In a time of uncertainty, Los Angeles pop trio Trousdale offer an optimistic, musical light. Composed of Quinn D’Andrea, Georgia Greene and Lauren Jones, Trousdale are steadily cementing themselves as one of indie music’s most cathartic and exciting groups through their infectious blend of country and pop. As they mix elements of Americana folk with harmonious pop melodies, the rising stars offer a musicality that is as nostalgic and ethereal as it is grounding and emotive.
Following the release of their renowned 2023 debut LP Out Of My Mind, Trousdale are now gearing up for the release of their sophomore album Growing Pains, out April 11 via Independent Co. Inspired by the stress and hardship that comes with balancing life on the road with your own physical and mental well being, Growing Pains is a healing and defining body of work from the group.
Ahead of the album’s release, the trio have released four singles — “Growing Pains,” “Want Me Back,” “Over and Over,” and “Secondhand Smoke” — all of which convey themes of heartbreak, relationships and mental health. By decorating such vulnerable, melancholic lyrical content with glittering pop harmonies, Trousdale are a band that shine bright in their own sonic sparkle.
Co-produced by John Mark Nelson, Growing Pains conveys a significant level of growth from the L.A. natives as they embrace a heightened country twang within their unique take on indie pop. Exuding a timeless artistry, Trousdale hold a vast array of musical influences — everything from the Y2K country sound of The Chicks to the classic rock vocal prowess of Queen. As a band who is as intentional with their music as they are with their onstage presence and relationship with fans, there is no doubt that Trousdale is on the rise to become one of pop music’s brightest bundle of stars.
Following the release of Growing Pains, Trousdale will embark on their North American headlining Growing Pains Tour, where they will make their way throughout the U.S. and Canada this spring and summer. With Beane and Nia Ashleigh as support, $1 from every ticket sold will go directly towards Los Angeles wildfire relief efforts.
Though it only marks their second full-length studio album, Trousdale have no signs of slowing down any time soon. A band who are constantly evolving, Growing Pains is a fearless display of growth, healing and change from an outfit composed of three strong, independent women who all offer their own unique strengths to create Trousdale.
Ahead of their new album and headline tour, D’Andrea, Greene and Jones sat down with Melodic Magazine to discuss how they recorded a more live sound on Growing Pains, why advocacy is so crucial to the band and just how much The Powerpuff Girls might have influenced their signature look.
Thank you all so much! I’m very excited to talk about everything coming up for you. Your Growing Pains Tour is coming up soon following the album’s release on April 11. What are you all most looking forward to with these shows?
Quinn: I’m so excited to go back out on the road. I think it’s been a minute since we’ve done a full-length tour, especially a headlining tour, and it’s always so fun. It’s exhausting, but every night being on stage and connecting with people is so reinvigorating at the same time. And this is our first bus tour, so I think it’s just going to look very different. I think we’ve all stepped it up on our side in terms of our preparation for it and how we’re going about the tour that I’m really excited for the audience to see it. We have a new VIP experience that we’re doing, and the show is already very thought out.
You say this new show for the tour is very intentional and well thought out. For somebody who’s never seen you live before — without giving too much away — what can they expect at a typical Trousdale show?
Georgia: Hopefully they can feel really safe. That’s something that matters a lot to us, is cultivating an environment where anyone can make a friend in the crowd and feel really seen by our music. We’ll take you on a journey. There’s a lot of happy, confident, strong female songs — a ‘no bullshit from the men’ kind of vibe — and then there’s also a lot of heartbreak songs, and there’s a lot of songs about mental health. With that being said, all the songs can be about whatever you want them to be about, however they hit you. But we’re going to be very honest through our music. And we’ll be very goofy with each other. Hopefully you just have a great freaking time. You dance, you meet a friend and you cry a little bit.
I love that! The new album Growing Pains talks so much about a variety of themes, such as loss and heartbreak. How is it different from your previous album Out Of My Mind?
Lauren: We did a totally different approach to recording this record than the first one. We worked with our friend John Mark Nelson on co-producing the whole album. Something that we’ve gotten a lot from fans at shows is people will say, ‘I love your recorded music, but when you play live it just is a whole different level. I prefer your live sound to your recorded sound.’ So we kind of took that and were wondering how could we try to incorporate more of a live element that people love from our shows into the recorded space. We did that with the rhythm section, and I think it has a little bit more of a cohesive sound than our first record for that same reason. Whatever people loved about Out Of My Mind, they’ll still find it in this record, but we explore some more corners of our weird genre that we’ve created for ourselves.
You mention John Mark Nelson, who helped with this album, and I feel like he was such an influence on the project. What was it like working with him and how did he impact you all while making this project?
Quinn: He made our lives so much easier doing this. We worked with him on two songs on the last album, “Placebo” and “Movie Star,” and we kind of accidentally got set up with him. We were supposed to write with him and one other person, and the other person cancelled on us, so we almost cancelled the session until a mutual friend of ours and John’s was like, ‘You should really still write with John Mark.’ So we kept the date and went in with him, and it was just the beginning of such a wonderful relationship. He has such a way of keeping perspective and holding true to what his opinions are but also respecting the fact that it’s our project. We’re extremely hands on and we don’t want to hand something over to someone else to do for us, and he really understood that role and embraced it so well. He also did a lot of the side jobs that we were all having to do on the last album ourselves so we could keep the vision clear and keep moving forward without getting sidetracked with things.
