Minneapolis-based she’s green combines achingly sweet vocals with lush, nature-inspired synth-scapes in a discography toeing the line between shoegaze and dreampop. In our interview with the band, the band’s members explained how they developed their own terminology–“moss music–to describe a shoegaze sound that captures the sensation of being immersed in nature. Cinematic guitars and achingly sweet vocals painted the band’s early efforts in 2022 with “Mandy” and “Smile Again,” culminating in the release of the band’s debut EP, “Wisteria” in 2023. 

she’s green has announced their upcoming EP, Chrysalis — their first project in over two years — set for release on August 15, 2025. Ahead of the EP, she’s green shared single “Willow” today, accompanying the release with a music video. We had the opportunity to speak with she’s green about their evolving sound, sonic and natural inspirations, and plans for new music–keep reading to hear more!

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Chloe Gonzales (ugly hug): You guys are from the Midwest, love the representation. I was wondering how the Midwest scene compares to the other scenes that you’ve seen since touring.

Raines Lucas:  We were just talking about this not that long ago, because it’s pretty different. I don’t know if we have a great idea of the scene, but we were comparing it to LA a lot because we were there for a week. And generally, I think the take home points were that there’s a lot more DIY stuff. But also the DIY community is like one whole community, it’s a big enough city to have a vibrant music scene but small enough that all the different genres and artists know each other and play together, it’s genuinely very tight knit. And talking to bands from other cities, I think that they haven’t had the same experience.

Teddy Nordvold: From what I’ve heard from other musicians from different scenes, is that the Minneapolis scene really seems to be so much more interconnected with each other and with a sense of everyone. Maybe a weird analogy, but everyone is kind of doing it for the love of the game, everyone really puts down for each other simply as a means onto itself, just because they love the fact that they’re making music in their own scene together, just lifting each other up. And I think that’s really beautiful. There’s a really huge breadth of different genres and people with talent and multiple disciplines of art forms. It’s super creative, super welcoming, and it’s beautiful to be a part of.

CG (ugly hug): Are there any other genres that you guys tap into in the community?

TN: I myself have been really loving the wave of hardcore and metal core that kids are doing now. There’s bands of high schoolers who are like 15, 16 that are absolutely blowing my mind. There’s this band of teenagers from Minneapolis called xSERAPHx and they’re all like 14, 15, 16 years old. The vocalist of this band, his dad was a metalcore artist in the 90s and 2000s. These kids just put out this EP and it kicks ass. I went to the release show for the EP and my jaw was on the floor, I could not believe what I was seeing.

CG (ugly hug): Was the crowd moshing and everything?

TN: Yes, and they were just as young as the kids in the band. I was like, “Holy shit, the kids are alright.” It was incredible.

Ava London (ugly hug): Super cool– I feel like right now we are seeing discourse about how young people just don’t have any concert etiquette because COVID took everyone out of live music for so long. That’s cool that kids that age can use that outlet.

How do you guys find yourself balancing these sort of nostalgic sounds? I definitely picked up some influences perhaps My Bloody Valentine, Lush, sort of that shoegaze-y 90s sound. And then how do you balance that with what you have coined moss music, this new take that you’ve developed as a band?

Liam Armstrong: We are definitely into more ambient music, at least myself, and I’ve always loved movie scores and things like that. So I think a lot of where my influences come from are from film or visual art.

Zofia Smith: It’s definitely more of a cinematic sound and there’s a lot going on in our music, which I love, but it can be hard to have that perfect balance. We want it to feel kind of like you’re dreaming or there’s this whole scene that you’re envisioning in your mind.

RL: I feel like the dreampop stuff is more of the sound style, but the moss music is like the sound feeling if that makes sense. It might sound like shoegaze, but a lot of shoegaze has different vibes, like it would sound good if you were in an empty warehouse or something. It’s [moss music] more like if you’re hanging out in a forest by a river. Teddy said moss music out of nowhere, but it kind of stuck, because moss just brings the same kind of vibe that I feel like we bring to songwriting sometimes.

LA: I think we want every song to feel like a microcosm, like you’re looking down at this piece of moss and it’s like a miniature forest. 

CG (ugly hug): You guys mentioned in another interview that you have a sonic medium for nature and I was curious about what soundscapes you wanted to encapsulate now. It seems more forest and I wondered if seasons played into it, etc.

LA: I think it’s all very encompassing. We draw from this aesthetic of nature but at the end of the day we are all part of it and existing in it. 

TN: I would say that, at least for me, some of the songs that we’re working on now for this next release, they’re giving more prairie than forest. For some of the other songs, they’re feeling a lot more like grasslands.

CG (ugly hug): Would you say “Figurines” is more [prairie]?

RL: That one’s honestly giving me nighttime.

LA: I think of like a musty basement with a bunch of dolls in it.

