HUNNY

Photography and words by Emma Sophia Valles

Passionate and frenetic pop outfit HUNNY consists of vocalist Jason Yarger, guitarist Jake Goldstein, drummer Joey Anderson, and bassist Kevin Grimmett. Their freshman full-length album, Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes., manages to masterfully weave in between different genres and tempos, from energetic ‘80s new-wave to rhythmic 2000s alternative rock. They’ll be embarking on a headlining tour soon. Sara got to sit down with Jason, Jake, and Joey, as well as their manager Nick, to talk about the band’s evolution, the process of creating their new record, and plans for the future.

Since this comes out after the album drops, is there anything you want to say about it?

Jake: Just that we’re super excited. This is the record that we feel like we should have been making the whole time. When we described our band to people, this is what we had in mind. I think that is the first time we fully executed our vision.

Jason: I think we finally sound the way that I’ve always wanted us to. Yeah. So fully actualized. I hope everybody likes it.

Based on that, how do you feel your sound has developed through the years?

Jake: I feel like you can kind of track the arc if you go back and listen from Pain / Ache / Loving through the singles and EPs we put out. We love pop music, we love pop-punk and emo, we love the early 2000s indie wave. And that’s kind of the mix of what we grew up on. So if you start from the beginning you can see where we are trying our hand at different things and seeing what combination is gonna make sense. Like if it’s a pie chart; what pieces and percentages of each genre are going to fit together to fill the pie— the flavor that we want. So if you listen to Pain / Ache / Loving through Windows II, it’s pretty synth-driven and pop-y. After that, we went the complete other direction—far more guitar-based and rock-oriented. We kind of swung it back a little bit on this record to find that sweet mix in between of all of the flavors that we like.

Did you guys work with the same producer on Windows II and the record?

Jake: No producer on Windows II, our friend engineered it, he’s a longtime friend of Kevin and Kevin’s dad. His name’s John, he’s a great dude. For this one, we worked with Carlos de la Garza who has done some of our favorite recent records. He’s the best dude, super acclaimed, platinum-selling.

Joey: He’s also our best friend.

Jake: We met him and it was just an instant click where we were like: this is gonna be a great experience. We did it at his place in Eagle Rock and it just it felt like home. Different experiences for sure. Carlos, I can’t thank him enough for being part of this record.

Joey: He asked us we wanted to do and then he was our shaman. He was like, “What would they do right here?” “This”. So let’s do that.

Jake: It’s cool because he’s methodical and technical. but doesn’t waste time.

Joey: You go down the rabbit hole.

Jake: There’s thought put behind it but he’s efficient. So you can get it quick. He is very good at pointing important things out.

What are your favorite songs on the album?

Jake: We were just talking about it. Nick and I on the way here were listening to it because I’m trying to remember all the songs. “A Slow Death in Pacific Standard Time” is mine right now. I feel like it’s the biggest departure from our previous style. It sounds the most different from anything we’ve ever done but it’s all of the stuff that we like. There are tempo changes. There’s a weird guitar part. The melodies are great. Jay and Kev did a great job with the lyrics and melody on that song.

Jason: “Change Ur Mind” is my favorite.

Jake: It’s just a banger.

Jason: It’s got a slammin’ bass line. That little Tom Phil. It’s good.

Joey: I like “Different Ways of Saying It” just because that’s like the most emo sh** we’ve ever written.

Jason: If you liked it so much you’d get the song name right.

Joey: “Smarter Ways Of Saying It”. I have a list of the fake names.

Jake: To be fair, we’ve changed the names like seven times.

Can you remember any of the demo names?

Jake: I don’t even know.

Jason: The only one that I can remember is “Slow Death”, we were just calling it “KG 3” for a little while.

Jake: It was just because Kevin had a demo like this.

Jason: It was a Kevin demo and we were like, “This is like the third one you sent this week”.

Jake: Yeah, so “KG 3”. Really.

That would have been funny. People would have been like "What's the meaning behind this?"”

Jake: Yeah, there’s no deeper meaning.

Jason: It’s just Kevin Grimmett 3.

Jason: What were some other ones? I don’t even know. “Smarter Ways of Saying It” was called “Every Second”. Then we have “Everything Means Everything Meant Everything”.

