Soccer Mommy’s Roots Are ‘Evergreen’
For Soccer Mommy – the musical project of Nashville songwriter and musician Sophie Allison — new album Evergreen was an opportunity to go back to her roots. “Honestly, I felt really good going into it,” Allison tells PAPER when asked how she felt heading into the studio for her fourth album. “Mentally I was in a good space. The album, even from the demo state felt really personal and raw, which felt different than the last album.”
Soccer Mommy’s last album, 2022’s Sometimes, Forever was less about going into the depths, seeing what was there, “figuring out myself,” as Allison explains it, adding that keeping it light was “super fun.”
“It carried a lot less weight,” she says. “This time it had a lot of weight, but I felt excited and inspired to record. I had all these ideas. The songs had so much depth, and I wanted it to be hyper-specific.” Where she typically went into the studio with an ear for experimentation, this time around, she stayed focused on what she wanted to create. “It was nice to have a particular image. I wanted to create a specific sonic world that wasn’t the most crazy, experimental thing, but I wanted to get it right.”
With this goal in mind, the itch she wanted the album to scratch was for Allison a “feeling.” “It’s a feeling I get when I’m listening to certain music. On that first day of spring, driving around listening to music with the windows down. For me that’s Emmy Lou Harris, or Lucinda Williams, or jangly ’90s dreamy music that has an airy, lifting feeling. I wanted to capture that, I wanted it to feel like just atmosphere that’s adding to the emotional weight of everything.”
You can get a sense of that feeling on “M,” as Allison’s voice climbs slowly over slow-building guitar strings, and she outlines the agony of loss, singing, “And I don’t mind spending time on a lie/ But it’s taking all I have to give.”
“It was the first song I wrote that felt like a totally different thing,” Allison says of “M,” the song that sparked the creation of the album. “It sonically felt like it was sitting in a different space from the last stuff that I was writing. I was really excited to do something clean, pretty and the opposite of what I’d just done. That song was the moment where I was like, ‘I think I see where I can take this.'”
Below, PAPER talks to Allison about Evergreen, writing songs that turn feelings into concrete expressions and how she was able to get so vulnerable four albums in.
What was it about Sometimes, Forever, from creating the album to touring it, made you want to make something more concise?
I had things happen in my life that inspired me to write about different topics. Even looking at Sometimes, Forever I was in such a different place in my life. A way more chaotic place, and I’m happy that I got a lot out of that. It’s a lot more peaceful for me [now] on a day-to-day basis. I wanted to do something simple again. [On my second album] Color Theory I was going for all of these exciting things. After [my debut] Clean, I just had so many ideas and all of this production and that was great. i wanted to take it even further for Sometimes, Forever and let these songs go into a new zone. I think at the end of the day, that’s not my bread and butter. I love making songs like that, and I’m never going to stop writing songs like that. It stimulates another part of my brain. But my true to my core songwriting is working through my thoughts and feelings and trying to get concrete expressions of what’s constantly circling over my head all the time. That brings me a lot of peace and satisfaction. I wanted to go back to that feeling of writing in my bedroom without these grand ideas of what I could do with it.
Speaking of writing, and specifically the themes of loss in a track like “M” — does that process feel cathartic or necessary?
It’s necessary. It’s something I’ve been doing since I was so young. I’m not a big talk-about-my-feelings person. I keep it very insular. That’s the way I like to process stuff, how I figure out things when I have conflicting thoughts. I think, particularly with something like loss, I just wanted to understand how I was feeling better. I wanted to say something that felt like all the things you wish you could say to someone. Also just try to sort through all of the things and find out every little bit of how I feel.
What were some of the other tracks that validated the direction you were going in?
“Some Sunny Day” and “Changes.” In the studio, they were big changes. “Changes,” I didn’t even know if I was going to put it on the record because it was older and I couldn’t imagine it differently than the demo which was just me and my guitar. It took a leap with these lush songs, and I don’t think I’ve ever done anything like that on a record before. “Some Sunny Day,” too, it feels breezy, light and it’s still grooving, it’s hitting, the drums sound amazing. It has a softness. I feels to me like sunlight, with the same kind of warmth and brightness. Those were both songs we worked on super early, where I was like “I see where we’re going with this, everything’s going to be OK.” My anxiety calmed down. I always have anxiety going in that I’ll make something and then be like, “this is not what I wanted,” but that’s never happened.
Four albums in, how are you feeling about putting Evergreen into the world, knowing that you’re doing in a different direction?
I feel nervous. I’m excited but also, release week is always… I’m always such a wreck. No matter what happens I’ll be a wreck for two days. Then I’m gonna be fine. With this album especially, because the production isn’t like the last album, with all this flash, that’s helping the songs but covering the intimacy — which was the goal. But making something so intimate and at the forefront. All the songs are just right there. There isn’t a lot of glitz to add magic to them. It’s really relying on the core of the song. It’s a little more vulnerable. If someone doesn’t like it, it’s a little knife to the heart.
Do you feel like you could’ve been this vulnerable before now? Or did it take three other albums before you could do it without the glitz?
I don’t know if I could do it before now. Really early on, I was doing demos on Bandcamp, and that was very stripped and intimate. But I think I love production so much, pop music, electronic music, and messing around with all these different genres. So I don’t think I would have consistently wanted to do something so raw before. I don’t think I would have had the consistency in my life to do that. I think there’s a lot of writing different songs at different times and throwing them on the same album. It feels good to do something straightforward and focused and not throw a wrench in the middle. It’s decisive. I don’t think I have that decisiveness most of the time, and I don’t know if I’ll have it in the future. But I have it right now.
Photography: Zhamak Fullad
For Soccer Mommy – the musical project of Nashville songwriter and musician Sophie Allison — new album Evergreen was an opportunity to go back to her roots. “Honestly, I felt really good going into it,” Allison tells PAPER when asked how she felt heading into the studio for her fourth album. “Mentally I was in…