P&P Spotlight: Fox Teeth (EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW)

While thick eyeliner may not be in fashion anymore, and Hot Topic has drastically changed as the years have passed, our inner emo kid never truly dies. We've had names like Avril Lavigne and Fall Out Boy make their own resurgences in recent years, embracing elements of newer mainstream pop and timeless alt rock in a refreshing fashion. But Fox Teeth, an up-and-coming duo composed of Jade Rich and Andrew Romanowski, provides a similar nostalgia while taking a more vivid, narrative-based route.

Playlists & Polaroids recently had the privilege of talking to Fox Teeth, and they gave us great insight on several parts of their journey. From their sophomore album Through The Blue, to their intriguing backstory, to the writing process in general, we loved hearing it all!

Image credit: Abby Clare, graphic created by Karly Ramnani

YOU'LL LOVE FOX TEETH IF YOU LISTEN TO: Not Yer Baby, Movements, Vampire Weekend, Now Now, Andy Black, Carly Cosgrove, Black Midi

What inspired the band’s name “Fox Teeth”?

Jade: That’s always a fun question to answer! I believe I was 17 at the time, when I started to write music a little bit more, and had decided I wanted to put it out into the world. The first full song that I had written was a parody of the band Foxing, in their writing style. I wanted a parody name, so I got Fox Teeth from that because it sounded similar. And it just kind of stuck over time. It started as a joke, but it’s something we held on to.

Wow, I love that origin story! I don’t know why I was expecting something bold or symbolic, but that’s so cool. And I guess that’s sort of a reminder that we all have to start somewhere as we’re trying to make it.

Jade: Yeah, absolutely!

How did the band form? Can you walk us through how Andrew got involved and how you guys developed your own style of music?

Jade: I started the band as a solo project for fun, and I wanted to take it more seriously by the time I was in college. I had already put out some music by myself, but I was like "Okay, maybe I want a live band to start performing." So I put out an ad on Instagram. I made this really funny flyer [that said] "Looking for a bassist and a drummer!" and Andy reached out. I looked at the other projects that he played in at the time and had the chance to talk to him, and we decided to have an actual in-person practice. From that practice on, we just knew that the fit was there.

I love how you guys sort of found each other through that and then just clicked! One thing that I really noticed and loved about Through The Blue is that the songs have such unique and captivating titles. Could you walk us through how you pick them?

Andy: We had a couple different names for the album, but we sort of just look at our lyrics and we try to pull themes from them, or the inspiration as in why we wrote the song in the first place. So Through The Blue is pulled from “Floral Patterned,” which is from the chorus of that song. It’s a cool little nugget if you’re really paying attention. “Wednesday, Forever???” - we could probably talk about that later - that’s part of the story of the song. I think all of the song titles pretty much stayed the same the whole time.

We had a couple of different names for the intro track, but that’s because it’s just a little mini keyboard thing that we wrote, not really any big project. Usually, the smaller and simpler the idea, the harder it is to name it, and you just start grasping at whatever sticks. But if you write a song for a specific reason, it tends to be easier to name things.

There was one that really stood out to me - Track 6, “Two Emo (And Some Checkered Vans)” - can you walk us through that one?

Jade: I wrote that song pretty early into the band existing. I was really into the midwest emo scene, and a lot of midwest emo songs have the world’s longest titles that are very random. And I kind of just wanted to follow that. But the song itself is about longing for this person I was friends with, and how we kind of grew apart growing up. We always wore checkered vans. We were always like "We’re just the two emos!”- that’s what we called ourselves growing up. It’s like a playoff of that memory of that person.

I love that! Have you been able to get back in touch with them?

Jade: I actually have, right before the song came out! I reached out to her, and I was like ‘Hey, I hope this isn’t weird, but there’s this song and I wanted to let you know about it before it’s out.’ She thought it was cool, and she really enjoyed the song, so it was nice for it to come full circle.

I love how music can form and rebuild connections like it happened here! Beyond just the title, where do you get inspiration to write songs?

Jade: Every single song I've ever written is a generalized picture of an event in my life, or it could be a connection to someone, or just my emotions in general. When it comes to the sound, Andy does a really good job at kind of like grasping the feel through the lyrics and playing that on the drums. It helps me a lot when I'm tying that in with guitar, even the way that I want to sing the song sometimes.

So how are both of y'all feeling about your second album?

Andy: I think it's the first album I've made where putting it out is more fun than making it. Putting out an album is more logistical, and you have to be concerned with a lot of business things and promotions. Whereas making a record, being in the studio, and writing things is the most fun - like the act of being creative, rather than just sharing it... but we have a lot of firsts coming up with this album to help celebrate the release of it. And it just feels like a little bit of a party, I guess.

Jade: The feeling of knowing that the world is about to hear something that took a really long time to make, that we've put our heart and soul into and we've had such a great team helping us release this album. It's almost like watching a kid grow up and feeling proud because we've been there from the beginning with these songs.

Andy: And hitting that publish button gives you twice as much permission to start working on new stuff - and we make stuff, so that's the most fun part.

Yeah! I love album projects because the songs all have to go together and tell a story. Do you guys feel as though the order of tracks on the album is deliberate?

Andy: When you're thinking about how a record's going to sequence, it's a bit of a dance between the lyrics and the themes of the songs flowing, and also the keys and the chords and the moods. This records opens up very hard, and tapers in the middle. There's these peaks and valleys to it that kind of make sense. You don't want to put all the energetic stuff at the front, and all of the sad stuff at the end, because it might feel to the listener like they're slogging through the first listen. You want to spread the wealth and emotions in a way that makes it exciting to listen to from front to back. It's pretty tedious, because you have to listen to a lot of the songs, and brainstorm so many different ways, and get everybody at least somewhat on board with it before you get to the final tracklist. But usually when you do it, it's pretty rewarding.

So true! I love how you think of that, plus my favorite albums are the ones that don't make sense or sound worse when you hit shuffle. You've wrapped up a tour with the amazing Not Yer Baby as well! What are some of your biggest takeaways from that experience?

Jade: It was amazing, honestly. We've never gotten to play consecutive shows - we've never even played more than one show - [we've been] spacing them out for a while. So it was really cool to 1) get to do that for the first time, 2) kind of hit places that we aren't commonly at. We've played tons of shows in New Jersey, our home state, but we got to branch out to Philly, Brooklyn, and Rhode Island. Each night, there is so much love in every room. Not Yer Baby is such an incredible band. It was really amazing to do this weekender with them because they are just the sweetest people. And they sound amazing - I don't think their energy depleted at all.

Yeah! I've always thought of opening for another artist - not that I've had this experience myself - but it's sort of like being in a mentorship, in the realm of live shows. I love hearing how much you learned from them! Other than Not Yer Baby, what artists inspire your craft - emo and otherwise?

Jade: The band Movements - their sound has a sort of feeling to it, and I think they do a really good job at expressing that instrumentally and lyrically. They create such beautiful soundscapes with their records. They're definitely someone I look up to a lot, as well as the band Now Now. I really like their first full-length LP Threads. I take inspiration from them very logistically in the sense of how their tone sounds when they're recordings, and vocal techniques that the singer does - I take more of that from them, and the feelings from Movements.

Andy: I really like this band called Carly Cosgrove. They're an emo band from Philadelphia, and they're super dope. I really like the choices that they make, and how they write their songs. Seeing a band from our area kind of going up to a really dope level is super inspiring. And I really love this band called Black Midi from the UK, their drummer's amazing. I really like when bands are really absurd and wacky, when they try to be as jarring as possible on purpose. It's really inspiring seeing people embrace their weird sides, and not choosing to be conventional.

Me too! I really love that about art, it just doesn't know boundaries. You can be weird and do anything with it! Now to wrap things up with the P&P classic. Your single is "Wednesday, Forever" - walk us through your favorite lyric on this track and what it means to you!

Jade: For me it's definitely the outro lyric - "Am I still on your mind?" When I had written the song I knew I wanted to repeat it a bunch of times. I wanted it to sound like I was not even just asking someone, kind of like shouting it at them. And trying to be like "Am I still on your mind? Do you actually think of me? Am I even someone that you're still paying attention to?" ... It's very telling of the song.

Andy: I really like this line in the second verse - "When those moments become a memory, I know I'm going to forget it." It's basically like saying you're going to forget this with extra steps, but just the way that [it is] phrased, it's like forgetting this is a lot harder and more special. It makes the feeling of forgetting something more somber, in a very simple way, instead of trying to be preachy with pretty synonyms, with a thesaurus. It's a really simple line, and it carries a lot of weight. You can read that, and you'll instantly know what it means ... like are you forgetting, or are you just burying the feeling with other feelings?

We can't thank Fox Teeth enough for opening their hearts to P&P, and we loved getting this glimpse into their music and perspective. We can't get enough of "Wednesday, Forever???" and Through The Blue as we dive headfirst into our feels. Here's a playlist we've curated to capture their vibe!