Murfreesboro, Tennessee based trio Poorlydrawn have been creating their own brand of indie rock music over the last few years and recently released their debut album “you look good in earth tones” which you can check out here.
I caught up with band members Walker Stiglets, Margaret Hamby and Mason Dye to talk about their early musical memories, how they got together and the making of the album.
CMM-What was the first music that really made an impact on you as kids and what artists or bands did you all enjoy the most?
Walker: The earliest musical memory I have was being a toddler and hearing songs off of the first Gorillaz album. I would come to the place where my mom bartended, and I would endlessly play stuff (mostly Gorillaz) on the Jukebox. As I got a little older, I mostly listened to a lot of grunge; Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, all shown to me by my dad. When I was a teenager, also around the time when I started playing guitar, I got really into The Strokes, Radiohead, Car Seat Headrest, and Mac Demarco. I’ve continued to carry all of these influences into adulthood, the biggest being Car Seat Headrest.
Margaret: As a kid, the Beatles were my favorite band of all time and had a huge influence on me and the music I liked growing up. As a teenager I got really into Black Sabbath, which I consider to be my biggest inspiration today as a bassist/musician.
Mason: Vampire Weekend was the first album I ever bought on my IPod, and they’re such a huge influence for me today. Huge range and they keep coming back with a new twist on each album. Also, the Jet Set Radio soundtrack was always on repeat for me.
CMM-How did the band start writing songs and developing your own sound?
Walker: poorlydrawn started in 2019, when I was 16 years old, as my own solo project. It was this very intimate, low fidelity sound very heavily inspired by early Car Seat Headrest and Starry Cat. Most of the vocals were recorded on a cheap gaming headset, and it sounds like it. I recorded a lot of stuff like that between 2019 and 2023 but didn’t really put any of it out except for the original version of “Nico”, the songs on the Adore demo tape, and the title track on You Look Good In Earth Tones. In 2022 – 2023, Margaret and I started jamming together – it all started with a cover of “Mary” by Alex G. We started playing some songs I was writing or had already written, and she’d write bass parts for everything. Later in 2023, at a Halloween party, we asked our friend Mason if he’d like to join us as a drummer. We started practicing together and developing those songs I had written and played our first show in July of 2024.
Typically, Margaret and I will noodle around and come up with an idea for a song, then we’ll bring it to Mason and complete it together. I don’t mean to brag or anything, but I personally feel we’re very in tune with eachother when it comes to writing or practicing anything new. We’ll play whatever idea we’ve got, and then Mason puts out the perfect drum part to it in just a few runs of the song.
As a band, I feel we have a pretty broad sound that’s caused in part by our own individual inspirations. All three of us have an overlapping music taste, but we definitely have our own niches that we really dedicate listening to. We also don’t devote ourselves to one specific sound, but everything still fits nicely under that Indie Rock blanket. Taillights and Femurs are pretty straightforward indie rock tracks, Nico (bury me) borders on My Bloody Valentine levels of shoegaze, Glasshouse Hymn and Dream Song channel emo and post-hardcore, Monte Sano and Resent go back to that lofi singer songwriter vibe that it all started with.
Margaret: Walker writes pretty much all of the songs from lyrics to the melody. We usually jam on whatever Walker has written and build onto it until it becomes a solid song. Walker and I have been jamming on songs for a few years now, and that’s kind of how the idea for the band started.
Mason: I originally joined the band when they came to me asking to practice playing the songs Walker had written for a live show. At first, it was just me coming up with drum parts to fit the songs, but the more we practiced, we refined the writing of the individual parts. We eventually started reworking some of those songs in practice and then writing some new ones as a band.
CMM-You recently released an album called “You Look Good In Earth Tones”. What was the writing and recording process like and were there any particular pieces of gear you used to get the sound you were looking for?
Walker: Many of the songs on You Look Good In Earth Tones were songs I had written years ago. Its not always the same, but the way I usually write is by taking a song or two I really like and making my own version out of it. I’ll start with that and by the end of the process, the song morphs into its own thing. For example, our song Glasshouse Hymn was inspired by Title Fight’s “Head in the Ceiling Fan” and Merchant Ships’ “Sleep Patterns”. My initial idea for Taillights was that it would be very rambly, akin to something like “Braindrops” by Tropical Fuck Storm, but it didn’t even remotely turn out that way by the end (which I’m glad for). In any case, I would take these ideas to Margaret and Mason, who would put their own parts on, and then we’d come together to flesh out and tweak things where needed.
For every track other than Monte Sano, the title track, and Resent, we recorded everything simultaneously as if it was live. We wanted to have a raw, genuine sound that would sound like what you would hear live. Plus, it feels much more natural to us rather than going back and recording track by track. The idea was brought to us by Jake Martino, who recorded, mixed and mastered half of the record (Taillights, Femurs, Black Mucus, Pink, and Glasshouse Hymn). We recorded those songs in his home studio, where we ran my amp out to another room, put a mic on it, recorded bass through DI, and had the drum kit recorded right there in the main room. We just ran through the songs together and had everything done in about 3 takes per song, then came back and did vocals and guitar doubles after. Dream song and Nico (Bury Me) were recorded using the same method nearly half a year later at MTSU Studio B by our friend Mahi Parsai. Mahi printed the masters of those songs on tape to give it a nice vintage sound. Monte Sano and Resent were recorded in my bedroom using nothing but a Shure SM57 and DI for the bass and electric guitar. The title track dates back to 2019, the acoustic guitar recorded with a headset mic and DI for the electric guitar.
I used a Variax Pod XT multi-effects board and a Boss Katana-100 for my guitar tone. On the board, I used a Killer X2 emulator for distortion, a tape delay effect for the more reverb-laden parts, and a really nasty tape flutter effect specifically for Dream Song and Nico. The five songs we recorded with Jake were played on my Fender Telecaster, and the songs with Mahi were on my Guild Surfliner Deluxe. The lead part in Monte Sano was on a cheap Jazzmaster. Margaret played the bass parts on a Washburn bass and a knock-off Rickenbacker 4001 through a NUX Brownie distortion pedal.
Mason: The album is a collection of songs Walker already had on standby, with a few new ones thrown in. Some were really spontaneous, like Dream Song. They came to me with the guitar and bass parts already written, and I just reworked the structure and drum part to fit as a short song. It took maybe 20 minutes to become an actual song.
CMM-If you could do a score for any film director, who would it be and what would the film be about?
Walker: I’m not as much of a filmhead as Mason or Margaret, but the first thing that comes to mind would be a Jane Schoenbrun movie, like I Saw the TV Glow. Something indie, something about coming of age.
Margaret: I think it would be cool to do the soundtrack for a quirky coming of age movie about teenagers getting up to shit, maybe a Wes Anderson movie or Jared Hess.
Mason: Edgar Wright. He knows how to work with music, so any movie with him would be great. I’d like to see a good antihero on the run with a punk or garage rock soundtrack.
CMM-Anything coming up?
We haven’t announced it yet, but we do have an exciting show in Kentucky this December where we’ll be playing with some friends of ours. Beyond that, we’re taking a step back and reserving our energy for next year; all three of us are in school at MTSU and are taking time to focus more on school for the rest of the semester. We just finished the busiest period we’ve ever had as a band; an album release and 6 Nashville shows within the past two months. We’ve got some ideas for new material that we plan on fleshing out over the winter and will be back up and playing more frequently late winter/early spring. We’re also making more merch, so be on the lookout for that. We might also work on a cover EP or something similar for fun; we love our covers and especially making our own little twists on the songs.
