Written by Sarah Mueller | Photo Courtesy of Secret Address

Since the mid-April release of their debut EP, A Typical Day…, Philadelphia’s Secret Address has quickly risen to become one of the indiepop bands that I’m most excited about. On the self-proclaimed “noise twee” band’s debut, the duo of Emerson Bright and Will Vani mixes the fuzzier side of C86-style indie with 60s surf pop to arrive at a sound that immediately stands out in the genre. 

Earlier this month, Secret Address played their first show; afterwards, I reached out to talk to them about their place in the Philadelphia scene, future plans for the band, and more.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Sarah Mueller: Would y’all like to introduce yourselves to people who don’t know who Secret Address is?

Emerson Bright: I’m Emerson Bright, I play guitar, drums, keys, and I sing the songs for Secret Address.

Will Vani: I’m Will, I play bass and a little guitar, and I write some of the songs, but Emerson does most of the songwriting and instruments and arrangements. I also did all the art direction for the band.

SM: First off, y’all had your first show last week; how did that go?

EB: I was really nervous about it, because we were playing with a bunch of bands that we love. Like, Ringtone is kind of like a power pop band that has a lot of deconstructionist emo influences. They’re all really great musicians on a technical level and scene veterans, so it was cool to be on a bill with them. It’s all people that I know and have admired for a while in Philly. And then Lightheaded and Laughing Chimes are not local, but they’re huge influences; they made my favorite record of last year. With Laughing Chimes, we’re both from the Midwest so it’s awesome to see a band that great coming out of Ohio. We’re playing with all these bands that are huge for us, and I was nervous, but I think we locked in. 

WV: I thought it went really well. And the guy from Lightheaded bought two tapes; one of the things about the show is that we made handmade tapes. We had 20, and we sold out at the first show, which was really cool for us.

EB: We were really pleasantly surprised by being able to play with people we look up to and it resonating with that audience and the other bands. It meant a lot to us. Also, shoutout to the other four people who are in our live band.

WV: They’re so good at every instrument they play.

EB: Andy, Jackson, Kelly, and Blake round out the live band. We do all this stuff on the record that’s like overdubbing and lots of space-y reverb and wall of sound. To replicate that live takes a lot of good chemistry between the players and a big band, and they’re the best musicians I know. They really stepped up, and it was phenomenal to get to play with them.

SM: Was this both of your first times performing overall, or have there been other bands before this, together or separately?

WV: Kind of a long story.

EB: We met, actually, while playing in a previous band. And then some of the other people in the live band are from a different band I used to be in.

WV: I was a big fan of that band, called Roseheath. They made more traditional chamber pop, more similar to Jellyfish. But Emerson and one other person had creative differences.

EB: I really wanted to make more lo-fi music that was inspired by the C86 and Elephant 6 stuff that I loved, or Pet Sounds. And I wanted to work on tape, with physical instruments. My main songwriting partner in Roseheath wanted more polish and industry standard production on what we were making. He still plays in the Secret Address live band, and I still play in another band with him called Ghostship Dreamland that’s more of what he wanted. We still work together and we’re still friends, but being creative partners was not going to work out. Will and I used to play in a band called Dumb Angel, and it was very 60s-inspired rock and roll stuff. The story of that band is a bit crazy; we’d be here all day.

WV: It was a good experience to grow with each other, though. I’m happy where I am with this band, because we’re both making music we want to make.

EB: I agree, we took what we learned from both of those bands into Secret Address as an example of “what were the problems with these experiences, and what do we want the new project to feel like?” I think we learned a lot from the other bands we’ve been in.

SM: I’ve heard a lot about the Philadelphia scene from others, but not so much about the twee side of it. Could you tell me a bit about that?

EB: It’s interesting in that the Philadelphia scene is at a transitional point right now. In 2022 and 2023, there was a lot of hype around TAGABOW and the whole Julia’s War shoegaze scene. That was the sound of Philly for a while, and the hype and the innovation in that space seems to me to have died down. But no one is exactly sure what’s going to replace it yet.

WV: We’re just big fans of jangle pop; a lot of New Jersey bands lean that way. Lightheaded is a good example of the jangly side; jangle pop and power pop are adjacent to twee.

EB: That’s the thing in Philly. We got interviewed by a local zine that told us that we were the only twee band in Philadelphia right now.

WV: It’s kind of true, though there’s other similar bands.

EB: The New Jersey scene, right next door, has amazing bands that play in the city all the time. I saw a band called Shampoo the other night, they just put out a 7”. It’s incredible stuff, like Dolly Mixture or Margo Guryan, the sunshine-y, 60s influenced side of the genre.

WV: There’s a shoegaze band, Mary’s Laser Beam, that makes more traditional TAGABOW-esque stuff, and now they’re trying to lean more into twee, from what I’ve heard. My roommate is mixing it for them, and they cited Secret Address as an influence.

