Q&A: LETTING GO AND LETTING BE WITH BESTFRIEND IN “LEMON LIME”
ADULTING IS A ROLLERCOASTER — and the Canadian alt-pop duo Bestfriend knows the ride all too fondly. On their new single, “LEMON LIME,” released on Dec. 9, Stacy Kim (lead vocals and guitar) and Kaelan Geoffrey (synthesizers and vocals) capture the feeling of being part of a young generation trying to find their place in a lost world. Enveloped by a comforting nostalgic tone and brimming with relevance, the release pierces through the curtain of adulthood and offers listeners the space to slow down, reflect, and breathe
The song recounts the simple pleasures and challenges of living authentically despite the world telling the duo to act otherwise. With charming vocal overtones and etheric swirling and synth work, the track is an anthem for moving forward and radically accepting life's twists and turns instead of fighting them. Simultaneously, it’s also about being dissatisfied with society and releasing the expectations for things to be different, in order to move forward and find internal relief from the incessant pressure that accompanies growing up.
“‘LEMON LIME’ is about struggling in a world that feels like it wasn’t built for you and not being able to do anything about it, while constantly being told that everything is fine,” Bestfriend said. “It’s a song for people who are tired of how things are while being too tired to change it — but everyone says it’s fine, so just go do your silly little tasks every day!”
Beautifully aligned with intuitive lyrics, alluring yet commanding harmonies, and coruscating sonic textures, the single is one of the duo’s most raw and unreserved productions to date. It validates the complexity of being young 20-somethings navigating a confusing world. At the same time, it reinforces the shared humanity of constantly battling to get things in order to appear put together and undeterred.
Ultimately, Kim and Geoffrey do something brilliant: they simply let their sound exist. Rather than trying to encourage, resonate, or make a big statement, they let the song stand alone and speak for itself. And in doing what the pair calls “nothing,” they are probably helping today’s young listeners more than they could imagine. Just like the unwavering emotional support of a close companion, it seems that Bestfriend is unfailingly present for its audiences as well.
Read below to learn more about the band and their new single. While you read, put on your headphones and stream “LEMON LIME” wherever you get your music.
LUNA: First of all, we couldn't start this interview without saying congrats on your Nettwerk debut. How did you celebrate your signing day?
KIM: Oh yeah, these things are always really weird because we don't live in the same city and so we'll have these huge milestone moments happen and we'll just text to like, “Hey, **** yeah.” And that's just kind of how it is.
GEOFFREY: It’s a “Nice, we did it!”
KIM: Yeah, l went for drinks with a few friends sort of to celebrate it, but it was also a plan that we had previously.
GEOFFREY: Being an adult, yeah, it's all about making things work for multiple persons.
KIM: So I guess the answer is, I don't know. It's really exciting though. We are beyond excited to be working with a fantastic group of people.
GEOFFREY: Lots of emojis in the group chat, yes.
LUNA: Always! Good emojis are hard to come by these days. That’s awesome. More into the new single, “LEMON LIME”: Can you describe the moment or moments that inspired you to write that?
KIM: I mean, I guess it always is a collection of moments, isn't it? I feel like I'm always kind of looking at my mind for what the big moment was, but I'm realizing that now that you've asked about “moments” plural, there are actually a lot of really big moments with this song. We started writing a really long time ago. I don't even remember when, but Kaelan sent me a super cool beat, which is what you hear on the live — it had the guitar lines and everything. And he kind of was like, “Oh, this is kind of… For me, more than anything, we don't have to make it a Bestfriend’s song if you don't want to.” And I was like, “No, we're making this a Bestfriend song,” just immediately. And then as we started writing, we weren't really sure what we were writing about. All we knew was that we were writing and we were like, “A lot of this sounds like we’re a little mad about stuff.”
GEOFFREY: It was very much like, “Are we agreeing? I think so!”
KIM: Yeah, and “Are we mad at the world right now?” And then it just kind of blossomed from there. Obviously, we were not about to make some big … “everything sucks, so everything's terrible” song. It was more just us saying, you know, “How can we verbalize how we feel about this in a way that isn't … like, “I hate the world and everything” song?
GEOFFREY: Really everything is so chaotically frustrating but it really doesn't matter, like not in a way that actually matters, you know — just try to tap into that, I guess.
LUNA: Definitely got that vibe when I was listening to the song. Going off that, why did you name it “LEMON LIME”?
KIM: So we actually just had a conversation about this recently with someone else and they asked the same question. Actually, it’s funny, the name lemon-lime has nothing to do with the song! It just simply doesn't. Like, I think that I had sent Caitlin a picture of [a] friend’s vape. It was lemon-lime, and then Kaelan brought up a really good point about how you never really see lemon-lime flavor. That just does not happen naturally in real life.
