PREMIERE: Mike Mains & the Branches return w/ "Breathing Underwater"

Mike Mains & the Branches is an indie rock band that has been around for nearly 10 years now, but after taking some time off, the band is gearing up to release some new music.

Their debut album, Home, was released in 2010 and then re-released in 2012, at which point they garnered a large, loyal following while performing with acts like Relient K and Hellogoodbye. Founding members Mike Mains and Shannon Briggs fell in love, got married, and minted the focal experience of the bands subsequent music and lyrics: the swirling highs and lows of spending life together.

Mike Mains & the Branches released their second album, Calm Down, Everything Is Fine, back in 2014 after a successful crowd-funding campaign. However, life got in the way and all of the sudden five years pass in the blink of an eye. Now, the band is gearing up to release their new album, When We Were In Love, on April 5th via Tooth & Nail Records. The new record is an incredibly personal account of the heartache that one experiences while going through a marital rough patch, and ultimately the joy that comes from the rebuilding of said marriage. The process of recording the record was a process of counseling for Mains, who was advised by his therapist to look at writing and recording as a way to get through his pain. “I finally felt brave enough to explore that pain, and a lot of this record feels like someone eavesdropping,” he explains.

Today, we are excited to team up with Mike Mains & the Branches to premiere their new single, “Breathing Underwater.” The track is a perfect example of Mains using the writing process as a way of working through his own pain, though musically it is an upbeat, instantly catchy indie track. “The song eavesdrops on some of my therapy sessions,” begins Mains. “In therapy we talked a lot about kintsugi and so that helped inspire a lot of things on the album, including the album art and some of the things in this video as well. It’s a song about forgiveness and regret and it’s kind of a big fat apology.”

Expanding on the video, Mains explains “We wanted to play around with symbolism and play on the relationships throughout the album. Shannon and Robbie, our drummer and the director for the video, took the lead on it. We wanted to capture the tension and brokenness in failing relationships, whether it’s a lover or just a friend. The imagery I had while writing the song was from this Zach Braff movie called ‘The Last Kiss’. He sleeps on the porch for like three nights, begging his wife for forgiveness and his wife takes him back.

You can pre-order When We Were In Love from Mike Mains & the Branches here, and find the album artwork and track-listing below.

When We Were In Love artwork: