Q&A: Like Crunching Sugar Cubes—Bittersweet Nostalgia Abounds On The Army, The Navy’s Sophomore EP
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY NICO CHODOR ☆
Credit: Lucy Black
HOLY GHOST, SUGAR FOR BUGS FINDS YOU IN THE AMBER OF BEADED WINGS. Vocal interplay between Maia Ciambriello and Sasha Goldberg, two childhood friends from the Bay Area who shared a singing coach, enchants; their writing transcends with verse hailing from Parnassus. This EP marks just the second installment by The Army, The Navy, before which came their first album Fruit For Flies, a masterclass in sonic poetry, earlier this spring.
Fruit For Flies led them to bring up the curtain and open the gates for Dora Jar on tour this September, followed by their biggest streaming debut yet with “Little Bug,” the Sugar For Bugs finale. This track smells like your favorite flowers in bloom, together with imagery that shrinks you down to garden critter size. Lyrics were written for mothers and daughters, and Ciambriello shares, “‘Little Bug’ taught me to memorialize love in a way that still allows it to be sweet and safe.”
She tells me the rest of the project “cycles between sweetness, anger, and heartbreak.” For example, “40%” shakes things up with grunge rock ‘n roll guitar to personify the nature of frustration and release. Oscillating between lo-fi texture and vocal delivery that explodes, this stand-out song hums with rhythmic momentum. “No time to call and mend,’ bites the chorus, ‘We’ll never be that close again,” and though sonically far more delicate, “Curse The Man” is similarly fueled by ill will, in particular fitting given the president-elect.
“Sea Legs” opens the record with sweet nostalgia, however, and vocals left near completely unaccompanied on “Bookend” make sonic union increasingly clear. These lyrics are raw, ones that question love overgrown, and then grapple with colors turned gray on “Rocket,” meanwhile still carving space for damaged things to be cherished. Likewise, track six “Rascal” is not for the faint of heart. Against gentle instrumentation that mirrors the rise and fall in both harmonic volume and key on this song, The Army, The Navy beholds love disbanded with defiant memory.
Polished and deeply compelling, Sugar For Bugs displays the emotional depth with which Maia and Sasha create. Vocal harmonies astound; they become one singular beating harp on this EP, and simplistic production weaves every note together with patchwork intricacy. Needless to say, you’ll want to hear every consonant, and Ciambriello sheds more light on this particularly saccharine chapter of The Army, The Navy in the interview below.
LUNA: What is your favorite bug and why?
TATN: I always loved butterflies, especially monarchs. Ladybugs are pretty, big fan of their pattern. Grasshoppers are such a perfect shade of green. We like spiders from a distance. No cockroaches.
LUNA: One of my high school students put me on to you guys when she had to reschedule our tutoring session for your recent SF show! What does Dora Jar mean to you, and how would you describe the impact of her Behind The Curtain tour?
TATN: Dora Jar has been a favorite of ours for years. We always found it so easy to connect to her music and she became a huge source of inspiration for us. Her lyricism and melodies always stood out as something special. When we were invited to open for her on her Behind The Curtain tour, we literally screamed and ran around the house jumping. It felt like such an achievement for us. It was a dream. Not only to watch our favorite artist perform every night, but to have the opportunity to open for her, to get to know her listeners, her band and herself. I’ll always remember that tour as magic.
LUNA: I just moved back to the Bay Area, largely due to the music scene here. Can you name your favorite Bay Area venue(s) and why?
TATN: Welcome back! We absolutely love The Sweetwater. We grew up seeing shows there and singing at their open mics. We performed a show with our friend Rose Paradise at The Sweetwater last winter, and it was such a special night. The venue was full of our high school friends and their families, and it was really wholesome. San Francisco has so many wonderful venues, too, I just went to Bimbos 365 the other night, and I loved it!
LUNA: “Little Bug” came out early this September, as your biggest streaming debut yet. Who is the “little bug” in each of your lives? How does this track set up the rest of the project’s trajectory?
TATN: I don’t think “Little Bug” is one specific person but an accumulation of different people that have touched our lives. At first, “Little Bug” was written as an ode to heartbreak. Then it sort of became something more profound. It became the relationship between mothers and daughters, between current self and past self. “Little Bug” became my little sister, my best friend, my mom, my future child.
LUNA: You also got to celebrate one year of “Alexandra” this September. Congratulations! How would you describe your sonic development from New Orleans to Los Angeles, the move which “Alexandra” so gracefully marks?
TATN: “Alexandra” was definitely the start of something. I can’t believe how naturally it came to us, I think we wrote it in an hour or two. Back in New Orleans, Sasha and I would gig around and we worked restaurant jobs. Music was very present in our lives, but it wasn’t the main focus. Every once in a while, we’d perform with a full band, but we felt that we were missing a sort of intimacy with the audience and each other. Once we moved to LA, we really decided to focus on stripping the live set back and giving a great performance with just the two of us on stage. It was nerve-wracking and it still is; sometimes we worry we aren’t doing enough, that we’re not entertaining enough. It’s a never-ending cycle of learning. But moving to LA really made us work hard. We became very driven to succeed, and I don’t think we would’ve hustled in the same way in New Orleans.
Credit: Lucy Black
LUNA: Also, for those not so musically inclined, you mentioned and posted the shapes for “Alexandra” on Instagram. Why shapes over chords?
TATN: Though Sasha and I studied music theory in college, it never quite stuck. We both grew up teaching ourselves how to play guitar, so instead of learning traditional chords, we just played random shapes that sounded good together, and that’s sort of been our philosophy when writing guitar parts. We had to figure out how to remember said shapes, so we found a little fret stamp and used that to illustrate the chord. Sasha and I are both singers first, I don’t think either of us had imagined we’d be playing guitar on a stage in front of hundreds of people, but the challenge has been so rewarding. Not being limited by chords is quite freeing and a gift, but I also love being surrounded by theory nerds who can identify the shapes I’m playing and explain them to me!