GEOFFREY: It's not a real flavor — it's not natural. It’s always artificial. You’re not finding lemon-lime, like it’s always something like blue-raspberry. What even is that? That’s not even real.
KIIM: Yeah, so if we want to get really meta about it, that would be the tie-in, but ultimately… I mean, a lot of our song names actually aren't in the song itself either. We like to kind of name songs based on how they feel, and I think, yeah, that's just when Kaelan sent it. I think it was called “LEMON LIME” after that conversation, and I was like, “Yeah, this feels right. It feels good.”
GEOFFREY: Like, we never need to change this.
LUNA: That's super unique and distinctive. On that note, what was it like to write a song about that almost indescribable feeling of being “fine”?
GEOFFREY: Obviously, we don't need to get into any major deep conversations about how frustrating and difficult things are, but if there's one thing that I think we're all kind of feeling, it’s completely and utterly helpless with it. It’s not really something that's on our personal plates necessarily for fixing the general state of things. We can do what we can, but it's like we're just these small little guys and we're just screaming about whatever's bugging us. And I think kind of giving ourselves permission to write that song and not have to have it be world-changing and not have to have it be the thing that there's a “think piece” written on for how articulate our thoughts were on our frustrations with the state of the world. It just kind of lets us get into a bit of a nice mindset for it, so that's my thought.
KIM: I think that's a good way to explain it, honestly. I don't really have anything to add.
LUNA: That's beautiful and it actually is a jumping-off point for my last question. How did you capture your authentic voices and feelings during the songwriting process?
KIM: I think that we've always been very honest in the way that we write songs. I think a lot of what we write just comes from a place of, “Well,, this is how I feel right now.” That's just kind of how it is, and then we say … can we put this into song form? Can we make this into something that isn't quite so cut and dry? Basically, can we use this line in a song? Would that work? And then we just kind of go from there. And for me personally, writing has always been something that I've loved doing, and so it was definitely really nice to be able to let that translate over into music in the way that it has. So yeah, I would say, ultimately, honesty and vulnerability is something that Kaelan and I have been very open to doing in our music.
GEOFFREY: It’s definitely an experience, just the nature of working from opposite sides of the world as well. When we do come together to record stuff it just sort of creates an environment that makes it really easy to have our voices and personalities come through, just ’cause we have to do so much in these small periods of time that we're in the same spots. You almost get a little wired up. You get a little stuck in the studio for a while and you start trying silly things and I think just the nature of sitting down and doing all of our vocals for the EP in a room over the course of a week, once every couple of months or whatever, it just lent to getting to experiment a bit.
LUNA: That anecdote beautifully leads us to our next question, which is that readers may not actually know that you write, record, and produce your songs thousands of miles apart at times. What would you say is the most unexpected thing that has made this partnership successful?
KIM: These are great questions that you're asking. Yeah, I think that something that really surprised both of us was how similar our experiences were in our lives. That was really surprising for us, where, you know, we weren't good friends or anything before we started Bestfriend. We just knew each other peripherally, through social media. And so when we did start making music together, it was very much on the basis of, “Hey, you seem cool,” like, “Hey, you seem like you have good taste in music” and “Let's just try to do this.” And then the more we got to know each other, the more we were like, “Oh my god,” like, “Yeah, that's also happened to me.” And now that's probably one of those things where it's like it probably also happened to a lot more people but it was still unexpected, and it was very nice. It made it a lot easier to build up camaraderie than I had expected it to.
GEOFFREY: It's funny living two completely separate lives and then just sort of coming together to chip away at this one common project. It's like we don't really have to deal with balancing each other's lives as much as most band members do. We can really just hone in and focus on this one thing that we want to build together and the important stuff. So in a way, it lets us cut straight through some of the “I don't know,” some of the general human stuff, which is fun.
LUNA: I'm so glad I asked that question. Those were such real answers. So, moving forward a little bit: For those struggling with finding their place in the world, kind of like you describe in the single, what lyrics do you hope they hold on to most from it and why?
GEOFFREY: Excuse me while I pull up the lyrics to our song.
KIM: Yeah, I would honestly say the repeated — and Kaelan if you have a different answer, then by all means — but I think for me it would be the last repeated phrase, “They're not in love anymore.” I know it sounds a little pessimistic, but the reason that I say that is I think that everyone seems to think that everyone else has it better than them, or everyone else has it together and they don't. And I just kind of like the idea of being really general in that last bit and being like, no one is in love with it anymore. And by “it” I mean … the American Dream. This having to grind and hustle and stuff like that, and … I think we're really trying to come up with — and we're always seeing this in our songwriting for sure — ways to make sure that the language that we are speaking is somewhat universal. So yeah, I think it would be that one. Or at least, if not for a sense of solidarity, because the rest of it is very dramatic.
GEOFFREY: Dramatic, but we love it! That's a really great answer. That's exactly what I would have said. Yeah, it's not two people being loved that's a reflection of how we're all completely disillusioned. And if we're all here maybe there's something we can do about it. But that's not for dealing with it in this song. That’s for our future selves.
LUNA: I love that, and I feel like I want to be part of this friendship now.
KIM: By all means.
GEOFFREY: Welcome to gang BFHQ!
LUNA: Obsessed with that idea — here for the Bestfriend trio! Okay so, moving on, the word on the street is that you're releasing a new EP in spring 2023. What genres do you explore and what artists inspired you when you were putting that together?
KIM: It's really funny navigating this because to us it has never been a thing where we're like, “Oh, we can't tell anyone about this.” I’m coming from a place of we are literally a tiny, tiny band and so I have personally never had to worry or care about people knowing or not knowing things.
GEOFFREY: Yeah, we never had to think like this!
LUNA: Wow, I'm so honored to be asking this question.
KIM: Thank you very much!
GEOFFREY: Yeah, we have an EP coming out in the spring and we're very excited about it. It has been a long time coming and it feels like us finally getting to take a crack at what we've been wanting to really sink our teeth into. It’s perfect — I think it's going to be really good for the soul, our souls, and hopefully everyone's, in terms of genres! Genres are funny, right? Because who knows what genres are called these days? Who knows what anything is? And artist influences are a funny thought. I feel like we wrote a lot of this over the course of the era of comfort music, i.e. 2020 to 2022, so I don't know about you, Stacy, but I’m pretty sure that a lot of what I have been listening to have been like my lifelong favorites.
KIM: Yeah, 100%. I think the feeling of newness in music was something that was a little tough for me for some reason. I don’t know if you felt this way, but it was difficult for me to get out of my comfort zone and even watch new shows or new movies for a little while.
GEOFFREY: It [was] tough for a bit there.
KIM: Definitely, and I was like, I’m gonna go with what I know, which is songs I've been listening to since I was in grade 11. So in terms of what genre the songs are, I don't really have an answer. I think that the genre sort of is still very Bestfriend at its core in terms of how we haven't fundamentally changed who we are since places I've lived. You'll like it, I promise — that's all I can say. It's the genre of music that you'll like.
LUNA: To check in, is there anything you want to say about the EP besides the genre or inspiration?
KIM: Of course, yeah, we are really excited about it. It's definitely very special in that sense. Since places I've lived was such a looking through the past record, this is definitely going to be something where we're like, “Okay, this is exactly where we're at right now and where we're going to continue to be going from here.” So yeah, I would say we are really excited, and I think if you like the other songs then you’re really going to like these. We work with some pretty cool people on a few songs, but I'll probably tell you about that later.
LUNA: That’s brilliant. From here, can you tell us a little bit about how you nurture your creative relationship so that you can come together and craft raw and unreserved music? Is there something special that you do when working together?
KIM: I don't even think this was ever a conscious decision that we made, but at a certain point in our working relationship… In the beginning, when we first met, it was like, “I don't know how much I can tell you,” and like, “What should I be telling you?” And there was this concern like, “What if what I think is really weird and not good” or whatever? But then I think after a while we both sort of came to this understanding that in order to write music that we like and that we want to write, we have to be okay with openly saying that we want to write it. And just being really frank about the things that we are enjoying or not enjoying.
GEOFFREY: I can pick up from there. Yeah, I honestly think a lot of it, especially because of being so far away, it’s just making sure that we both have the opportunity to explore different sounds. And also share a lot of different types of music with each other back and forth. I think that is just sort of enabling in a way, and it's difficult to give yourself permission to do things sometimes, but it's helpful when you have someone to make things for and with. So it's been nice.
LUNA: Well, that's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Pivoting a little bit here, in the spirit of Spotify Wrapped–mas, which is what I call it when it comes out, I have to ask: What was your reaction to your 1.1 million streams on your Spotify for Artists Wrapped?
GEOFFREY: Love it.
STACY KIM: You know what, I would love to say that I saw it and just immediately burst into tears or something, but I think that I saw it and I just didn't process it. I was like, “There’s no way, it didn't make one million.”
