Q&A: Effortlessly Eclectic Duo Mermaid Releases Genre-Defying Debut Album ‘Iridescence’
MUSIC IS THE HEARTBEAT OF MERMAID’S LOVE STORY — and admiration for each other, and all types of music is what sets this duo apart from the crowd. It’s hard to market something that doesn’t fit in a perfect box. Being an independent artist is a risk in and of itself, so to take on the added task of marketing a genre-explorative project is a feat worth praising. Mermaid, the musical duo doing just that, are music lovers first and foremost. Their debut album, Iridescence, reflects this free-spirited, genre-inclusive energy.
Based in LA, Brittany Campbell and Candace Quarrels are collaborators and partners in love and music. After meeting on the stages of Chicago, in a production of Hamilton, this pair quickly realized they had intrinsic vocal chemistry. Soon after beginning to make music together, they fell in love, thus pushing their music to the next level. Their dedication to each other and their music is reflected in their songwriting, which is beautifully intentional, viscerally authentic, and full of musical knowledge.
Iridescence is a stunningly intimate album, full of lush harmonies and poignant lyrics. Each song is written and sung with a clear passion and devotion to their music and each other. Brimming with musical influences from genres such as alternative rock with “Dissociate,” R&B with “Thrivin’,” and pop with “Dreamer,” Iridescence is an album to get lost in.
As students of music, the duo is inspired by every sound they surround themselves with; they embed their personal music histories into every track. New musical inspirations are discovered with each listen.
Luna sat down with Mermaid to discuss the release of and inspiration behind Iridescence. Read below to learn more about this radiant R&B duo and how they went from singing together on the stages of Chicago to falling in love through music.
LUNA: How did Mermaid come to be?
CAMPBELL: It's such a story! We met in 2017 during the Chicago production of Hamilton. When we met, uncharacteristically, we didn't speak to each other for around two months. I don't know why, but it was silent beef. Over time, we had some rehearsals together, and I remember clocking her voice at one of the rehearsals — I was like, “Oh wait, our voices have a cute blend.”
In October, I saw Candace in the show — in Hamilton, playing Eliza. I thought, “You know what? Let me break this ice between us. Like, what is the beef?” So the cast had a party after that particular show, and I saw Candace across the bar. I went up to her and I embraced her. I was telling her what a good job she did, and I felt her whole body stiffen up.
QUARRELS: Meanwhile, my version of the story is that Brittany joined the cast after I had already been in a cast. We didn't speak and I thought it was so weird, and I thought that she thought I wasn't good. So I was salty about it. You know what I mean? We were having these rehearsals and I was also hearing our blend. Then that night, she came up to me at the bar after not speaking to me ever, ever, ever.
I wish you could have seen the way she hugged me — I was shook. I was like, “Whoa, this feels incredibly intimate,” and I glitched out. But from then on, Brit was like, “I'm gonna show you how to let loose — we're gonna be friends.” So we sort of forced our friendship on each other and worked through the uncomfortableness, which ended up being sexual tension.
CAMPBELL: Yeah, the friendship got real weird.
QUARRELS: We were just always singing together — we would be walking down the street harmonizing. So all of our friends started calling us “the mermaids.” Like, “Here come the mermaids around the corner,” because we’d be hand in hand with Sweetgreen salads chirping down the streets of Chicago.
A little bit before we ended up telling each other our feelings for each other, we started to make music together. So we sort of fell into it. And then as we got together, of course, we were spending all of our time together and so much of this relationship, or the heartbeat of it, is music.
CAMPBELL: Honestly speaking, so much of us wanting to create together and make this music together was an excuse to chill, to have time together. I mean, one of the first songs that we wrote before we got together was “Find Me,” and that's an incredibly romantic song and was confessional in that way.
QUARRELS: Yeah, the words before we'd said the words.
LUNA: Thank you for sharing that! I always love hearing how a duo becomes collaborators. A lot of times it comes from friendship, but having that deeper bond of a romantic relationship with all the complexities that come with that must be interesting.
CAMPBELL: Yeah, it’s an interesting energy. I've never collaborated with anybody like I've collaborated with Candace. It's inherently intimate, but I think it's so different because in this scenario we believe in each other so much and we tend to push each other in such a unique way because there is so much familiarity.
LUNA: Do you think you can push each other harder because you're each other's safe spaces?
QUARRELS: Yep, exactly!
LUNA: Congratulations on the release of your debut album, Iridescence — it’s truly a special piece of work and such an intimate look into your lives. Describe the emotions that led up to the release of such a personal album.
QUARRELS: We've been super lucky to have Girlie Action Media, who was Brittany's PR with her solo music. Felice took an interest in us after she heard “Find Me” and was like, “I just want to help you guys.” So I think having the belief of someone in the industry whose tastes we trust was so validating for me when it came to releasing stuff. They helped us with the rollout a lot.
[The release of the album] didn't feel real to me until we had our listening party and our friends got to hear what it was that we were working on. Also, us sitting, listening, and watching all of it was just like, “Oh my god, this took three years — I feel so proud.” I feel like there was no stone left unturned. It feels like every argument, every push, was worth it. We were listening to it in the car the other day on Spotify and I was like, “Does it just sound different? It's just better than ever. Did you do something?” I feel giddy! I cried all day the other day, and I got so excited that I almost puked. I feel like I'm floating, and all I want to do is listen to it. It doesn't feel like my music.
