She’s green is for the deep night. They’re for watching the rushing cars and waving pines, both fluid in their own way. What was it Whitman said? “Ghostly pines so still.” That’s she's green.
She’s green’s first EP, Wisteria, was released in 2023. Balancing floaty vocals with pounding drum and guitar soundscapes, the EP feels like being stuck in a labyrinth of mossy stone walls. It’s at once a dream and dissociation, real and unreal. Their socials cite she’s green as “moss music,” and I’m inclined to agree. The plant was allegedly the first plant on Earth, and she’s green encapsulates the sound of fresh, flourishing life.
Vocalist Zofia Smith and guitarist Liam Armstrong lived together in college, joining forces to collaborate on music they were working on individually. Teddy Nordvold, Kevin Seebeck and Raines Lucas – bass, drums and guitar respectively – joined the group later, cementing the group’s dreamy sound.
Members of she’s green have their roots in college radio. Nordvold cites his family’s history in student radio and still remembers his morning intro – he’s got the baritone voice for it, too. Lucas and Nordvold both fondly shouted out their respective radios: KUOM Radio K and WSUM – or, as Lucas claims, his 91.7.
For their one and only day in Austin, she’s green joined me in the station to talk about their love for foliage, their dreams, and their first tour – “out of the frying pan, straight into the fire,” says Nordvold.
Read our interview with she’s green below:
There’s so much natural imagery in your work, even your name is evocative of nature; what influence has it had on your music-making?
Liam: Growing up in the Midwest, we’re all deeply entwined with nature. I grew up in a town in Wisconsin where I would go down to this river a lot. When I make music, I want to translate those emotions I get from spending time outside.
Zofia: Liam’s cinematography in nature also adds to our sound. It adds a theatrical element.
Teddy: Like they were saying, we have these Midwestern backgrounds where we spend a lot of time in the woods, or camping, or hiking. There’s something impactful about being in really beautiful natural landscapes. It’s interesting to try translating that into a sonic medium rather than just a visual one.
Zofia: We have really gorgeous, blooming summers. Those memories that we make going camping and just doing outdoor activities are really special, especially since we have such isolating winters.
Teddy: Brutal winters…
Zofia: It’s still really gorgeous with the snow and stuff, but our summers are really special compared to other places.
Liam: The winter helps us write music that longs for the outside.
Teddy: It longs for greener pastures.
I see a lot about the negative side of the Midwest, but you all talk so beautifully about it. Is there anything you want to add to the Midwest discourse?
Teddy: The winters are a trial, but it makes the warmth and green foliage and humid air so much more appreciated.
Liam: We all really enjoy the winter, too. There’s something magical about being outside where everything’s blanketed. It’s so quiet.
Teddy: Yeah! We all live in the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and Saint Paul, so it’s a loud city environment. But whenever it’s snowing hard, everything’s so quiet and pretty.
Zofia: It’s also lighter, like when you go on a fresh snow walk. When the moon is out, everything is brighter because it’s reflecting on the snow. The sky has this really gorgeous color, too.
Teddy: It’s lustrous, almost.
Raines: I don’t know how I’d assess the passing of time if it wasn’t for the four seasons, so the change is really important, too. It makes my life feel more full than if I were in a consistent temperature, even though sometimes it sounds pretty nice.
I love your phrase “moss music;" can you tell me about it?
Teddy: There’s not much direct meaning behind it. I just like alliteration as a literary device, and we’re big fans of foliage. Like we sometimes go and visit plant conservatories…
Raines: I just want to pause on “big fans of foliage!” It’s true, but it’s a crazy phrase.
Teddy: We did a photoshoot in a greenhouse! There’s something really beautiful about chlorophyll and greenery and living plants.
Raines: Yeah. The real origin is that Teddy made it the Twitter bio, and we were like, “wai,t that’s kinda cool.”
Liam: It’s cool that moss can dry out and stay alive; it’s always green.
Teddy: Moss is very, very cool!
Zofia: We were in the Pacific Northwest for a while, and that was when I truly realized how much I love moss. It’s spongy and brings everything to life.
Liam: Shout-out to the book Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Everybody knows Braiding Sweetgrass, but no one’s talking about her other book.
Photo by Jadia Manakalani.
So, as fans of foliage, if you were a plant, what would you be?
Zofia: I love lilacs. There are so many trees in the summer in Minnesota, and I’m so at ease when I’m on a walk and smell the lilacs.
Liam: I love White Pines.
Zofia: Liam’s a big tree guy.
Liam: I love watching the wind blow the branches around – it’s so majestic.
Teddy: The sound, as well, of wind blowing through a pine forest is such a calming, nostalgic sound. We have a lot of Norway Pines where I would go to visit my grandparents and great uncles. That’s my pine, a Norway Pine.
Raines: You know those little seaweeds at the bottom of rivers, and when the river’s running, they wiggle a lot? I identify with them.
Kevin: Some type of tree would be sick.