KAELAN GEOFFREY: It didn't make any sense.
KIM: Like, you know, because just looking at the number … it was just literally “1.1M,” and I'm just kind of like, “That stands for ‘million,’ right? … That's a million.”
GEOFFREY: Yes, it looks like a shorter number. Yeah, I think our number, like the physical number of letters in our number last year, was longer, and it's like you see it all shortly. You're like, “Hmm… What? Hold on… Um, that stands for something — what does… million?”
KIM: Yeah, like you look at it and you're like, “Oh wait, oh my god, yeah, a million,” and you get really excited. And then it's one of those things where you know it's just difficult to conceptualize in any sort of real capacity for us. Especially because we're so far away from each other where a lot of these big numbers and big wins, [we] will text them to each other. He’ll be like, “Dude, holy shit, look at this!” and I'll be like, “Yeah, holy shit!” and then I open my phone and I'm like, “Whoa,” if that makes sense. We're very proud of ourselves, for sure, but also at the same time, I feel like we haven't really fully been like, “Oh yeah, like, we got a million streams.” Even saying that out loud feels ridiculous to me.
GEOFFREY: Honestly, I think that we personally had such a difficult year. I think a lot of people did, and just nothing goes according to plan these days. It's impossible for anything to go according to plan, and as two plan-oriented people, it is easy to feel weight about that. And feel shame, or guilt, or distress about that, and it was really wild for us getting to the end of what we thought was a really difficult year for us not even musically but just personally and then being like, “Wait, what? There were a million streams out? What?”
KIM: We didn't even do anything. Yeah, that kind of thing.
GEOFFREY: Yeah, it’s almost like it hasn't even really fully processed because it doesn't make sense, but yeah.
LUNA: Before we move forward, I want to validate how human and valid those reactions are. Going on, beyond what we already chatted about, I'd love to ask what are some causes or issues you care about, and how can readers join you in supporting them? If there are things that you have or want to shout out, this would be a great spot to do so.
KIM: I think that is a “wow” — an important and hard-hitting question. Very well done. Thank you. I think that for me personally, as someone who does identify as queer and someone who is an immigrant from South Korea — I mean, I guess everything is really closely tied together, right? I feel like I can't even pick one without sounding like I'm favoring one over the other. But for me right now, especially given what's been going on with “down under” — and by “down under” I mean America, but also I guess in Canada, to a certain point. I would say that anything related to BIOPIC and LGBT sort of social issues or commentary is very, very near and dear to me. And I think that you know the only thing that I can really say in terms of how people can support something — that would be just to stick up for people. I think that one thing that is always difficult for people is finding “How do I translate this piece of activism or whatever into my real life?” Because it's difficult — everything's very big and we're not going to solve climate change, we’re not going to solve racism, but ultimately, I think that you know how we can help … just stand up for people around us, locally as well, right?
GEOFFREY: Locally is so important.
KIM: Yeah, because you can say that you support LGBT rights or BIPOC rights but at the end of the day if you're not going to do something because it makes you uncomfortable, then at that point it’s kind of like, then are you doing it? I mean, that is important to me. Yeah, stand up for the people around you. We got to be there for each other in a way that isn’t just online because we're humans who need human contact, so it's so important.
LUNA: Thank you for sharing — it's a really important message. Kaelan, I don't know if you wanted to answer that as well — you don't have to, but it's an open floor always.
GEOFFREY: Yeah, I mean, my first thought was thinking that I love the notion of: everything is so big and everything is so scary, but at the root of it, where you can have an impact is local. And paying attention to how people are being treated in your city and how laws are being made and… I don't want to get into that conversation though — we all know that's a whole thing. I recently went down — and there was an election in Toronto recently so I've been engaging a bit of my legal brain recently — but it's all about just making sure that you're taking care of your community and the people in your community that need it. And I think that's the best way that we can move.
LUNA: That's incredible. And to close our time together: What's one question that you'd wish I'd asked you, and how would you have answered?
KIM: Do you all want to talk about your top songs in 2022? Do you want to talk about our Spotify Wrapped? I'm pretty sure, honestly, my top song has been “happier than ever” by Billie Eilish … two or three times in a row now because I refuse to listen to new music apparently.
GEOFFREY: “Kingston” by Faye Webster was my number one most played song. I get really fixated on music sometimes. It just hits the right thing and then I'm like, “Oh yeah!” like a rat with a little pleasure button. And that was one of the ones that got stuck in the loop early on this year. I definitely made a lot of people hate that song, but it's my favorite.
LUNA: I love that! More Faye Webster is great for everyone.
GEOFFREY: I completely agree.
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