With touring suddenly off the table, Twin XL changed the way they released music, stayed close to their fans and thought about what the band could be. Cameron Walker spoke to Highwire from Connecticut about making that adjustment.
Formed by three musicians with years of touring and recording experience, Twin XL had been steadily building momentum since the release of their first single, ‘Good’, in 2019.
Then 2020 happened. The band shifted its focus towards releasing as much music as possible, finding new ways to interact with fans and waiting for live music to become possible again. By early 2021, ‘Good’ had passed five million streams, while their latest release, ‘Lemonade’, was approaching a quarter of a million in little over a month.
What happens when the road disappears?
It was coming up to the end of January 2021. Joe Biden had finally become president of the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic was still besting most of the planet, and Twin XL’s lead vocalist and guitarist Cameron Walker was at his parents’ house in Connecticut.
“I came back here for the holidays, and with all the craziness going on in LA, I thought I would extend my stay. I’m looking forward to things improving so I can find my way back there, but traveling is so difficult right now because you have to map out how you’re going to do it safely and find time to quarantine when you get there.”
Twin XL had started the previous year on a high, heading out on a month-long tour supporting indie pop and neo-soul band Fitz & The Tantrums. The shows were going well and new fans were finding the band every night. Then, with just two dates left, everything stopped.
“Two days before the tour was over, the pandemic hit, and everything was locked down. I think before then we were in the headspace where I was like, okay, let’s put an album out, and get eight to 10 or 12 songs, or however many is considered an album now. Part of the thing for us with putting an album out was that we would release it, we’d get on a tour, or we’d do one ourselves to support it and play the album. I think now it feels almost like it makes more sense to put singles out and a lot of them.”
Why did an album stop making sense?
That shift changed the release plan completely. Across 2020, Twin XL put out an extended version of their 2019 single ‘Messy’, followed by ‘Melt’, ‘Problematic’ and ‘Lemonade’. Walker admitted that, under normal circumstances, not all of them would necessarily have been treated as singles.
“Honestly, ‘Melt’ and ‘Problematic’, for example, would probably just be on an album but not a focus single,” he said. “We were playing them live anyway and figured it was best just to put out what we had.”
Where did ‘Lemonade’ come from?
The latest single, ‘Lemonade’, arrived after Walker found himself in a particularly difficult patch. He wanted Twin XL’s music to offer some form of escape, but found that his best writing tended to come when he was more candid with himself.
“It’s like I almost shut my brain off and let my subconscious autopilot. It was in the middle of the pandemic, the worst of it, and it was just what I was feeling that day. I was almost unable to feel angry or sad; I was just completely shut down. My favorite line from the song is, ‘I hate to say it, but my heart is on vacation,’ because that was an ironic way for me to say that human connection was impossible at that moment.”
How do you replace a live crowd?
The state of the world also forced Twin XL to rethink how they engaged with their audience. Live shows had always been central to that relationship, both for reaching new listeners and seeing existing fans in person. Fortunately, the band already had a strong social media presence to build from.
“Instagram has always been a focal point for us if a new song is coming out; we want to make sure we have cool teaser stuff for our stories,” Walker said. “We want to make sure that we’re engaging with every single fan that listens to us. For me, I like to bounce around on kind of everything. I think Twitter is really fun. I think there’s this really dry sense of humor on there, especially with our fans, that I think is funny, so it’s fun to tease new music there.”
The fans gave plenty back. One started a Discord server and sent Walker the link, and before long he was regularly dropping in himself. Sometimes he would even share videos of material he was working on and ask for reactions directly.
What came next?
Twin XL had also recently collaborated with Fearless Records signee American Teeth on ‘Barred Out’, something the band intended to continue. Walker saw collaborations as both a way of reaching listeners outside the existing fanbase and keeping a wider music community moving during a difficult period.
At the time of our conversation, another collaboration was due in February, with Twin XL planning to spend the rest of 2021 releasing as much material as they could.
This interview was conducted in January 2021 and originally published by Highwire Magazine on 2 February 2021.
Editor. Gig-goer. Fantasy football tactician. London-based Executive Assistant by day, live music obsessive by night. Being a control freak? Very transferable skill.
