In Color Talk ‘Marionette’, ‘Headlights’ and Their Next Chapter
For In Color, colour is more than a name. It represents the full spectrum of emotion they want their music to capture – the sadness, longing, euphoria and everything in between. That ambition has already taken the alt-rock quartet of Holden Clontz, Matt Hastings, Val Hoyt and Miles Laderman a long way.
After forming out of an unlikely winter spent snowed in together, In Color have quickly progressed from playing their first shows to selling out their debut U.S. headline tour, supporting The Band CAMINO and Jutes, and earning their first No. 1 at Alternative Radio with their breakout single ‘Headlights.’ The track has since surpassed 35 million global streams and reached the Top 3 of Billboard’s Alt Airplay chart.
Now, as the band continue their North American tour – moving between headline dates and support slots with Jutes and The Maine – they’re entering another chapter. Their newly released single, ‘Marionette’, sees In Color explore the lingering physical and emotional traces of a relationship long after it has ended, pairing that sense of emotional dislocation with ’90s trip-hop, modern electropop and ’80s rock influences.
We spoke to In Color about the unlikely origins of the band, finding freedom in collaboration, the evolution of their sound, and learning how to navigate life on the road together.
Your story began with a winter storm leaving you all stuck in a house together playing music. What do you think happened during those days that made you realise there was something worth building together?
Matt: We’ve been friends for years, even before we got together as a band. We intentionally got snowed in together, but it was mostly the conversations we always have as friends. At the time, all of us were in a place of resetting and wanting something more out of being creators. After the snow melted, Val was like, “Guys, we would look really cool as a band.” And we were like, “Okay, cool.”
Val: We’d been hanging out for two weeks back-to-back and didn’t get tired of each other, which is a good indicator for being in a band together. Most of the time when you hear about a band forming, it’s because of a shared interest in music, but for us it was being friends and choosing each other. We all got along, had similar interests and wanted to spend time together, regardless of what we were doing. The lightbulb moment came afterwards: “We’re all creative, we’re all musicians… why have we never thought to just try it together?” That’s how it started, and that’s where we’re going to keep going.
You’d all been involved in other projects before In Color. What do you think you were each looking for creatively that you weren’t finding in those previous projects?
Matt: For me, it was collaboration. I was a solo artist and collaborated with other people, which I loved, but there was a sense of isolation. Some people are really great at working by themselves and prefer it, but I’m not one of those people. The collaboration aspect as a whole is what we’re drawn to.
Val: We always talk about this, but growing up, we all looked up to bands rather than individual artists. Nowadays, that sense of camaraderie in music is really overlooked. People don’t realise how much easier it is to have people to bounce ideas off, but also to share feelings and emotions with – to feel understood as a creator and a friend.
Holden: Overall, it was about having a purpose and being able to express myself and ourselves with each other. We’re already tight, so writing songs is easy because we all understand each other and where we’re coming from.
Your upcoming release ‘Marionette’ explores the idea that your body can hold onto experiences even after your mind has tried to move on. What was it about that idea that felt important for you to explore through a song?
Matt: It’s out today on September 11, and it was one of the songs we wrote on a writing trip, which we try to do as much as possible. We took one in June and were gone for three weeks. We wrote a lot of songs, but ‘Marionette’ was the last song we wrote, the day before we left, and we fell in love with it.
Holden: It came through the music, which I think happens a lot with our songs. We start with melodies, a vibe and structure, and piece it together from there. For me, we started with the melody and the lyrics revealed themselves towards the end of the writing process. I think that’s how it works for us a lot of the time: we don’t really know what we’re saying in the moment, but then we turn around and look at what we just wrote and it makes sense.
Matt: It definitely depends on the song. There have also been cases where we have something to say going into it, but ‘Marionette’ came from being burned out from writing words for three weeks. Val and Holden had this instrumental idea, and I remember walking down the stairs and they’d been working on it for 30 minutes and already had the basis of the track. We dragged in the drum loop and it felt kind of wild. It came together pretty quickly.
Val: Lyrically, we’re throwing things at the wall and letting the story tell itself afterwards. It imitates what we talked about with fascia and how your body has a brain that can go against your own. Especially being on the road, emotionally, physically and spiritually, there are things you store, take home with you and bring back on the road. Bringing that back to the idea of another person rather than your own experience is something we can all relate and resonate with.
