Q&A: The Velveteers Push Sonic Boundaries in New Era of Music
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
Photography Credit: Jason Thomas Geering
RETURNING WITH AN UNAPOLOGETIC PUNK SPIRIT – Denver trio The Velveteers are set to make a fierce comeback next year with A Million Knives, their sophomore album releasing on Valentine’s Day, 2025. Known for their punk-laden attitude and unapologetic sound, the band, fronted by the magnetic Demi Demitro and driven by the raw energy of dual drummers Baby Pottersmith and Jonny Fig – playing on a unique conjoined drum kit – are ready to reclaim their space in the rock scene. The thirteen-track collection promises to be a testament to The Velveteers’ high-octane, scrappy spirit that captures pure rock n’ roll at its most unfiltered.
The Velveteers’ newest singles, “Suck The Cherry” and “Go Fly Away,” provide an electrifying glimpse into their upcoming album, A Million Knives. Each track highlights the band’s evolution while staying true to their core sound of gritty, unapologetic rock.
“Go Fly Away” stands out as an alt-pop anthem that captures the yearning for escape. Layered with warmer, atmospheric elements, the song still pulses with The Velveteers’ signature punk attitude and raw energy. It showcases a more nuanced approach to their sound, blending escapist themes with a driving, edgy undercurrent. The track’s dynamic quality is a result of a historic collaboration: “Go Fly Away” was co-written and co-produced by Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney of The Black Keys. This marks the first time the powerhouse duo has teamed up to produce for another artist, infusing the single with their distinctive touch while amplifying The Velveteers' rebellious spirit.
Their upcoming record A Million Knives dives headfirst into the often chaotic reality of being artists navigating the music industry while still holding onto the joy and exhilaration they once felt as musicians just starting out. The album captures the turbulent highs and lows of their journey. The process of writing, recording, and in some cases re-recording the album was no easy feat; it was a painful, soul-searching experience, one that pushed the band members to discover more about themselves, both musically and emotionally.
The Velveteers have pushed themselves to reimagine their sound, blending crunchy, commanding guitar riffs with the primal force of rumbling drums. Each song emerges with unpredictable and thrilling twists, proving the band’s determination to explore new dimensions while retaining their rebellious heart.
Photography Credit: Jason Thomas Geering
LUNA: Thank you for talking to Luna. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. For any readers who aren’t familiar with you yet, what inspires your artistic style and sound?
DEMI: As far as sound that inspires us, just a punk rock kind of attitude. Rock n’ roll has always been a driving force behind what we do. And then for style, we just love everything sparkly. I would say on stage, anything that's vintage or funky.
LUNA: What kind of atmosphere or emotional space do you aim to create for your listeners?
DEMI: That's a good question. I like making music that feels like you're going on a journey. As far as creating a space, I feel like each song carves its own little world within each other. I guess anything that makes someone feel something is the goal of what we're doing.
BABY: Like any person who makes art, it's like eating or drinking, you can't really help but do it. I feel like we're not really thinking about what the listener is going to experience, like that's not really on the forefront. It's more so what do we feel like we're supposed to be getting out right now? And we just try to follow that train of thought as much as possible until it feels right to us.
LUNA: You have released your latest singles “Go Fly Away” and “Suck The Cherry” and I love the high energy and how much of a multifaceted approach you take with experimenting within your sound. What is the inspiration behind the singles?
DEMI: For “Go Fly Away,” as far as the inspiration, it was an interesting song because we wrote that song with The Black Keys, and they came into the studio one day and had this keyboard sample that we just worked off of. It was one of those songs that came to us. As far as the inspiration behind it, it just all came at once. I think a lot of it had to do with just wanting to run away. That's where my head space was when I wrote it was just wanting to run away and get away from everything.
I wrote “Suck The Cherry” on a hot summer's day when I was locked away in a cabin in Paonia, CO. All I had with me for entertainment was my guitar, a notebook, a little drum machine and some cherries I had picked up earlier that day from the farmers market. I was messing around on the drum machine and found this beat that ended up influencing the entire song. It had this pop, dance-y feel but at the same time, punk attitude. It had this chorus that was just so fun to sing and it would always get stuck in my head.
LUNA: Can you walk us through the creative process for “Go Fly Away?” How did the song evolve from the initial idea to the final version?
DEMI: I went through quite a few different phases. We just wrote the song that one day and then after that, we didn't really listen to the song for a while and then we revisited it a couple weeks later and added some more keyboard.
