Broods

Broods is back and they’re different, yet again. The brother-sister duo consisting of Georgia and Caleb Nott have gone through the ringer together over the last few years since their debut album Evergreen in 2014. From several sound changes over the course of the short but strong tenure, this time around they even went from a major label to an indie one, where they now feel like they are fully free to be who they’ve become. We sat down with Georgia and Caleb right before they set off to open for Taylor Swift to talk about their growing pains and how they’ve found strength in each other over the years.

We’ve talked several times over the course of your career; from the first album to the change in your second album so I feel very involved.

Georgia: You’ve watched us grow up!

I have! And with the new music, it’s obviously very different from the previous two projects. So what has it been like going from album one to album two to where you are now?

Georgia: I think this was particularly different because we had the whole label change as well. We pretty much wrote the whole album while we were independent.

Caleb: We had no one that said we were doing it wrong or that we should do it a certain way. We really made the album that we wanted to make. And at the end, it was like, “Okay who wants to jump on board with us?”

Was that freeing?

Both: Yeah! But it was scary.

Georgia: It was strange because it was about a full year of being independent and it was like...oh no is this going to work out? It was cool though because it made us really depend on ourselves and made us make stuff that we enjoyed playing and that means something to us. We didn’t have to meet any expectations with this album.

You guys started so young. Do you feel — even though they are so different from each other — like these albums do serve as some sort of trilogy of who you were and who you’ve become?

Caleb: No, I think because we’re still going. We’re only growing more into it. We want to be changing all the time.

Georgia: I do think when you are in your early twenties or just general twenties, there’s so much dense growth. You get shit on so many times and turn into so many different people.

Caleb: Yeah, you think you’ve totally figured it out and then one day you’re like, “Fuck, who am I?”

Georgia: [The first album] was a good representation of who we were then and the second album a good representation of what we were going through at that point. I think with this one though, because we did it all by ourselves, it does feel a bit more genuine. My cousin, when she first watched the video [for “Peach”], she told me she almost cried. Not because she was sad but because she felt we were finally showing our real selves for the first time.

Was there any particular sound you were trying to strive for?

Caleb: I actually think we were inspired by stuff we used to listen to more on this record.

Georgia: I love listening to stuff before I was even alive. It’s almost like I’m reliving my past life [laughs].

And now you guys call LA your home base.

Georgia: Yeah, we’ve been here for three years now and it’s completely changed how we see things. It’s like an echo chamber. We’ve definitely been exposed to so much more diverse people.

Caleb: Everyone can be what they want.

Do you feel like you can be yourself here more?

Georgia: Ourself right now, yes.

You guys are so open to change. Do you have a fear of alienating the audiences you’ve built on the first two albums?

Georgia: That was something we had to be really careful with. Especially when putting together the new live show. We would’ve loved to take off all the old stuff and only play the new stuff. But we do have to respect our past selves and our past albums and what they did for us and the fans they’ve got us.

Caleb: My favorite bands are the ones that sound different every time. I respect that they’re on this trajectory of how they feel they should go and I’m just there for the ride.

As a person too, your listening habits change constantly. What you want to listen to in the morning isn’t what you want to listen to at night.

Georgia: Exactly! It changes hour to hour.

What do you ultimately want people to get out of the new music?

Georgia: Honestly, just excitement. Everything is very in your face. There are so many different songs on the album but it is very straight to the point of this is what I want to do, this is how I want to feel. People can relate to that I think.

And how do you feel your relationship has changed with each other over the course of all this?

Georgia: Because we’ve changed so much, anything we’ve had to face — from changing labels to wondering whether or not we were still going to do this.

Caleb: We’re very good about changing in the same direction, musically and as a people.

Georgia: Because we’ve been away from home together and in LA for three years. We’ve experienced the really high highs and the low lows together. Everything has been so intense, it’s been important that we rely on each other.

It is like a survival tactic.

George: Yeah and it’s important that we have someone to be vulnerable with it. I know I can fall off the edge and have someone to catch me. But it’s also a lot of fun to look over to the person next to you and go, “Fuck yeah, this is awesome.”

PHOTOGRAPHY MACEY J. FORONDA WORDS APRIL SALUD