Nice, An Interview with Sophie's Body

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Emmett Pearlman: All right, who am I here with?

Sophie McMinn: Sophie's body.

Emmett: Sophie's body, welcome to Nice, A Fest. What are your guys' impressions of the festival so far?

Sophie: I've been here all three days, and just to see so many bands and so many venues has been really cool. I don't think that I've seen a better representation of the Boston music community. It’s really cool to see that and be a part of that.

Emmett: I know you guys went to Berklee, so what are your guys' impressions of the Boston music scene as a whole?

Sophie: I think that those two statements are completely unrelated.

Adam Hurt: There’s a whole lot of really cool stuff going on in the indie genre—that’s on full display here. It’s been incredible to see other genres mixed in here.

Dylan Hughes: Yeah, I think the festival has been so cool. We’ve been catching as many bands as we can. As soon as we stopped playing with Berklee bands and started playing with more local bands, there was kind of a difference.

Sophie: If the music is coming from your heart or if it's coming from your head or if it's coming from both. I think that academia can really skew things. It kind of messed me up for a while—thinking about music in that way. Before I went to music school, I'd never thought about my songs in a way that would dissect them like that, and it didn't make any sense for me to do that. I felt like I really distanced myself from myself in a weird way. My impression of the Boston music scene is that everyone loves emo music.

Emmett: I would agree. So you would not include Berklee in your praise of the Boston music scene?

Sophie: I think Berklee is an incredible institution and I learned a lot there. I think there's a little bit of overlap in the Venn diagram, but it's closer to two circles than like one circle.

Adam: They call it the Berklee bubble for a reason. A lot of times when you're starting out there, you're only playing gigs with other Berklee bands. Getting out and working with other talent and other people from around the city—there's more thoughts going on from a lot of different places, so it's always good.

Emmett: What type of music are you guys listening to right now?

Harry Van der Meer: I'm actually a bit all over the place. I’m listening to a lot of marching band stuff right now. Like, unashamedly, to be honest, just some marching band stuff.

Emmett: Any recommendations for anyone out there?

Harry: Ooh. I like cadets 2013. I would just put that there.

Adam: I've been listening to a lot of Every Time I Die—the first album. It's perfect for your summer vibe.

Dylan: I've been listening to a lot of old American acoustic music, like the Bluegrass Album Band, JD Crowe, John Denver. There's a cool jazz record. What is it called? Corridors by Kendrick Scott. I've been listening to it a lot.

Sophie: I've been listening to a lot of The Prodigy. Love the Prodigy.

Emmett: You guys just put on an amazing performance, how did you come to bring out the bubble machine?

Harry: Oh, that's all Sophie actually. It was her idea.

Sophie: In order to classify ourselves, we call ourselves bubble grunge. So, we thought it would be cool to have a bubble gun on stage.

Adam: It started in Long Island actually. We went into a dollar store in Plattsburgh, Long Island and grabbed a bubble gun just for fun. We were like “what if we just bring it on stage at the tattoo shop tonight?” And we did.

Sophie: We needed bigger. We needed heavy artillery.

Dylan: The one we got has 69 holes specifically.

Sophie: I'm so sorry.

Emmett: It was really incredible. It added a lot of atmosphere. You guys said you're working on a new album that will be out in September?

Sophie: We're releasing our debut album Zero in September. We just announced some tour dates as well. We're going to be going on tour in October. If we're coming to your city, buy some tickets, come say hi, it'll be sick. We've also got some more local shows and everything, but we're really excited about this music. We just put out two singles off of the album, Eyes and Indigo, some killer music videos, and we've got one more single coming out this August, so stay tuned for more music you can listen to.

Emmett: What has the process of making this album look like and how has it differed from your past EP?

Harry: Actually, it's pretty similar to what we did last time. Same people, same spot, and a little bit more time. Yeah, so we had a little bit more time in the studio—Maybe a week to grind everything out that we needed to do. I think it made it a little bit harder, just because it felt like being in the same spot for that long amount of time, even if it was just more than 3 days, can really start to get to our heads a little bit.

Emmett: What are your guys' thoughts on local radio?

Adam: Well, I think it's very important to the local music scene, as we, you know, have been talking about. Nice, A Fest and all the bands here are all being supported by these local radio stations who play their stuff and get the word out. It's a really cool symbiotic relationship between the two. We've worked with so many cool local radio stations, and it's been nothing but great.

Harry: Who isn't a fan of local radio? I grew up with it as a kid. Radio's kind of the source of music, so-

Emmett: Any good marching band stations?

Harry: No, actually! That's a great idea.

Sophie: I love listening to the radio. It's music roulette and it's really sick and it's really cool to hear the DJs talk in between songs and sometimes they'll press the mute button by accident. It's cool because there's a person there who chose that song and is playing that song and I've heard the weirdest music that I've ever heard in my life on the radio driving home from work.

Dylan: We have a shared playlist of songs we've heard on our Goodwill radio that we bought and we listen to every morning. We have a playlist of all the cool songs that we've found. Especially with how all these streaming platforms are trending towards the demon in the sky feeding you music rather than like an actual human, I want a real human being showing you stuff. Sometimes the DJ is really awkward, and there's a real charm to that. Sometimes they're a caricature of themselves, and there's also a real charm to that.

One of the coolest moments for all of us as a band was going on Mellow Max's show at Tufts Radio. He was nice enough to have us on for an interview and play our single off our last EP before it came out. That was probably one of the coolest moments of my life—hearing our stuff on the radio the first time.

Sophie: We were all tuned in, crowded around the radio and freaking out.

Emmett: I saw you point to that carabiner on your neck. What can you say about that?

Adam: Well, what I really have to say is I dare you to listen to 104.9 FM WRBB radio.