BABY: It was a cool song to make because it's different from a lot of our other songs we'd released previously, and so when we'd first listened back to it, it was almost like we were hearing a different band at first. It was a cool experience to hear ourselves in an unattached way like that. After recording it Demi and I messed around with some additional parts. It was inspired by this sound that felt like we were adding stuff to a song that wasn't ours, even though it was ours and it was fun to work on something like that and not feel like we were looking in a mirror all the time.
LUNA: “Go Fly Away ” is accompanied by a music video. What is the inspiration behind the video and how was your experience filming it?
DEMI: We had a really fun time filming that. That was one of the first times we've ever done an actual professional music video. We went out to LA and we worked with this guy named Robo, who does a bunch of really cool videos. He had this idea to build all these clouds, and he built them by hand, and so we had to step in them. I don't even know how to explain it. It was like this ginormous cloud wall, and if we accidentally stepped on them the wrong way, they would all collapse. We're crawling underneath this cloud wall trying to get under there. The inspiration for that video was just really dreamy, and then also incorporating a lot of the photos we took for our album cover. We have these heart kick drums that we wanted to incorporate, and then just recreating cool imagery that we liked a lot.
LUNA: “Suck The Cherry” and “Go Fly Away” are both sneak peek into your upcoming record A Million Knives that’s out next February. What can listeners expect from the band in your new era of music? Is it a continuation of your previous releases or more experimental releases?
DEMI: I would say it's definitely similar to our past releases, but at the same time, songs like “Go Fly Away,” I feel like people definitely were not expecting that from us.
BABY: I'd say it's been over three years since we recorded our last album. We feel like at least within the band, we feel like completely different people, and it feels like a different band too. As much as it feels a continuation of our last record and sound, it definitely feels like a new rebirth of our band in a certain sense. It was just a lot of what we've experienced the last few years of touring and whatever comes along after releasing your first album. Demi was just writing a lot during that period, and I think it's documented in a really simple way on the record, in a way that I think is really beautiful.
LUNA: What is the inspiration behind A Million Knives and what themes or emotions do you explore?
DEMI: For me, when I was writing it, I was just processing so many different feelings of what it's like to be an artist in this industry. I think ever since we got signed, I’ve realized on a bigger scale of what actually goes on and what it means to do this non-stop and touring non-stop. I think for me, I was processing so much, and especially a lot of heartbreak surrounding growing up and everything having to be so serious all of the sudden. I was just struggling with that a lot. I think a lot of the songs reflect that for me.
LUNA: A Million Knives will be your first big release since your Nightmare Daydream record in 2022 and it seems more of a deeper dive into your artistic evolution. Have you experimented more or taken any risks – either lyrically, sonically or emotionally – with A Million Knives since your previous releases?
DEMI: One of my goals with writing, it's just to let everything flow really organically. And so for me, that also meant just saying things a lot more vulnerable. On our last album there were a lot of metaphors, and so for this one, I was really focusing on just trying to get my point across very simplistically, at least in my lyrics.
LUNA: What inspires you to push boundaries within your sound? Are there any specific experiences, artists, or moments that have encouraged you to explore new musical territories?
BABY: I like the way Demi set up our band and the way that we perform. It’s mainly just Demi playing guitar and singing, and then there's me and our other member, Jonny, who plays drums. There's more beyond that, but that's the core of it. We put these limitations on our band, that kind of confines us, and that's always made it so that we've had to push boundaries just within our own band, so not necessarily within anything on a larger scale, other than just ourselves.
LUNA: What are you most excited for listeners to experience when listening to A Million Knives?
DEMI: I'm just excited for them to hear this new world of ours, this new avenue, and just for them to hear the lyrics and all the new songs.
BABY: What Demi said. There's a few songs on the record that are really intimate, and they're pretty much just carbon copies of what Demi's demos were. It just sounds so gentle and it’s like Demi's talking right in your ear. I'm excited for people who've enjoyed our last album to hear those songs, because I think they'll connect to those songs a lot.
LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like that you would like to share with Luna?
BABY: I'm feeling excited for everyone who has found something in our music the last few years to hear our new music. For the rest of the year, we don't have any touring plans and we can be at home and we can make videos ourselves. That's ultimately our favorite thing to do, or one of our favorite things to do is to make music videos, just DIY with a phone. I'm excited to do that.