EB: I was flattered by that too, when I heard about it. I’m excited to hear what they come up with.

WV: I don’t know if Philly knows what twee is yet, and we’re just trying to make them aware that you can make music like this.

SM: Now that you’ve recorded music and released music, what’s the main difference between the two acts? Is it just the number of people on stage, or is there more to it than that?

WV: We’re louder!

EB: In the studio, we dial back the noise. Our noise pop in the studio comes mostly from working on tape machines or using effects pedals in unconventional ways, as opposed to straight-ahead distortion. We love shoegaze and noise pop, and we lean into the side of us that’s influenced by Lilys or Blue Rev live. It’s more of a loud, crunchy guitar band. Shoutout to our second keyboard player, Andy, who has a box of effects pedals that he’s twisting during the show.

WV: We got plywood from Home Depot and made a board.

EB: We spent all night building it for him, and he has good intuition about where to put those atonal parts. We’re very inspired by the Olivia Tremor Control and Animal Collective like that. It’s weird, because I associate those two with being studio bands, but for us it comes out more in live performance because we have a guy whose job is to do it.

SM: On the subject of A Typical Day itself, everyone I’ve talked to thinks your vocals stand out, Emerson, and particularly the falsetto. I think for me it seems unconventional, because I associate twee vocals with almost more of a flatter affect, like the Alvvays self-titled, or Cub, which you don’t. Could you talk a bit more about how you came across your choices vocally?

EB: It’s funny, because it’s not actually falsetto. I just have a very bright, high voice; I’m not singing in falsetto. It’s just the way I sound. There was a time that I wasn’t leaning into that as much in melody writing, but in my last couple bands I’ve been leaning into having an androgynous voice. I don’t make too many conscious choices about my vocals, I just sing in a way that feels right. The Alvvays debut is a record I love; I don’t hear Molly [Rankin] as having a flat affect on that record at all. She sings in a very earnest, cloying way. I love all of those vocal performances, though my formative influences are from the 60s: Colin Blunstone from the Zombies, or Brian Wilson, obviously. It’s not really a choice for me to sing in that high register, it’s just where my voice sits, but it’s a choice for me to lean into it as much as I do. And I do that because it’s what my favorite singers did. There’s a quality of longing to it, when you’re softer and quieter in such a high register, that I like to express in my music. I’m glad people like the singing; I recently went through a vocal injury that put me out of commission for a year. I’m still not sure if I sound the way I did before, so it’s good to know that people still enjoy my performances.

SM: I was relistening to A Typical Day recently, and I noticed a buried spoken-word bit in “Let’s Go Exploring!”, could you tell me what that is?

WV: It’s a really good story. The title of “Let’s Go Exploring!” is a reference to the final Calvin and Hobbes strip; we’re big Calvin and Hobbes fans. We actually found a video on Youtube of a little kid reading it aloud, and we thought, “Wow! This is perfect,” and it just fit perfectly within the song. We just put it to the microphone and played it out, and it adds a childlike nature to that section that I really enjoyed. It was intentionally buried, because we didn’t want to make it too obvious, but it adds to that section.

EB: I’m surprised it turned out as well as it did in the mix, because it’s played out of phone speakers into a pretty bad microphone fed into a tape machine, so it’s band-passed twelve ways to Sunday.

WV: That’s the story. It only has 200 views, but you can find it.

EB: If you look up “final Calvin and Hobbes strip”, you’ll find the video we sampled.

SM: On Bandcamp, you give thanks to “the raccoon that fell through the ceiling”, who I assume graces the cover. I’d love to know more about the raccoon!

EB: I lived in this absolutely terrible apartment; if anyone who reads this is moving to Philadelphia, do not rent an apartment from Madison Park! They’ll let raccoons fall through your ceiling! I moved in, and in the first week I heard scuttling noises from my ceiling; I kept calling the landlord about how there’s an animal up there, but he kept saying there’s nothing he could do about it. Eventually, I started seeing light fixtures get dislodged and little raccoon hands reaching out. I kept calling him like “man, there are raccoons in my ceiling and you’ve got to get them out”, and he kept saying he can’t do anything about it. Eventually, I woke up one morning and I heard a crashing noise and little yelps in the bathroom. I went in, and this raccoon was standing in my sink and turned on the faucet and started bathing in it. I closed the door, and I called my landlord, and I said “you’re going to have hell to pay for this”. Then I called animal control, and this lady showed up with a raccoon cage. She goes into the bathroom, and takes this little guy out of the sink, and puts him in his box. You know what? He was really polite, and I liked him a lot. He was sweet, like a little cat. They took him to a shelter and he was raised there to be released back into the wild. I hope he’s out there alive and well and rummaging through somebody’s trash.