It’s such a great thing when an artist can find a producer who they mesh with and work with really well. Going off of that, Growing Pains lyrically focuses on working in the music industry and how tough it can become. When the industry gets stressful, what do you do to ground yourself or find joy?
Lauren: I love that. I’m needing some of that right now (laughs). Definitely exercise for me. Working out is something that always helps me get back into some sort of routine. I think also just trying to zoom out and really have some perspective of the fact that we do music for a living, and it should be fun and that’s the goal. And just realizing at the end of the day everything is going to feel better, and it’s going to be presented better the more fun that we’re having. I think it’s just trying to maintain that perspective while also doing all the basics of taking care of our mental health and our physical health.
Georgia: I feel like writing about it and talking to your friends about it is part of the therapeutic process for me of saying, ‘This career is exhausting. These are the growing pains that I’m going through.’ That’s part of why we thought it would be a good title for the album. That theme runs through all the different things we experience in life, and in life part of the way we process things is we talk about them with each other. One of the cool things about this band is we’re three friends, so we were just talking about the growing pains of our careers, and of course the three of us are like, ‘I know what you’re talking about. I just got off the road with you.’ So it’s very therapeutic in that way. But other things I would say are hanging out with friends and talking about random stuff that has nothing to do with music.
Quinn: Getting outside too. I feel like we spend so much time inside when we’re working. For me it’s walking outside and doing little mundane things for my own life that have nothing to do with music. And reading. Reading a lot makes me happy.
One thing that I admire about your music is that you talk about melancholy topics, but you make the songs sound so joyful and optimistic. How do you take sadder subject matter and turn it into these cathartic anthems?
Georgia: That’s so nice that you say that, and it makes me really try to think about how that naturally happens. I don’t think it’s an intentional pre-songwriting thought, but I do think that when you’re writing alone about something that’s personal, it’s way easier for it to become really sad. Because you don’t have any outside perspective to be a bird’s-eye view of the song. I think a lot of these songs, if they are more personal subject matter to one of us, having three perspectives on a song does immediately help with getting out of your own personal blocks that can come in the musical arrangement of a song.
Lauren: I think something that we also bring with the three of us being good friends and talking about our issues together is there ends up being a lot of humor in it. Even when we’re all complaining and struggling, there’s a little bit of a, ‘We have it so hard. We get to do music for a living (laughs).’ But it is hard, and I think going back and forth with each other brings a sense of brevity to the topic and adds to the songwriting process and brings some more lightness in the music.
You do have such a unique sound in your music as well; you always have combined pop melodies with country music, and it’s such a unique blend. Who are your favorite artists, and who were the biggest influences when it came to making this album?
Lauren: There’s just so many, but I would say one that we’ve been talking about a lot, specifically with “Growing Pains,” is Queen. The amazing vocal arrangements of Freddie Mercury were definitely an inspiration for that song. Fleetwood Mac too. We’re always looking to them. I feel like they’ve become a tried and true reference for us just because, in a lot of ways, they were genreless as well. They really toyed between country, rock and pop and I think that’s where we see ourselves bouncing back and forth between.
Trousdale has such a distinct sound, but you also have a unique look as well. How did you initially find the inspiration for the band’s signature pink, blue and green outfits?
Lauren: We had already been gravitating towards brighter colors, and then we were talking about The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band — another great era of a band that had a distinct look. A friend of ours recommended that we check out this place called Big Bud Press. They have these amazing hand-dyed pieces, and we were looking at their jumpsuits at the time. We went to their store, tried on a bunch of different color combinations, and landed on the pink, green and blue. We started wearing them at shows and people really liked them and told us we looked like The Powerpuff Girls. We realized that’s probably why we liked them, because it reminded us of something.
Georgia: I feel like with the colors also — not that we share the same personality traits as The Powerpuff Girls — it just goes to show that fashion and color do tap into certain parts of your personality. I think that’s part of why we also looked at it, because it made sense in a weird, alternate universe way. I really think that fashion has been such an interesting part of our journey too, because so many people have something to say about your outfits. For us it’s been such a fun way to play. We know music, but fashion is something that all of us do differently. We’re in a band and we want to be uniform but also have our individual style. So the colors have been a fun containment to that large task, and then within that I think it’s been fun to play with elevating the jumpsuits with superhero vibes, and I’m curious to see what we’ll do in the future.
You’re now adding more individuality to your looks, but is there anything in the future that you think about experimenting with when it comes to your clothes? Or with your sound?
Quinn: Always. So many things. We’re always texting each other like, ‘Hey, not right now, but maybe in the next year or 10 years from now, this is what we’re going to do.’ The list is endless.
Georgia: We’re always thinking about the future sound. I think that’s one of the things that inspires us so much about each other is I always trust that we’re always going to be inspired and we’re going to be fine. Because we always have more ideas.