ZS: Yeah, it’s in a different place than I can mention but— wow I’m looking at a field of dandelions right now and this is making me think of a couple of new songs that we have coming out. [ZS is sitting in a park]

LA: To add one, we did a lot of these songs when it was still winter so I think a lot of them do reflect more scarce, more barren soundscapes.

ZS: I feel like they have nighttime music too, because a lot of times right in the winter, it’s very introspective because we’re inside a lot and we just have to look inward. Wintertime is also just very gorgeous but I think for some reason like nighttime is an introspective time for me.

TN: I’d agree with that. Some of these songs came from the cabin session, right? We rented a little cabin in Lake Superior in Wisconsin for a little bit. Some of the songs that we’re working on right now that are gearing up to release came from those sessions, which was in the wintertime. Another one of the songs that we’re still working on right now, I remember listening to a take on voice memo and was walking to get food from my old place in uptown. It had just snowed that night and so everything was all sparkly with the street lights in the moon and listening to that just in that reflective, shining environment, It was like real life synesthesia almost. It was so cool.

ZS: We have a lot of emotional nature moments whatever time of day and whatever season. It’s hard to pick a certain part of that but we’re tapped into Mother Nature.

AL (ugly hug): You guys teased a little bit about music potentially coming out soon and I wanted to follow up– you guys signed to Photo Finish [Records] earlier this year and I’m just curious about how much you can tell us about what’s coming next! Anything that’s coming and growing with you guys since that signing, which is super exciting.

LA: I think we’re all super excited to be touring as much as we are, we have like two tours lined up. And I feel like since we signed, it was kind of this milestone where we’re in this now and going to really take it seriously, this is what we want to do.

RL: We do have new stuff coming out soon, sooner than people think.

LA: I think we’ll always have visual elements to every release that we do because we’re just really into that.

TN:  I got to give props to Liam’s visual eye as well. He’s a very accomplished visual artist. An amazing eye, capturing the essence of what the vibe is or what we’re going for.

CG (ugly hug): I’m glad that y’all mentioned visuals because I wanted to talk about them – looking at your Instagram it’s very cohesive and definitely goes back to nature, such as your photoshoots. You guys have an eye for what you want.

LA: That’s good to hear because I think sometimes we’re a little worried about how good [it looks].

CG (ugly hug): I also love the photographer you guys worked with!

RL: Our label connected us with Jaxon, he’s the best.

AL (ugly hug): I was gonna ask how it was working [with him]. Just being LA based, we see him everywhere shooting the scene that he shoots. I just thought that photoshoot was super beautiful.

RL: We were nervous, but it was by far the best photoshoot we’ve ever done. He’s the chillest guy.

CG (ugly hug): I thought of Twilight for some reason in that photoshoot. Is there a movie that you guys would love to score?

ZS: That’s funny, Jaxon had mentioned that people say his photoshoots look like they’re in Twilight. 

I really love Portrait of a Lady on Fire, but I feel like that’s very slow. That would be fun to do a piano score.

LA: There’s a nature documentary that’s about smaller microbiotic things, that would be cool.

TN: Going off of that, I’m a huge fan of the Planet Earth series, specifically the Blue Earth, the ocean based underwater documentaries.

LA: I feel like we could also kill something in the vein of Donnie Darko or something.

ZS: I really love those 90s, like witchcraft movies, like The Craft.

AL (ugly hug): I was doing a bit of digging and saw you guys released “Graze” earlier this year. I saw somewhere that you guys had the opportunity to work with Slow Pulp’s Henry Stoehr. I was curious if having that sort of collaboration affected your sound, if at all. I feel like listening to “Graze” you get a lot of textures and layers. What was the influence and how did that go for you?

RL: I always steal this question, because I’m his biggest fan. He’s a great guy. We met in Madison and met his mom and got connected, then just started to become acquaintances over time. And he was always very supportive of she’s green. He would slide up on my stories and be like, “This song bangs! This is great.” So, he has always been a really nice guy. But we needed to record these songs and we were thinking about who to record them with. And the story goes, Zofia and I saw Slow Pulp in Madison, Wisconsin and were very inspired. One of my all time favorite bands, no doubt. But we were very inspired and on the way back we were listening to demos of songs we had never worked on. And there was one called “Graze” that was sent a long time ago, almost a year. We were like, “How have we never worked on this, this is cool.” And we went back and worked on it and we’re definitely inspired after the concert and then we got to record it with the dude who records and plays in Slow Pulp. So it was a very full circle moment. Very cute story I would say.

ZS: It was very comfortable and it was funny because he felt like like one of us when we were recording with him. Just felt like he was in the band with us, which was so great. Such a good guy.

AL (ugly hug): That’s super cool that you guys had that collaboration opportunity and that mentorship! By any chance will he be making a return to she’s green projects in the future.

LA: We would love to for sure.

Interview by Chloe Gonzales and Ava London