Raines: You’re definitely a tree, very stoic. You’re an old tree that’s got established roots.
Kevin: Maybe a redwood tree. A thousand-year-old tree.
Your first two singles were recorded at home; where was Wisteria made?
Liam: A lot of it was recorded at home, and the drums we recorded at our student radio.
Teddy: I knew the code to the college radio at The U, and…well, I don’t go there anymore, I can’t get in trouble.
Raines: Oh, you're gonna get expelled for sure.
Teddy: Hey, anyone who’s used that computer knows there are files of old students doing the same thing going back, like, 15 years. I’m far from the first. But it was a better drum recording setup than anything I had access to. Other than that, it was all home-brewed.
Liam: Secret’s out.
Were y’all sitting on the EP for a while?
Zofia: I feel like it just gracefully came together. We had those songs, and they all fit so well together.
Raines: I do remember the posts like, “EP soon!” And then nine months later, like “EP coming soon, I swear!”
Liam: We wanted it to be polished and stay true to what we’ve been dreaming after.
Zofia: We also wanted it to sound good. There are so many textures on there, and it was a lot to work with, so we struggled with that a bit. But once our friend Henry got in to mix everything, it was really good.
Teddy: Henry was the catalyst that we needed to focus the songs, make them cohesive, and have a sonic definition to them. So big thank-you to Henry Breen, love you.
What was the songwriting process like?
Zofia: All over the place. The boys usually come in with a riff or a rhythm, and we’ll throw bass and drums. I’ll start with melodies and write later. Just to serve the instrumental.
Liam: Sometimes we write as a group, too. Zofia had “Mandy” already fully written.
Zofia: “Purple” is also just Liam and me hanging out; It just happened. We wrote it in, like, an hour.
Teddy: Sometimes stuff emerges out of nowhere. There’s an unreleased track that we’re still honing that came from a jam. Just going back and forth between chords, like “there’s something there, but what?”
Raines: We have a new one we’ve been playing that came from Kevin warming up with some song he liked. I just started playing chords I’d never played before, and so did he. 30 minutes later, we had a song. Sometimes it comes like that, but “Graze,” the single that just came out, was a long time coming.
Do y’all ever get into disagreements?
Liam: I wouldn’t say full-fledged fights, but we have discourse on songwriting processes.
Teddy: It normally comes down to a majority vote. If we have different ideas for a direction a song could go, we’ll try both and see which everyone likes better.
Liam: Me and Kevin did start beefing recently.
Kevin: It’s been a really smooth experience until recently on this tour. Liam’s just been really hard to deal with.
Teddy: We’re gonna have a cage match to get all our grievances out after the tour.
Who are some influences on your sound that might surprise us?
Raines: Creed.
Liam: There’s this band I’ve been listening to called Southpacific. I would also say Horsegirl; their new album is so good.
Raines: We’ve been diving into this subgenre of dream pop that has a lot of drum machines from the 90s. Bands in that lane would be 800 cherries, SALON MUSIC. And this dude whose project is just called Guitar.
Teddy: Kitty Craft.
Liam: It’s a lot of samples. Like guitar and textural stuff.
Raines: We have an amazing drummer, so we’re not doing that. But it’s cool to hear things that don’t sound like our music.
Kevin: Mario Duplantier is probably the exact guy I was trying to imitate in Wisteria.
Raines: We never talk about the drums. Cocteau Twins this, Beach House that. Kevin’s out here doing crazy things.
Teddy: One thing I’ll throw out influentially that’s unrelated is Oneohtrix Point Never. Like Daniel Lopatin’s film scores and electronic sample-based albums really inspire the way I think about melodies. How they can be constructed and deconstructed to make a sound environment is so cool.
Raines: Legitimate answer: Coldplay and Radiohead; we never talk about those.
Teddy: “Yellow” goes hard.
You guys have been on tour for a while now, any highs, lows or favorite shows?
Zofia: Dallas last night was amazing. We got up on stage and, instantly, it was so heartwarming. People were ready to communicate with us, and it was such a warm welcome.
Teddy: I couldn’t believe it for a Monday.
Raines: A week ago, D.C. sold out on a Monday, too. People come out even when you think it’s going to be sleepy. It’s awesome.
Teddy: Highlight for a different reason was San Francisco toward the beginning of the tour. That show was really fun. And most of us had never been before. The city collectively blew our minds. It was so close to the redwood forest.
Zofia: It was the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. It had the woods, the ocean, this great city. Like, “What do you guys not have?”
Raines: Cheap rent.
How about lows?
Raines: The morning after hanging out in Nashville.
Liam: We went crazy in Nashville.
Zofia: All of us bands just wanted to hang out. We’d been working – we had a six-night stretch of shows. We wanted a night to hang after not playing a show.
Teddy: Some of the drives have been a lowlight, too. It’s just hours upon hours of nothingness in, like, Wyoming. Not trying to diss Wyoming, but there’s not a lot going on there.