Lauren: It’s fun to bounce off of each other too, because I feel like we all have different things that we think about or focus on. I love to think about future musical projects, but personally I don’t think of myself as a fashion forward kind of gal, so it’s nice to lean on Georgia for things like that.
Going off of that, with the making of this album, how did you all grow together both as people and as artists?
Quinn: It sounds dramatic, but for me so much changed about what this life could look like. I feel like the three of us came out of this a lot healthier, and we just learned so much from the first album that we made. It was just a testament to how much all three of us are willing to grow as well, because we really learned lessons from the last one and we implemented them for this album very intentionally. We did it very successfully, and the process got so much easier, and I think it was just a little taste of what will continue to happen. Every project we make we learn from it, and we change and we grow, and that’s what the whole album is about. And also just learning more about each other every time as we’re getting older and we’re changing as people. I feel like there were just so many things that all of us learned and it positively impacted the music at the end of the day.
Georgia: Not only did we grow from making the album, but I think as we were making the album we were all growing through personal experiences, and I think that’s reflected in the music. And because of how much we respect each other, I think we learned from the last album to really trust each other and lean on somebody who has a skill in a certain area and let them take the lead there. We held space for each other in a way on this album while really coming together in a collaborative way. To go through certain things with each other and then put it on the album and finish it as quickly as we did felt really different, and I think we’ll take that with us in future musical endeavors.
Lauren: The process of making our first album was a bit dysfunctional in terms of ease, communication and efficiency. With the making of the second one, it was very functional. It felt very healthy and I think a large amount of credit of that goes to just asking for help and getting help where we need it. Because being an independent artist today essentially means being a business owner. There’s just an endless amount of hats that we have to wear any given day of the year, and because of that you have to really look at yourself and ask, ‘What do I have the capacity for?’ We are so opinionated on the production, and we love being a part of that process. But there are just certain little nitty gritty things that we don’t have the bandwidth to take on anymore. So I think that asking for help and collaborating in that way makes it healthy.
Switching gears a little bit, one thing in your music is that there’s this theme of activism as well. For this tour you’re donating funds from tickets sold to wildfire relief over in L.A., and last year you contributed to Noise For Now’s benefit album Songs For Sex, which advocated for reproductive rights and raised money for the National Women’s Health Network. Why is advocating for these things such a huge priority in Trousdale’s music?
Quinn: I feel like it’s so easy to feel helpless, especially right now, just with the climate of the world. It’s so easy to see so many horrible things happening to people who don’t deserve it. And I think we’re very lucky, even as small as it is, to have a platform to be a voice for people that might not have one. I don’t think we’re doing enough yet, and we have plans to continue to do more and to grow with our platform and our audience as it gets bigger and to really put more weight into activism. All three of us feel very strongly about that, and it’s become more of a priority. I think as you see your voice can be louder, and the louder it is the more weight your words carry, we’re starting to realize that more and starting to use that hopefully for good.
Georgia: I think when we’re living in a time as politically scary as this one is right now, I feel like we don’t even have a choice. We have to be active, especially when issues that are personally relevant to us and our rights are being threatened. I think it’s really important to use the platform that we have, like Quinn said, even if it’s not as big as other people’s. If we didn’t have a platform, we’d still be speaking out. But if we have one it makes it a little scary, because you know you might lose some audience interest. But we just say, ‘Okay goodbye (laughter).’
Lauren: I think that there is a choice, that’s the thing. There is a choice of whether or not to be outspoken about something or to be reserved about your beliefs, and I think making the choice to be outspoken about it is a scary one, especially for artists. Cancel culture is so real, and the fear is so real for people to have your entire livelihood be torn down in a day because of something that was potentially misconstrued. But I think that advocating for what is important to us and bringing that to the platform that we have, the platform that we’ve built, the people that we share our community with, is important to us and affects our lives too. We’re also definitely speaking from such a place of privilege, and that is something that we consider as well whenever we are speaking out about our own beliefs.
Going off of that, Growing Pains arrives April 11. What are you all most looking forward to with the album coming out?
Quinn: I’m so excited for this new music to come. It still feels very fresh. With the last album we put out, we were listening to the songs so much and we had spent two years with them and playing them live so often that it didn’t feel as much of a reveal, but this really does feel that way. Most of the people that come to our shows will have never heard these songs and definitely never heard them played live, so I’m really excited to have those weeks leading up to the tour for our listeners to hear the album and to be able to share that music with them when we go on tour and celebrate that with them.
Lauren: I’m just excited for people to hear the music, same as Quinn. That’s such a good way to say it, it feels more like a reveal because we haven’t been playing these songs live, so for a lot of people it will be their first time ever hearing some of these songs, which is new for us. I’m just excited for people to be able to press play on an album and have 45 minutes of music that we’re really proud of. I’m excited to see where they go. You never know where a song is going to end up, so it’s like sending your kids to kindergarten (laughter).
Georgia: I agree with what Quinn and Lauren said. And I’m nervous, because, we’re so close to it and I love this music so much. I hope people love it as much as we do. I just feel so proud of it.
Pre-save Growing Pains here.
Buy tickets to see the Growing Pains Tour here.
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