Rising Artist Spotlight: An Interview with Your Favorite Color

Photo Courtesy of Your Favorite Color

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.

Dreamy, sunset-tinged visuals on melancholic storylines, all bolstered by layers of ‘80s reminiscent alternative rock instrumentals. Hailing from Huntington Beach, CA, Your Favorite Color breathes life into this amalgamation of unique sounds and themes.

Comprised of lead vocalist Matt Warren, keyboardist Nicky Neighbors, Cameron Pearson on bass, Matthew Fosmire on drums, and guitarist Davis Silveria, the band has had a tremendous year, from signing to Prajin Parlay & Double P Records, debuting at SXSW in Austin, to touring Europe with The Driver Era.

We had the joy of sitting down with Matt Warren and Cameron Pearson to discuss their new track, “Where Did It All Go Wrong?”, what creating music means to them, and what comes next amidst a whirlwind of change.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity purposes

Interviewed by Anna Guan

Anna: Do y’all mind starting off by introducing yourselves and sharing a little more about the band for anybody who has never listened!

Matt: I’m Matt, I sing for the band Your Favorite Color.

Cameron: I’m Cameron, and I play bass in Your Favorite Color. We’re a band from Orange County, California. We consider ourselves rock pop, maybe a little bit of pop rock, and everything above. 

Anna: I actually read that y’all are from Huntington Beach. How do you think growing up in that kind of scene has impacted your relationship with music and the kind of music y’all are creating now?

Cameron: I think growing up in Orange County is really cool. A lot of people do try to get out of here really quickly, for some reason. But we love being by the ocean and love all of our friends here.

We grew up here, and there’s a great music scene out here — there always has been — you just got to find it. Historically, a lot of great bands have come from Orange County, and I think we’re really stoked about that. We’re not afraid to say we’re from Orange County; I think it’s a great place to come from.

Matt: I moved here when I was 16, and lived here for just over 10 years now. Being near the ocean and being surfers was the thing that brought us all together. I feel like the ocean connected all of us.

We [everyone in the band] met each other in high school. We pretty much all started from just surfing and then finding out later that people also played music. We started playing, started the band, and then just kind of never stopped. It took off from there, and we never looked back. So definitely, Orange County and surfing culture brought us together.

Anna: I can relate! I grew up in Texas, in a really small town, before I moved here. Being by the beach just feels like “wow.” Y’all talk about the ocean being a uniting thing; I can definitely understand that when you’re driving along the coast. It’s such an otherworldly feeling. What songs or visuals have come out of experiences that you all grew up with?

Matt: When I think of surf culture and songs that are super directly influenced by surfing, I think of surf garage rock. I don’t think we were ever super surf garage rock, but there are definitely some songs that give me feelings of the ocean and those sunsets on PCH.

We’ve even filmed some of our music videos, in our hometown, driving on PCH. Our song “Medicine” was footage we took on a Super 8 camera, shot around Huntington with my girlfriend. “Less in Love”, our single that came out a few weeks ago, was the same way. I think it definitely finds a way to come out. 

Cameron: There’s a lot of garage and especially punk rock in Orange County. Just fast, kind of aggressive, music for surfing. That’s definitely relevant in our music, and I think that’s the most “Orange County” it gets for us. Anything heavy — definitely like that OC edge — kind of stems from that. 

Matt: And I think it influenced us in little bits and pieces, although we never fully went into that genre. Just those, single-chord, eighth-note guitar sounds. We’re very inspired by The Cure, and I feel like even The Cure sometimes has very surfy-sounding guitar in it. So that makes it feel at home.

Anna: I watched the visualizers for both “Medicine” and “Less in Love,” and I was thinking, “Wow! I don’t know if I’m just lying, but this really looks like the OC Fair and the beaches there, haha.” What’s the process of creating the visual mood board for your music? How do y’all create the thematic elements there?

Cameron: With any videos that we’ve done ourselves, we literally sit in a circle and start bouncing ideas off each other. And even if it’s just a few of us that are going to eventually execute it,  we all have a hand in any ideas of what it could look like. What are the moods, what’s the imagery we want to represent the song?

