The Driver Era is Always Moving Forward
L'OFFICIEL speaks to Ross and Rocky Lynch about the inspiration and influences behind their new single "Heaven Angel" as well as the duo's upcoming album.
The state of music in recent months has been one of rebirth; so many artists are beginning new eras marked by changes to their sound or style. But for The Driver Era, the music duo featuring brothers Rocky and Ross Lynch, this new period is all about, as their band name would suggest, constantly moving forward.
Released today, “Heaven Angel” combines ‘70s funk and ‘80s pop inserts with a groovy guitar riff culminating in a mid-tempo love song that can’t help but conjure images of spotting a mysterious stranger dancing across a dance floor under a strobe of neon lights. From the subject material, you'd assume there's a backstory there, but Ross says that not the case. He explains, "We just wanted to write a good song."
Playing around on the guitar one day, Ross came up with the beat in a matter of minutes. He says he "literally just started playing it as if it was already written. It just sorta flew through me." From there, the two brothers brought the melody into their home studio. However, as an actor as well, Ross had obligations for his Netflix series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and headed back to Vancouver where Rocky would visit to continue their work on this track and more.
It's clear after a single listen that the Lynch brothers are influenced by a host of genres and decades of music, a fact that they contribute to a number of places, the first being their upbringing. "This is something we don't usually talk about, but we spent a lot of adolescence in dance classes. My first job I ever booked in LA was actually a dance job," says Ross. "Because of that, we were exposed to a lot of various kinds of music while we were growing. Being around music all day, every day was really influential."
Rocky agrees, citing the specific nature of the music they were exposed to as dancers. "There's also something to the songs that choreographers or dance studios tend to pick," he muses. "If there's a song that someone's deciding to choreograph a dance to, which we grew up doing that for a long time, it's usually somehow moving them."
However, even today, the brothers embrace the myriad of musical options instantly available to them thanks to technology. Says Ross, "I also think that [our wide music preference is] a byproduct of just like Spotify, the internet, and all those things. I think more now than ever people will listen to different genres depending on the mood that they're in."
"There's a lot to choose from and a lot to love honestly," Rocky concurs. "The way we make and the way we write it—because we're not just like in just like Oh, here we are in the studio and all we have is our sound which is a guitar and these drums and let's make 12 songs that kinda go in the vibe—when we sit down, everything is available at our fingertips. We can sample something. We can get on some crazy hip-hop drums. We have live drums in our studio now. The end result of the sound is always..."—"progressive," Ross chimes in—"Yeah, it's always something we kinda haven't really heard because it's never just 'Here's how we're doing it. Go.' It's always like, 'Oh, here's this new weird thing."
"New weird thing" seems to be the theme of The Driver Era's upcoming music. With their upcoming album—the title is decided but the brothers are keeping it quiet for now—they're pushing boundaries and their own talents. They wrote and produced the entire record themselves, save for a few remixes they commissioned from some of their "homies" as Rocky puts it. But the men agree this isn't the end of their growth.
"I always feel like there's room to grow. We're always striving," explains Ross, to which his older brother agrees.
"You can finish an entire album, and be like Cool, this is it. Bam. On to the next. But because life always has this..." Rocky trails off. "Incessant craziness," Ross puts in. "Yeah," continues Rocky, "Somehow always wanting more, to get better, to progress, which we kinda were even saying about the sound—it's always progressing—but, in a way, that's also our way of writing and producing and hearing mixes. It's like Oh wait, we could've done that better."
He continues, "There's a weird thing that I've been trying to pay attention to, whether it's an album title or even just working on a song or choosing a snare sound, it's either the right idea or the right sound or it's not. Something is telling you that it's like Oh, that's it. It's moments like that," adding, "It's almost like there is no other option."
As the album comes to a completion, both brothers have found satisfaction with the end result. While they won't give too much away about what fans can expect, Ross says, "All that really can be said about the album is we feel really strongly about it. We're really excited for everyone to hear it. We feel like they're songs that haven't really been heard before."
