Jane Fitzsimmons and Ian Jones — the two founding and permanent members of Nashville dream-psych-pop band Twen — aren’t just tired. Their brains are toast. When they get on the phone with the Scene, they’ve only been back stateside for about 36 hours, after spending three weeks hopping all across Europe and the U.K. with Seattle’s Hypercolor space-rockers Tacocat. They’ve only got a couple of days to rest up before their debut album Awestruck is out via Frenchkiss Records, after which they’ll be back in motion. Following the Sept. 20 release, they’ll play a handful of dates across the South, leading up a show at The Basement on Friday; then on Saturday, they’ll play an in-store at Grimey’s and a set at BobFest in nearby Adams, Tenn.; and then they’ll head up the East Coast in October.
So, how are they feeling at this time of intense labor?
“Uhhh … it’s hard to describe,” says a jet-lagged Fitzsimmons, her words drawn out and thick with fatigue. “It’s overwhelming actually, to be honest. It’s been such a long time coming — it’s like when it’s your birthday and you want to cry at your birthday party.”
Jones agrees: “Yeah, I think we want to cry at our birthday party.”
Twen formed around the time Fitzsimmons and Jones moved from Boston to Nashville in 2017. It may appear as though the duo waited until they were well-established to record and release their debut — they’ve toured at length over the past two years on the strength of a live cassette, opting not to release any singles or EPs — but Awestruck has been in the works for nearly as long as the band has existed. For better or worse.
“It wasn’t all our idea to record,” says Jones. “Dex [Green], who produced it, he came to us — we were just a new band, we weren’t very good. He came to us, and he was so jazzed about the music. He started saying, ‘Hey, we can just record and make it up as we go.’ We said, ‘Sure!’
“We didn’t really have a plan when we were making it,” Jones continues. “We were just recording the songs we played at the time, and we never had an end goal or finish line. It was kinda like, ‘Oh, this is 10 songs — OK, that’s an album.’ ”
Directionlessness isn’t something you’d usually consider a positive quality, but it comes through on Awestruck in compelling ways. The album is packed with lush pop gems that aren’t tied down to any traditional structure or genre. “Damsel” starts with jangling, Johnny Marr-esque guitar, but loops of feedback and Fitzsimmons’ drifting, echoey vocals give the song a trippy finish. The music video gives the song an even more psychedelic feel: Released in June, it features ballet-like slow-motion footage of a team of dirt bikers riding around a track and flying through the air above the band. It’s an unexpected but perfect visual accompaniment.
Fitzsimmons’ vocals take on a haunting, ethereal presence on “Long Time,” a syrupy song that encapsulates a range of daunting feelings that might flood your brain as you think about who you’ve been — as you’re trying to figure out who you are and who you want to be. “Baptism” is more hopeful: Jones’ guitar shimmers and soars as Fitzsimmons calls out the dreamy chorus that the song crescendos into: “All that I want is to be anyone!”
“It may feel like it’s meandering, but it’s tied to feelings and what intuitively feels good,” says Fitzsimmons about the band’s slippery sound. “That has been very difficult for us throughout this whole process, actually listening to that [internal] voice. A lot of the pain … came from not listening to that voice, or saying yes to something when you were like, ‘Oh, this doesn’t feel right.’ I guess that probably comes through in the music.
“With the lyrics and vocals, that’s almost all of it for this album,” she adds. “It’s pretty much just my subconscious over everything.”
Twen is the epitome of going with the flow. And while they say they’re looking forward to Awestruck being unleashed upon the world, they’re also not planning on soaking in their accomplishment for very long. Fitzsimmons and Jones are in the middle of converting a van into a home on wheels — with plans to install a bed, a small kitchen, running water and more — so they can tour for at least eight months out of the year. They’re also already writing new material, and playing some of those songs at shows.
“The next record will have a lot more blueprinting and planning and execution and intention behind it,” says Jones. “This one kind of just happened through our first two years of being a band. It kind of feels like it happened to us, rather than something that we consciously did.”
“Yeah, we’re very thankful and grateful,” says Fitzsimmons. “I wouldn’t change anything about the way that it did happen.”