Joey: We had “Poop I”.

Jake: That one should have made it.

Was that cut or was it renamed?

Jake: That was renamed .

Joey: There was a good batch of songs there.

Jake: Those didn’t even make the record, I don’t think.

Joey: Cause they’re POOP.

Jason: We had a lot of demos that ultimately combined into one song. Like, “Change Ur Mind” was three different songs. Oh, Nick gave me a folder that says “Windows III demos”.

Jake: That’s so funny. Oh yeah, “Change Ur Mind” was “I Love Gold”.

Jason: It was a little riff. “Swing 1”, which I don’t think made it.

Jake: That didn’t make it.

Jason: It was like a demo that we made that we were like trying to model after “Swing, Swing” by All American Rejects.

Jason: Oh, “Ritalin” used to be called “Die”.

Jake: Yeah that was a little extreme. We had to scale it back.

Jason: Most of these are just like called “Poop” and stuff like that because we’re geniuses.

“Inside, we just felt like, Yes,Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, like YES.”

So does that mean that this album supposed to be called Windows III?

Jason: Yeah, it was meant to be Windows III.

Jake: It was going to be the next installment in that series of EPs we were doing, but we ended up liking too many songs and didn’t want to cut anything. We were talking about it with Carlos and we were just thinking “the time is right”. It’s a full length. It’s eight songs and we were just like we can’t cut any of the ones that we got in this final batch. We want the world to hear all of them.

Jason: To me, it wasn’t even about the number of songs on it because it’s still only technically a full length.

Jake: It’s a short full length.

Jason: Yeah, to me it wasn’t about the number of songs, but the quality of the songs was wildly different. These were real songs. I don’t wanna just throw them into a bucket and have another Windows EP. This is its own freaking thing. I think these songs are good enough to be called something else.

So then where did the name stem from?

Jake: It’s kind of just about the urgency of our excitement; we’re so thrilled to put them out. People have been asking us “where’s the full length” forever. Inside, we just felt like, “Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, like YES”.

Jason: And we wanted something slightly ridiculous also.

Jake: To see that written somewhere is hilarious.

Jason: It definitely makes you do a double-take. Like, if you don’t know who we are you’re like: “What is this thing f-cking called?”

Joey: Exactly, it’s like, “what are they so stoked about”?

Jake: Y-5 is the shortening. Y-5 on the Wi-Fi.

Jason: Make sure that gets in there, haha. Make that’s Goldie’s only quote, ok?

Since this album is being released on an official label now, did you guys feel any more pressure in creating it?

Jake: Epitaph has guidelines essentially. I mean, you don’t want to spend a year and a half making a record or something. Ideally, you want to put it together within a reasonable timeframe. But Epitaph is so cool.

Jason: Nobody bugged us.

Joey: They’re super mellow. The pressure came from us. We wanted to get it done.

Jason: We wanted to get it in as soon as possible and get some sh** out.

Jake: We feel creative when we have a deadline; when there’s an 11th-hour situation, that’s when stuff comes together for us in the best way. We do put that pressure on ourselves. Epitaph is really great with giving us the freedom to create, they just let us do our thing which is really good. That’s the best situation for the band.

Joey: They trust us with all that, which is the cool part.

Jason: They told us “we wanted you for a reason”, so do the sh-t that you’ve been doing.

This album is very visual. There is a lot of color on the album art and it sounds super different. I saw that you guys are having an art show too. How did curating these visuals come about?

Jake: It was largely Jason’s idea. He’s always made our flyers and done cool stuff.

Jason: I wanted it to look like it sounds. We talked about what the cover would look like when somebody is like scrolling through Spotify or Apple Music. We always wanted it to be [claps] in your face. The whole record, we just wanted it to be super immediate and present in your mind all the time. Musically, visually, everything. Just went back to basics on primary colors and now I’ve just been kind of going nuts with it. It’s been really fun.

Yeah, it looks super fun. And so now that the album is coming out, what can you guys tell us about the future?

Jake: We’ll be on tour in the fall with The Story So Far. We’ll be on tour with them in California, Texas, Colorado, and a few other places.

Joey: We will not disappoint you.

Jake: 2020 I think will be pretty much nonstop during for us, so please come to shows so we can keep coming back!