LUNA: You have called “40%” an ode to the bitter and grudge-holding rascals (I’m one of them). Would you say songwriting helps you let things go, preserves the bitterness, or a little bit of both?
TATN: I think I can harbor resentment easily. I am not a very confrontational person, which sometimes allows issues to fester in my stomach until it’s too much. Writing really helps me understand how I feel. Every song we write is completely pulled from real-life feelings and experiences. It’s just like journaling.
LUNA: Walk me through the anatomy of “40%,” i.e. inspiration, shift to more grunge and crunch, etc.
TATN: I’d say every ten songs Sasha and I write, we write one grunge rock song. Though we typically gravitate towards lusher melodies and softness, we are always looking to expand our sound and try new things. It’s important to us to offer versatility within our music, and I’m positive our sound will change and grow as we continue to write and sing together.
LUNA: Have you stayed in touch with the voice coach you shared since childhood? If so, what does she think of Fruit For Flies? If not, what do you think she'd have to say about the record?
TATN: Yes! We still take lessons from our voice coach, Amber Morris. She is such an exceptional vocal coach, and really is responsible for Sasha and I going to the same college and becoming roommates, which created a beautiful sisterhood between us. Since Amber trained Sasha and I so similarly, we use the same strategies to adjust our tones and warm up, and it makes blending a lot easier! And Amber is very updated with our music, and so supportive. She is so proud of us and her other students. One time we had a hometown show (at the Sweetwater!) and not only did Amber come, but she warmed us up before we went on stage and really put us in a great headspace. She is truly our singing angel.
LUNA: What is the connection between Fruit For Flies and Sugar For Bugs?
TATN: Sasha and I named these two EPs probably two years ago, randomly. Originally, we pictured Fruit For Flies being more of an indie record and Sugar For Bugs being a pop record. However, we realized that both projects had elements of pop and indie, and we didn’t want to make them as opposites. They’re much more like sisters. These songs from both projects were all written around the same era of our lives and capture such a specific feeling of nostalgia in my heart. I’m so glad they exist.
LUNA: Can you walk me through the S4B tracklist, i.e. standout lyrics, noteworthy background/inspiration, segments you are most proud of? What has been the most exciting part of the process?
TATN: We organized the S4B tracklist based on what sonically made the most sense. We knew early on we wanted “Little Bug” to finish the record, and “Sea Legs” felt like a natural opening song. Some of our favorite lyrics of the project are from “Rascal.” Specifically, “I’ll find you in the amber of beaded wings, someone whose defiant, who acts like spring in winter, its refreshing….It was fragile but protected, so I left it there. You kiss like you're captive and I understand, but to free you is to lose who I reprimand…” It just felt so raw and real when we wrote it, and it still rings true and breaks my heart a bit every time we sing it. “Bookend,” the fourth track on the record, was pretty much the first song we wrote together, and the style of lyricism reminds me so much of our past writing style. It's beautiful to see how we've grown while still enjoying the music. Every part of releasing an EP is exciting for us, but nothing beats release day. Finally releasing the project into the universe feels so freeing and symbiotic.
Credit: Lucy Black
LUNA: Who do you feel most grateful for through it all?
TATN: We are grateful for so much. Grateful to be surrounded by people who lift us up instead of bring us down, grateful for all the exes for helping us turn heartache into music. Grateful for the people that listen to our music, they are all the sweetest, most accepting and generous people we’ve ever encountered. Grateful for our managers, Nick and Delaney for always having our backs. Marc for making us believe we could really do this thing. Our team. Our parents. Our siblings. Our friends. The list goes on and on. We have been so unbelievably supported through all of this and it is a beautiful blessing. Mostly I am grateful for Sasha, to be able to tackle this industry with my best friend. To have someone in my life that I believe in with every ounce of my being, someone I trust.
LUNA: How would you describe the album's texture? What does it taste like?
TATN: I love this question!!! Imagine crunching sugar cubes between your teeth. Have you ever heard of Tanghulu? I’ve never had it before, but that’s what this EP would taste like. Crunchy sugar and sweet fruit. Texture wise, it feels glossy and ceramic to me.
LUNA: Which song feels most important to each of you right now? Both on the album and then off.
TATN: Every song is so important to us in its own way. On Sugar For Bugs, I had a really deep connection to “Little Bug.” It was my favorite from the start. Sasha really connected to “Rascal,” which is one of the saddest songs we’ve ever written. In Fruit For Flies, we both really connected to “Persimmon” and “Gentle Hellraiser.” I think we are also in a phase of our writing where every latest song we write is our new favorite. Just recently we wrote a song over text which we have never done before. I think it's one of my favorite songs we’ve written.
LUNA: What does Lucy Black mean to the two of you? What is her creative process like, and how does she bring Sugar For Bugs to full visual fruition?
TATN: Lucy Black is the creative genius behind our visuals. I love her brain, it works in ways I don't understand and that’s why everything she creates is so unique and original to her. She is so good at playing with textures and shadow and shapes; she is incredibly talented. It's such a gift to work with someone that is so visually aligned with us, and who inspires us every day with her art. She has become such an integral part of The Army, The Navy. And she is also Sasha’s cousin!
LUNA: Last but not least, what’s next for The Army, The Navy? And thank you so much for your time.
TATN: So so SO much. More music. More singing. More giggles. More bugs. Maybe less bugs. But so much to be excited about!
Tickets just went on sale for the Gentle Hellraiser Tour 2025 with Aggie Miller. Sugar For Bugs is out now.
