by Lauren Rosier
Photo by Alexandra Herstik
South Carolina’s very own Glass Mansions is described on their Facebook page to be “propulsive and elastic, with bubbly pop melodies, lush electronic beds of sound and intelligent, intimate lyrics” that creates a sound like “Annie Lennox going steady with The Neighbourhood.”
One of the most notable bands I’ve heard in awhile are returning to Lancaster’s Launch Music Conference and Festival at the end of the week. Glass Mansions’ lead vocalist, Jayna Doyle, and I recently talked music and the great things to come for the electronic pop/pop rock band over the course of 2016.
Glass Mansions originally began performing under another band name before calling it quits. Following the band’s breakup, Doyle and the other two founding members, Blake and Patrick, decided to form a new band, which resulted in the birth of Glass Mansions.
The quartet, comprised of Doyle, Blake Arambula, Patrick Beardsley, and Johnny Gornati, has a sound all their own, but still garners similarities from pop rock bands like Paramore and others like them.
“We never really set out to be a certain genre, it was just something that we were heavily influenced by. Our shows feel like pop punk shows, our recordings are very pop-influenced. The plot twist is that we want to keep evolving and keep people guessing. When we did our latest EP, Gossip, it was more calculated with more synths as the star of the sound,” Doyle explains.
photo by Denton Cole Cruser
Although, their Gossip EP was released nearly three years ago, Doyle says that the songs still resonate with her now. “I wrote all the lyrics, so it was very cathartic,” she admits. “It still really matches and resonates with us. Over time, you kind of adapt to the emotions. I try to write my lyrics, so that they are relable universally.”
The quartet recently released a new song titled “Matches” that has a little of a different vibe to it if compared to Gossip.
“We kind of got caught up in writing electronic stuff. We started writing ‘Matches’ and it’s been a minute since we wrote a straight-up rock song,” Doyle explains. “We got some really weird feedback from ‘it’s too rock for a pop band’ to ‘it’s too pop for a rock band.’”
If you’ve listened to the band’s Gossip EP and “Matches” on SoundCloud, you can definitely hear that the band is going in a different musical direction with the new track. “It’s full forced, in-your-face, the most aggressive song we’ve written. Our new stuff is a little more different. We’re thinking about it a lot more and we’re writing a little bit smarter. I spend a lot of time on my lyrics and trying to think of metaphors for different things.”
photo by Travis Litke
“Matches” is paving the way for the band’s new material and self-titled EP due later this year.
“Our new music is a little bit more focused. We’ve had time to really think about our sound and what we want to highlight. Gossip was really the first time we focused on electronics. This new stuff is more focused on lyrics and other stuff,” Doyle says.
So this will be the second year that Glass Mansions has attended Launch Music Conference and they’re really excited about the opportunity to perform and mingle with industry experts. Last year was their first conference they played.
“It’s an awesome experience getting to meet people in the industry. [We] met Kevin Lyman [founder of the Vans Warped Tour] and he was the nicest guy,” Doyle reveals.
Catch Glass Mansions’ set on the outdoor Penn Square stage Saturday night at 9 PM. They’ll be sure to rock your faces off.
