Admittedly, I was a little late to the VALLEY party. I didn’t catch onto the band until I saw them open for The Band CAMINO in September of 2019. However, it was evident then that I had been missing out on something special.
VALLEY have always aimed to use their voice and platform to candidly speak about finding the positive in life, and making fans feel less alone in an ever-challenging world. The connection they’ve built with their fans has helped build an organic buzz throughout the internet despite a discography that only contains a pair of self-written and self-produced releases under their belt.
While having just released their debut album, MAYBE, in September of 2019, VALLEY is ready to show fans what they’ve got in store. And Substream is thrilled to be playing a part of that, by exclusively teaming up with the band to premiere their new single, “nevermind,” today.
Like many of their songs before it, “nevermind” is built to capture and normalize the conversations that surround the barriers and struggles we experience as we transition from our youth to adulthood. The track focuses specifically on the way perfectionism can manifest into negativity or depression. Driven by vivid imagery and synth-drenched hooks, and built to spiral around headphones, the song discusses the pressure we place on ourselves as we try to achieve more.
“‘Nevermind’ is a song about the cyclical feelings of self pity, apathy, and being an introvert. It describes wavering between a romanticized version of your life and the ’sad’ reality of it. It alludes to the ‘grass is greener’ mentality where you envision your destination but ultimately not having the self-motivation to attempt to reach a higher potential for yourself,” VALLEY’s Karah James tells Substream.
“How many times have you woken up and thought to yourself ‘nope, not today,'” Mickey Brandolino adds. “That’s the lyrical narrative the song starts with. ‘I woke up glued to the mattress’ is such a feeling in your 20’s, and frankly at all ages for many people. We always have so much to do and as creatives have constant bursts of motivation and many lows as well. We happened to find motivation to write a song about the lows, which is ironic in itself haha. The lyrics of the chorus really sum up the song, it’s about looking for something that you’ll never find, and when you start looking for it you just put it off and say nevermind, I’ll do it tomorrow. It’s like clicking “remind me tomorrow” when your computer prompts you for an update. I think it’s a feeling that people struggle with your whole life and we are all still trying to navigate it. Sometimes it’s just easier to feel nothing.“
The track was mixed by Josh Gudwin (Justin Bieber), and VALLEY’s Alex Dimauro explains that it is “a song that melodically and lyrically summarizes a feeling felt throughout much of our generation. Its like throwing on an episode of a show that revolves around one plot: constantly looking for the next best thing. We do this sometimes to a point where it makes us almost want to give up on getting up in the morning. It’s a relatable feeling that I know I’ve definitely felt before.”
“I feel like with Valley we’ve always strived for the perfect happy and sad song. ‘Nevermind’ is a direct representation of playing with that idea. The song covers a stricter mental health narrative but also leaves the listener room to feel high energy production-simultaneously processing a topic about trying to find an emotion that doesn’t really exist,” Rob Laska also tells Substream. “In my head I imagine myself running around a house almost styled black and white like a Hitchcock film, it’s slightly comical too. The first verse especially -we talk about looking for something that physically can only exist within us…not in a room or in a basement or in a bed or on tv. I love that irony, the irony of searching for sadness to feel something. How many times do you put on a sad song purposely to feel something?“