SM: And not their ceiling?

EB: And not in their ceiling! I really hope he’s not in somebody else’s ceiling!

SM: What does a typical day look like for Secret Address?

EB: It’s been a while since we’ve had one, because we’ve been so busy.

WV: I just graduated a couple days ago. We haven’t been recording as much lately because we’ve been busy.

EB: In the next week, we’re going to start recording a lot again.

WV: The thing that’s stayed the same is that we live at this house that’s walkable to everyone, so we stay up until 4 am talking the entire night, and it’s awesome.

EB: We play music and watch silly videos, we see each other every day and there’s a whole group that congregates around this house. We’re all great friends. It’s funny, we haven’t had any of the days I wrote about on this record in a while because we’ve been so busy being in the band. We spend less time idly wandering around than we used to, mostly because it’s 100 degrees all the time now.

WV: Yeah, it’s really hot here.

EB: At this point, a typical day for us is mostly making music and then just hanging out here, noodling on acoustic guitars and watching Youtube videos.

SM: What are both of your desert island picks, your choice of songs or albums?

WV: Pet Sounds, for both of us.

EB: Are we giving one list as a band, or both of us as individuals?

SM: However you prefer.

WV: We both have the Alvvays debut on there.

EB: Do we both have an Olivia Tremor Control record?

WV: Yeah, it would be Black Foliage as a band. We’re both really into the Motifs, they’re this twee group from Australia. They’re just amazing, it’s unreal!

EB: Oh gosh, yes, I’m the One You Love!

WV: We both love Animal Collective, a lot of shoegaze.

EB: Which Animal Collective record?

WV: You like Sung Tongs, and I love that one too. I just love all their music.

EB: We’re on enough of the same page that we could do one as a band. How many picks do we get?

SM: I think we’re on five now. A six-CD changer?

EB: Do you like that Lilys mini-album [ed. note: A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns] enough? I think that one’s great.

WV: I probably have a different shoegaze album.

EB: How about The Pains of Being Pure at Heart?

WV: I think that’s pretty similar to what we’re doing with noisy twee pop.

EB: Maybe I’m just picking it because it’s close to that Airport Girl song, but we can’t desert island pick their only song.

WV: Oh! Prefab Sprout! I’d put Steve McQueen in there.

EB: Yeah, it’s got to be. My honorable mention that Will wouldn’t pick is The Last Match by the Aislers Set.

SM: You talked about starting to record again next week. Is it going to be in line with A Typical Day, or more like your live performance, or more of a stylistic left-turn?

EB: I don’t think I’d call it a “left turn”, but it’s going to be its own thing. We did A Typical Day on a four-track, so it’s in true mono, and it’s very limited. Now we have an eight-track, and we’re bouncing back and forth between the two, so you can expect a stereo image on our future work, and slightly better fidelity. We recently got a Casio SK-5 sampling keyboard from the 80s, and a tape machine with a varispeed knob that you can do loops in. We’re going to be more influenced on the next EP by Elephant 6, like Olivia Tremor Control or of Montreal. It’ll be a bit like laptop twee, but without the laptop, seeing how far we can push cassettes as a medium to make experimental soundscapes. At its base, it’ll still be the bright poppy melodies of the first EP, but we’re trying to expand the palette a bit. 

We’ve got a full length after that, and it’ll be more similar to A Typical Day with better fidelity and a bigger scope, and more influence from Pet Sounds and Brill Building stuff, that can get more delicate and orchestral. We’ve got a lot of sounds we want to explore. Particularly with twee pop and shoegaze, there’s this situation where they were originally derisive terms for bands that considered themselves just “indie pop” bands, making the sounds they wanted to. I think the issue, at least with shoegaze, is when they start a band now they’ll say “we’re a shoegaze band, and that means we need to have octave fuzz and reverse reverb on everything”, whereas the original bands were just doing whatever they wanted, which is what put them outside the box. We just want to do the sounds in our heads, just whatever is exciting to us at the time is what we’ll make.

SM: Is there anything else that you think readers might like to know?

EB: We just wanted to say that we love your website [Indiepop Atlas]; I go on there and read about new bands all the time. I think you do excellent work for the indiepop community; I like that you’re very honest about how you feel about everything. It’s not just a catalog of bands that you do or don’t like, you give these excellent incisive thoughts on everything.

WV: We loved your review of A Typical Day, because it was critical but positive.

EB: I felt like it was exactly the kind of review I wanted. We just wanted to say we appreciate your work as well: we’re big fans. Otherwise, we’d love to play anywhere. Reader, if you book shows, reach out to us! We love playing and we love driving around to new places! It was good to talk to you!

You can listen to A Typical Day out now!