What do y’all get up to in the car for all those hours?
Raines: Whole lotta nothin’!
Liam: Reading, watching movies.
What are y’all reading?
Liam: I’m reading The Secret History. It’s so good.
Kevin: I’m reading The Sixth Extinction right now. It’s pretty good so far, but I just started.
Zofia: I’m reading Howl’s Moving Castle. It's like one of my favorite movies, and I saw the cutest book when I was walking in Portland.
Raines: I’m reading Outline by Rachel Cusk. I don’t think it’s the perfect book to read when you’re brain-dead in the car. She has beautiful commentary on random things, but sometimes I just want a Sci-Fi book. But I really like it.
Teddy: I don’t do that much reading in the van.
Liam: He’s reading the road!
Teddy: I hate driving the least, or it’s easiest for me to just lock in for long distances. Give me a good video essay or podcast. I’ve also been listening to the audio of “Pokémon Let’s Play.” I’m trying to feed off that nostalgia; it’s been really effective.
Kevin: I’ve been playing a lot of “Pokémon LeafGreen.”
Photo by Jadia Manakalani.
Zofia, you said you want your music to feel the way dreams do; what does that mean to you?
Zofia: That’s a wild question because I’ve had a lot of nightmares in my past. But I associate dreaming with a dissociative or relaxed state. That’s what I want our music to bring to people. I hope people get that sense of ease from the soundscapes.
Any dreams that have stuck out to you?
Zofia: All of my recurring dreams are really intense and scary. Like I’m going down a slide that’s never-ending. Then I’d go into this ballroom in a big castle, and a queen would tell me I’m not supposed to be there. Then she’d pull out a knife.
Teddy: Very Alice in Wonderland.
Raines: We watched Coraline in the car, and I freaked out in my dreams. That movie scared me a little bit.
Teddy: I can’t remember my dreams, but you guys (she’s green) have been in most of mine nowadays. Something that happens a lot in mine is that I’ll have some supernatural ability and I’ll try to prove it. But it won’t work. And then I just look stupid.
Zofia: I always have those dreams where it’s amazing and everything’s beautiful. And then I wake up.
Raines: I’m too busy sleepwalking to dream. My dreams are reality when I wake up in a place I don’t recognize because I’ve sleepwalked there. Allegedly, I’ve only done it once on this tour. One time I got really scared, though, and I tied my ankles together.
Teddy: Really?
Raines: We were staying with someone I didn’t know, and I had done it in their house! I can’t just walk around people’s houses at three in the morning. So the next night I bound my legs up.
Big question: What are you making music for?
Liam: I want to make something that makes people want to continue enjoying their life. Make the world better.
Raines: This guy’s on a big mission. I didn’t know we were doing that, pressure’s on.
Teddy: A noble cause.
Zofia: I went into it as a self-exploration thing, with zero expectations. Now it’s turned into something that connects us to other people. Like people can relate and find it meaningful. Meeting people on tour has made that connection more of what I’m doing it for now.
Kevin: I’ve always enjoyed playing and being around music. One thing led to another, and now I’m in she’s green. I love to contribute. And make stuff that makes people…wanna continue enjoying their lives.
Raines: We don’t wanna put too much pressure on it either. You could just make music because you like making music.
Teddy: Exactly. I actually had a cool conversation with someone in Dallas last night. We were talking about how they recently picked up bass guitar. I hope I communicated it effectively, but the most rewarding aspect of all of this has been going into it with the intent of having fun. That’s why I started jamming with them in the first place. It’s such a good time, and being on the road has been the most amazing, rewarding experience. Just having fun. And gaining the satisfaction from the process of creation.
Liam: It’s a win-win situation when you get to do something that’s really cool and people are affected by it.
Teddy: One quick addendum I’ll make to my answer: when I listen to music that really clicks with me or I’m at a live show that I’m really immersed in, there’s a feeling. This process is just chasing that metaphorical dragon. I want to find that indescribable feeling. That inner connection with the music. I’ve had that feeling at least once at every show so far.
Zofia: I completely agree.
Liam: Materialized essence of the dream world.
Raines: How I interpret what Teddy is saying is that our main criteria for songwriting is that it has to make us feel something. If it doesn’t, we have to change something. I don’t think we’ll ever release a song that didn’t make us feel anything strong.
Have there been any songs you’ve performed recently that gave you that feeling?
Teddy: There’s an unreleased track we’ve played a few times on this tour that has. It’s almost like a slow dance.
Raines: I’m with you on that. Not that our fast songs aren’t emotional, but since it’s slower, it’s easier to take it all in live. When Zof takes the mic off the stand and walks around…
Teddy: Swaying like a reed in the wind…
Zofia: There’s something about that song that makes me want to cry. I love it
Liam: It’s devastating.
New music from she's green is on the way! Keep up with the band here:
All photos thanks to Jadia Manakalani