With “Medicine,” it was really cool. That song felt so nostalgic and like a dream. I had these Super 8 cameras, and we were like, “Let’s just go shoot.” It was so easy to make that look cool, because the format of Super 8 is super great.

Matt: Super Eight just has its own thing. It kind of does the work for you.

Cameron: I think the more recent videos, too, are inspired by a very dreamy and floaty feeling. Whatever that makes you feel inside, that’s kind of what we try to portray with our videos. 

Anna: Yeah! When I was watching, I immediately felt such a nostalgic, callback, memory-like vibe. I think both the sound of your music and the visual aesthetics are a unique amalgamation of lots of different things. How would y’all describe the world you’re trying to build, whether that’s sonically, visually, or thematically?

Matt: On a basic level, we love guitars with chorus on them. We love bass with chorus on it. We love these like ‘80s, splashy drums. So, a huge amount of our tonality is inspired by the ‘80s. Even vocally, if there’s anything that we’re singing that could reminisce “Depeche Mode,” “The Cure,” or “Tears for Fears,” that’s just a green light to lean into it more. With our new music, we’re leaning into the ‘80s thing a lot harder. We also want to tie that in with our visuals, but make it modern and true to us.

We obviously didn’t grow up in the ‘80s; we’re growing up in the 2000s, so I think for us, it was finding a way to take those ‘80s inspirations, then make them modern and have a darker tone. We all freaking love emo bands and goth-looking bands, so we want to even further explore that and build a world around melancholy, around darker feelings.

Anna: Speaking of that world-building, y’all released your first album, “For You,” last year. Congrats! What was the process of creating that album, and what have you learned since then about creating music? Is there anything y’all are taking into the next projects besides working on that melancholy sound?

Matt: We’ve been a band since 2016, and we’ve been writing songs and releasing music all the way up until we released “For You” in 2024.  After we got signed by Prajin and Double P Records, it was our first time to really lock in, sit in with a wonderful producer, and just record an entire album.

We took every song that we had written, from 2016 to 2024, and then we took all of our favorites and all the songs that had a nice cohesion with one another. From the songs we were writing in the studio while we were there to all the way back when we were just in high school, we refurbished and put them together.

So it was kind of this melting pot of our young adult journey. It felt like a good first album and a good staple. Like, this is our first statement of where we’ve come from and where we are now. 

Cameron: We learned so much going on tour this past fall, and playing those songs every night felt so great. We were inspired to make songs that specifically felt great for a lot of people at once, to play those bigger venues and stuff that made sense for us to grow naturally on stage. 

That’s the reason we do a lot of it. It’s just to get out there and play in front of people, and that’s one of the greatest feelings, right next to writing a really good song. We’ve taken a lot of different routes and different genres — like going more pop, or going a little bit heavier.  I think it all stems from wanting to grow as a band and understanding what makes a good song great. It’s a journey.

Anna: Since the release of the album, there have been four singles, and a fifth on the way! I feel that the story and all the things that have changed since then are really reflected in the music. Since you mentioned tour, do you think it’s changed how you’re approaching the music creation process and what you think about when creating, whether that’s “How is my music going to make people feel?” or “What is the experience I’m creating for people?”

Matt: The band, we’ve talked about a lot. When we sit down to write a song, it’s kind of what I would imagine having a kid would be like. You can see this beautiful thing; it’s so exciting. And, you’re just like its parents, so to speak. You want to bring it to the best version of itself.

Sometimes when these songs come about, it’s not even really obvious where it came from. It’s like the universe just gave it to us, and sometimes it’s a great feeling that we want to follow. We try not to focus too much or force it in a direction where it’s not going to be its most honest and true self.

What comes first is definitely writing the music that we feel and understand to the best of our ability. But then, there are things that you can tweak through the process. [For example], “We could change this one little thing about the drums, and this is gonna be way more intense live in a great way.” That’s something that we did learn from tour. We were playing lots of songs from the album, so we were switching out songs, feeling which ones really got the crowd moving. I think what made us more confident musicians and confident artists was successfully going on this tour for two months, which was our first tour, and getting this record deal signed. We’re always developing as individuals, and that’s always going to continue to make the music better and better.