CAMPBELL: All I feel right now is peace. Making this music was such a different process for me. It's some of the most vulnerable music that I've ever made. So much of this was created in such a dark time for me. To make a long story short, at the beginning, when Candace and I first got together, I told my mom about it and she stopped speaking to me for two years. So I was lost. It changed how I thought about love and how I thought about relationships in general. It changed my relationship with music — I didn't have access to it in the same way, and it was tripping me out. I look back and I think it's because I just had never tried to write from such a dark place. I was at a loss for words.
So by 2021, when things had gotten so deep, it just felt like it was time to try to sift through some of those thoughts, some of those feelings, and put a word or at least put a sound to it. Through that process of us creating this thing and you [Candace] being there loving me, [this experience] ended up being incredibly healing. Music is healing — I just didn't know that it could also heal me in the process of making it.
So it's an incredibly special project. I learned, on a personal level, a lot about love. Going back to my mom, she passed [away in] August of last year. So right before she passed, we sort of patched up our riffs. I'm a first-generation American Jamaican, and Jamaicans can tend to be homophobic, so a lot of her response to me and Candace had to do with her identity and culture. So I feel like I got to witness her break that down and open up and it was such a testament to love. So I feel like this album is in tandem with that. It's like an accumulation of all the things, all the arrays of love that I've experienced at this juncture.
LUNA: That’s beautiful, thank you so much for sharing that! I think this story makes the listening experience all that more deep. It shows that love can also come from such dark moments.
QUARRELS: Yeah, or that love hurts. To love someone can ache, in a not fun way. This is how we landed on the title, Iridescence, because the definition of it is “colors changing from a change of perspective.” So [it means] to look at love in different ways, [as if] it's a different color from wherever you're standing.
LUNA: Love that title concept! Your project is intrinsically intertwined with both of your personal lives. How do you strike a balance of letting people into your world without giving too much of yourselves away?
CAMPBELL: We are both Venus in Aquarius. So by nature, we adopt people, bring them into our space, love on people, and value community a lot.
QUARRELS: Sometimes we do struggle with striking a balance. I can only speak for myself, but I think you [Brittany], too, we try to love as openly and sincerely as we can, while also using our intuition. Trust your gut about people and things.
CAMPBELL: For real! People will get reactions to things viscerally and then literally ignore it. So it’s really valuable to trust your instincts.
QUARRELS: Tap into the magic of connection — and that can be felt in a DM. We're told, as newer artists, that you have to engage, like, comment back, and respond to your DMs, and I find that to be a little dangerous, especially coming from the world of theater. I remember in Hamilton, a lot of the cast members were working hard to get their followers up so they were so wide open with everyone, and we would get crazies at the stage door. So in your real life, give people what you feel comfortable giving, but in the world of social media, lean into the wall of the phone. It's a strange world — so maybe post that location after you're gone, and just be careful out here.
CAMPBELL: Generally speaking, because boundaries are important, try to learn what your boundaries are and stick to them.
LUNA: That's great advice. What themes do you enjoy exploring most in your music?
CAMPBELL: We tried to stay genreless, which was a source of great insecurity, but also a source of great pride in approaching this project. We tried to let go and lean into whatever it was. Sometimes we'd be in a really heavy rock phase and be banging on the drums, and then a song like “Disassociate” would come out.
QUARRELS: Our taste in music is so broad. Brittany doesn't drive, so we are always together in the car. We [like to] pick a genre to be stuck in that — like, we're just listening to bossa nova and it's day four and I just can't get enough of Astrud Gilberto. So we approach it from a place of, “This is what we're listening to, we love it, and we're students of music so we can make it too.” Since it’s us [in this duo], no matter what it’s going to sound like us regardless of what genre it is.
CAMPBELL: It has also taken us three years [to complete the album]. So we've been in different phases. I think in the beginning we were super inspired by Moses Sumney and Elliot Smith — so dreary and sad music, because that's just where we were at. [The album’s sound] follows our journey to feeling more solidified [in our relationship] — that's when we started pushing our sound. Then, when we got together with our co-producer, Sam Hoffman, the music evolved differently. He comes from the funk and R&B world — he works with Mereba and Durand Bernarr, who are crazy neo-soul artists.
QUARRELS: Yeah, Sam helped us settle into our neo-soul bag. [Our album] was brought to another level, especially by Sam.
LUNA: What motivates you both to keep making music?
CAMPBELL: It’s so wavy every day. I know, at least for me, some days I do feel disheartened, I'm not gonna lie. It can feel incredibly overwhelming. [Some days] I feel like I'm throwing music out into the void — but it's not true. For every action that takes place, there is going to be some sort of a ripple effect. So if you throw something out there, even if just one person hears it, that has an infinite amount of effects. So I think that makes that little tiny molecule of anybody's music colossal and worth it. Everything has a purpose.
QUARRELS: I have learned so much from Brittany in terms of drive. Mermaid is my first endeavor of bringing myself to something. I'm used to playing a character, getting a roll, and getting the sheet music. Someone's telling me to rehearse, after rehearsals are done there's a show, and then you do the show every night, you know? So I think you [Brittany] have given me so much. She's the Capricorn so she’s like, “Have you rehearsed today? Where is the verse?” I needed that energy, and I feel that I've adopted way more focus because of it.
It is hard [to stay motivated], because being indie takes so much work, so much focus, so much creative energy, and admin. That's what's so crazy about it. You can be creative and you can write the songs and feel so great about them, but if you want to have that ripple, you owe it to the song to do whatever you can for it to be heard. So it all sort of affects each other — you give more drive because you believe in what it is that you are creating. You have to fight for it.
