after the healing process.
“A lot of where my mindset was at was working through those stories, that experience that was happening in real time,” Barbera explains. “Whereas sometimes, you’ll write about an ex or a love, but it’s something that happened two years ago. I would literally get off a conversation with my ex, and then walk into the room and write about it.”
Despite the somber subject matter, Get Some—the band’s debut album—is poppy, upbeat, and laced with humor.
“I think what happened was, because our vibe is so fun together and we were so happy making the record, I think that even if we were writing about dark stuff that was going on, we were still able to find levity in it,” Barbera says.
Given that the band’s name is itself a pun, it’s no surprise that they have a sense of humor, which they wear unabashedly on their sleeves.
“Instead of writing a song where we’re only leaning into depression and lowness, we’re gonna put in a twist of, kind of comic relief. A twist of— yeah but fuck it!”
Watch the video for “Skinny Dipping” here:
For more from L.A. Exes, find them on Instagram.
Photo courtesy of L.A. Exes and Molly Adams.