But ultimately, the most important thing is staying true to ourselves and making music that really means a lot to us. If it means a lot to us, and we’re very vulnerable, I think people are going to be able to relate to it because we’re all human beings. We all have a lot of the same general ups and downs and roller coasters in life. It’s never all just butterflies and rainbows, and sometimes it is butterflies and rainbows, so whatever real emotions you can tap into, I think that other people inherently are gonna connect to it.

That was a super long answer. Sorry guys, haha.

Anna: No, that was great! Congrats on tour again! That must be so fun and so crazy, and also so stressful, probably. I read that both the tracks, “Less in Love” and “Forever,” come as a product of that tour. Just listening to them, I feel this sense of rush, freedom, and like you said about the visualizer, there’s a kind of nostalgic memory feel to them.

Is there anything you’re trying to preserve or remember when it comes to these releases? Is it something that you want to look back on and have it tell about your journey or experience as artists?

Matt: I have one little thing for this, and then I want to turn it over to Cam. But when we wrote “Less in Love,” it felt like a part two to our song “Medicine.” So when we recorded that visualizer, we chose to go back to the spots where we shot “Medicine” in our hometown.

“Medicine” was this dream about falling in love with somebody, just the magical, and “Less in Love” is a breakup song. It was part two to that song in that way. I think that was our first, more major self-reference. 

Cameron: I think these are all going to be memorable songs, just from how they came about to the position we’re in currently as a band. Because as we grow, these become little screenshots of moments. We’re lucky enough to have written so much through a period where we’re still trying to figure out who we are and where we’re going, and I think these songs are an homage to really trying our best and doing everything we can.

Anna: Y’all also have a new single coming out Friday. Congrats! How are y’all feeling about that?

Cameron: Great! Yeah, I’m stoked. This is a good one. 

Anna: Yeah! As I was listening to it, I felt like there was a very big shift in the story y’all are telling. The instrumental has these chimes that feel almost like the yearning on a one-way flight. What’s the story behind “Where Did It All Go Wrong?”

Cameron: The song is about wanting to figure out what went wrong. It has a couple meanings to us personally, and I’ll pass that to Matt.

Matt: This song kind of took an interesting path for us that we couldn’t really have foreseen. This one went down a path of storytelling a dreamer, just trying to take a risk in their life. And for us personally, our journey of being musicians trying to survive and become successful in this world of music.

LA is one of those places where so many people go to dream, and everyone is out there. You know, that’s our backyard. I think it’s a very righteous path that I wouldn’t change a thing, and I don’t think anyone in the band would change a thing about embarking on this path. But in doing so, it’s quite a hard path. There’s lots of times on this journey where it feels like there’s no road map, and it feels like you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. And it’s like, “Wait, no one’s telling me I should be doing this. I’m the only one telling myself I should be doing this.” It feels like, “Why the hell did I choose such a hard path in life? Couldn’t I have chosen something easier, or something with a little bit more of a path?” There’s a kind of yearning of, “Man, I just don’t want to be me anymore right now. This is hard, and I’m lost.”

This song is that moment, I think, in every dreamer or artist’s path where they set out to create themselves, and it’s not always going to feel like clear skies. It’s this cry-out moment of “What the hell am I doing here?” Like I’m finding myself in LA all the time, trying to meet people and create relationships, but I’m drinking until three in the morning every night, getting no sleep. I’m definitely not being the most healthy, and it just causes you to fall into this place sometimes that’s dark.

I think those moments pass, and it’s about going through those moments on a more broad level. But this song was just capturing that feeling. 

Anna: It’s been a huge year for y’all, for which congratulations are in order. But as you said, there’s a lot of change that’s quite difficult to navigate and not lose yourself. Where does that balance lie for y’all as a band between staying true to who y’all started as and what direction y’all are going?

Matt: It comes down to sticking together and going back to the roots. We love writing music and our home studios, then bringing it to our producer, and then bringing it to the show. So I think it’s one, taking care of ourselves, making sure we’re getting enough sleep, drinking enough water, the basics. But then it’s also about as artists, not losing ourselves. Being together and writing music together, just us.

When we write those songs — no matter what the hell we’re going through — in the moment, that helps you feel when you don’t understand what you’re feeling. Everything else falls away. Life’s okay all of a sudden. So I think sticking together, writing music, and not losing ourselves in all the noise.