‘Headlights’ has had an incredible run, from reaching No. 1 at Alternative Radio to passing 22 million Spotify streams. Has the way you think about that song changed now that it’s reached an audience far beyond what you might have initially imagined?
Matt: It’s insanely surprising to us that people connect with it, but at the same time, I think we all feel the same way about it as we did when we first made it. It was evident that we were really drawn to it and thought it was special to us, and we hoped it would translate to other people too. It was the first song we ever put out and the first song we made that really embodied what we were trying to do. It’s always surprising to see people singing it, no matter where we are. It’s really crazy, but the way we feel about the song has never changed.
Val: The coolest thing about it, which I thought about last night, is that when we initially wrote it, there was this inherent sadness and longing. We all felt this emotional, visceral reaction while making it, and now it’s more of a celebration on stage with everyone singing the words back to us. I associate it with that more than the initial feeling of isolation and being lost. Because it’s our first song, it’s nice that I can bring myself back to that moment before any of the success of the track started. It’s pretty grounding.
Matt: When everyone gets in the room and we start playing it, it feels like everyone has listened to it individually and felt the heaviness of the song, including us. Then, when we all get together, we’re like, “Let’s all be sad and celebrate together a little bit.” Therefore, we’re happy about being sad.
You’ve gone from selling out your first-ever US headline tour to opening for artists like Jutes and The Maine, while also getting the chance to support Pierce The Veil at their San Diego world-tour finale. How does the band approach playing a show differently when you’re the headliner versus when you’re introducing yourselves to someone else’s audience?
Matt: We just finished our first headline tour in April – fifteen or eighteen shows – and sold it out. It was a crazy month of hearing our songs sung back to us, and we’re so grateful for that. This tour, we’ve snuck in some headline shows between supporting Jutes and The Maine, and it’s been a lot of fun. There’s inherently a different energy going into each one. When we’re opening, we approach it like we have something to prove. There are people who don’t know who we are, so hopefully they leave and listen to our band. The only thing that’s really different is how much we play. The opening set is thirty minutes, so we do our thing, play our songs and the talking points might be a little different. I might say our name a little more. But when it comes to performing and playing the songs, it’s no different. We’ve been lucky enough that if there’s one person in the crowd who knows us and our songs, we gravitate towards those people.
Holden: With the opening slot, we’re playing a lot of unreleased stuff on the Jutes shows because we like the newer things we wrote over the summer the most. We want to pull people in with the music that we think feels really good. With the headline shows, we play every song that we have out, and it’s just a fun connection with the fans.
You’re currently spending months on the road, moving between your own headline dates and support slots. Has touring together changed the way you write, communicate or understand each other as a band?
Matt: We’re learning about ourselves as individuals and also about each other. We’re learning how to be friends and in a band, and vice versa. It’s constantly changing, but our biggest word is always ‘longevity’. That’s the most important thing for us. However we go about that, I think it’s just making sure we’re good before anything else, and that’s all that matters. Being on the road also inspires us to write songs and gives us new ideas. Playing songs every night for people means we naturally approach writing music differently.
Val: It’s tough sometimes because when you’re on the road, you have to look out for yourself just as much as you have to look out for the people around you. It’s tough to wake up every day and just go, go, go all the time, even when you’re sitting in the van.
Matt: It can be mentally taxing at certain moments, but we’re lucky to have each other. That being said, we’re very grateful to be doing what we love for a living and to just be hanging out and playing our music. It’s the best job in the world, and we love what we do.
Finally, what’s next for In Color?
Matt: We have a whole UK and Europe tour in February coming up. Apart from that, we’ll be creating a lot more music and playing a lot more shows this year. We’re playing with Pierce The Veil on September 12 at Petco Park, and we’re going to do another writing trip and come up with more songs. We switch up where we write every time, but our one rule is that we need to have a body of water next to us. We never get in the body of water.
Val: I think for our next writing trip we need to touch a lot of grass.
So still a body of water but with grass?
Val: Yes, that would be ideal.
Listen to In Color on Spotify, Apple Music, and SoundCloud.
Keep up with them via their Instagram.
Comments