Drew Thomson has one of the most unique approaches to fronting a band of anyone I know. His longrunning project, Single Mothers, has never made the same record twice. Not even close. It’s covered the sonic spectrum, from the blistering hardcore on 2014’s Negative Qualities to the experimental freeform uhhh dubstep (?) sounds on 2021’s Bubble. Single Mothers has also not held the same lineup from album to album. Thomson views Single Mothers less like a band and more like a musical experiment, inviting a rotating roster of trusted musician friends to come in and add what they want to it. You never know what you’re going to get with a new Single Mothers record. Even he’s not sure what it’ll sound like until he starts making it. He summed it up really well for me recently: “I tend to think of each album as a blank canvas, where we open up some paints and see what colors they are.”
So on the release of Single Mothers’ new album, Roy, I talked to Drew about his approach to making art, kicking against expectations, how he writes lyrics on the fly in the studio (which seems absolutely insane to me), and our shared love of the often overlooked alt-rock icons, Everclear. Listen above or anywhere you listen to podcasts: Spotify, Apple, etc.
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