UCLA Radio’s Rising Artist Spotlight aims to highlight upcoming artists who have demonstrated unique creativity and talent through their music. Through interviews and features, we delve into their journey, influences, and aspirations, giving listeners a glimpse into the future of music.
Pop music duo Foley, composed of best friends Gabriel Everett and Ash Wallace, are navigating life with a feel-good attitude and a shared love for making music. Originally from Auckland, New Zealand, the band released their latest album, That’s Life, Baby, in March as a way to process loss through a positive lens. I had the pleasure of speaking with Foley about the album, how they first met, and what they’re most excited about as they head back to America.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity purposes
Isabella Appell: You two clearly have a very special bond- there’s a real friendship that comes through via your music and social media. How did you meet, and when did you realize you two wanted to start creating?
Foley: We’ve been mates for over a decade. Foley is really rooted in our friendship and what we talk about day to day. We’re a bit of an old married couple, and we have a very ingrained dynamic now in the best possible way. We were both in high school bands growing up and they became one big friend group. We were not the closest people in the group, but over time, we realized we had a lot more in common than we thought in the beginning. We decided one day we were both really into exploring pop music and getting invested in the melodies so we decided to do some sessions together just us two. We wrote a bit for a year, put out a single, and the rest is history.
IA: There’s clearly this infectious, feel-good energy to your music. What draws you to pop music as your main genre and makes it the right fit for you?
Foley: Previously, neither of us were making pop music. We were both from these totally different worlds, and I think pop felt like a completely new challenge to both of us. There were rules to pop music that are really interesting to learn, and you decide to follow them and break them. I think the way our minds worked, the idea that there was this structure around pop music that you had to figure out and break the mold as well, that was really exciting to both of us.
I have really fallen in love with a lot of pop artists. I think there’s mainstream pop, but there’s so much music that fits into the pop world, even your favorite rock song. The way that people communicate in a pop song — the lyrics, the vibes, the melodies — can translate to any genre. I believe all songs are pop at heart.
IA: Building on that, there’s a very playful vibe to your sound. Where does that energy come from when you’re writing and how do you think it captures the spirit of who you both are right now, both personally and creatively?
Foley: I think the effervescence of it all is how we write in the room. We’ll get some music flowing, and Ash and I will have this energy where we’ll just start singing melodies, almost like a dance battle. We respect each other a lot and we’re very very open with what we’re going through as best friends. I think that that level of honesty allows us to just throw ideas out in the room and get more excited as the sessions goes on. We just build, build, build, until one of us goes, “What if we do this?” or “What if we do that?” It all comes together, and we really don’t set boundaries on how our song comes together. It plays into this very bright songwriting.
IA: Give our readers a little snippet of your new album, That’s Life, Baby.
Foley: It just dropped in March, and it’s a really eclectic mix. Everything that’s going on that we’re talking about in our friendship has translated straight into that album. What’s really cool about it is we wrote it in quite a short amount of time. In the past, we’ve written in lots of different places and written music over a year or longer before we would release something. We really wanted to condense that whole process and write in a six month window, and it really is exactly what was going on in those six months. This is a slice of our life together. We went to Waikiki Island in New Zealand where we’re from. It’s a beautiful place, and we set up the studio in the lounge of a house where we only had the instruments we could get over the boat. It was all very different from writing in these big, beautiful LA studios.
We wanted to change the process and do something different, so I think the result of that is that the music is so fun and so organic because it was all written with two of our other best friends who produced the album. There were some songs where we went to a winery in the afternoon and it was just so fun. To sum it up, it’s really an album of experiences, but not one trying to dig too deep on the issues and the growth of life. It’s a bit of a mantra to us at this point to just roll with the punches. There’s so many ups and downs, but at the end of the day, you just have to let it go, and that’s the beauty of being alive.
IA: You’re based in Australia, correct? What kind of relationship do you hope to build with your U.S. listeners, especially the college-aged fans reading this interview?
Foley: We’ve come to the U.S. a lot, especially LA, so I feel like we have it very close to our heart. Creatively speaking, it’s a special place for us and for a lot of people. Since the start, it’s been a massive part of our journey and contributes a lot to the silly and fun part of our sound. We came back last year and played in LA and New York, and it was so cool to finally get to perform in front of the people that have followed us through that time.
It’s definitely a newer market for us, but I think what we really want is to grow in a real, organic way. Social media is a great way to connect with people on the other side of the world, but connecting with people properly is what we’ve always wanted to do, which comes from shows, proper interviews, and deep connection around the music. We want people to love the music first and foremost, but ideally, when people come to our platforms and shows, they’re meeting other people that are like-minded and part of our community. It’s all about togetherness at the end of the day, and we want to build that in America as well.
IA: What’s something that’s very uniquely you? Either a quirk, ritual, something that helps keep the energy high during the creative process?
Foley: Straight away, I thought, I’m afraid of tomato sauce. I don’t know why I’m so afraid, but I have a genuine phobia. That has nothing to do with us staying excited as a band; I don’t know where that came from, but I’m just a freak. I think the main thing that probably sets us apart is the fact that we obviously are best friends with each other, but we’re also wanting to get as many inputs on our projects as possible. We always think that all of the music, live shows, photos, videos, etc. are always made better by having more creative minds in the process. As a band, we like to use our friends for that, because we’re going to get a way better emotional connection out of whatever piece of art we’re doing.
