by abby crabill
photo by alex k brown
Overcoats is an indie pop duo consisting of friends Hana Elion and JJ Mitchell. They met in college and instantly connected through their love of music and the arts. Since the COVID pandemic brought live entertainment to a halt, they have recently been making their return to performing live for audiences again. Overcoats’ new album, Winner, is an organic collection of songs surrounding heartbreak, rejection, and how to come back from them. Overcoats are working hard to share their music and positively affect as many listeners as possible.
Can you tell me a little bit about how you two met?
Hana: “Yeah, we met in college on our very first day. And we quickly started singing together, just kind of in a casual way, you know just like churches and little bathrooms and anywhere that we could find on campus that had nice acoustics. Then four years into school, so our last year, we wrote our first song together, and kind of went from there.”
Do you think that your friendship would have been different without the musical connection?
JJ: “That's a good question. I think our friendship would have looked really similar, but I think our music would have looked really different/wouldn't exist without the friendship. So I feel like basically we started writing together because we were kind of like going through stuff and we would share those experiences with one another and then try to channel it into music. So I think without the friendship there was no band and I feel like that's something that is interesting to think about.”
How did you decide on the name, Overcoats, for your band?
Hana: “We were trying to find a name that was going to be like, sort of mysterious, a bit androgynous, something that you know if you saw the name you wouldn't necessarily know what you were going to listen to when you pressed play. So that was kind of a piece of it when we were thinking about stuff. And both JJ and I were really into visual art in college as well, and so there was this artist we both loved and still love, Egon Schiele, and he has a print that is like two people under a coat and we always loved that print, and would talk about it. And it kind of inspired the name as two people sort of finding protection and connection under this big overcoat.”
What was your experience like performing at the SXSW festival?
JJ: “That festival is always really chaotic. I don't know if you've experienced it, but it's just like a million shows all happening at once all over Austin, Texas. We really had one of those crazy schedules. So we played like five shows in two days or something like that and it was very fun. It was a crazy way to get back into playing live. It was like really throwing ourselves into the deep end, but also kind of like get the training wheels off quickly because we just had to play five shows in such quick succession. But it was really fun because, I mean, we haven't really gotten to play live together for a couple of years. So mainly it was just exciting to be back up there singing together and connecting with audiences. The last couple of years has been just a lot of me and Hana singing to each other and no one else. So it was fun in that sense.”
Can you tell me a little bit about your new album, Winner?
JJ: “Yeah, so we started writing it in 2021. We recorded it in Nashville in 2022. It's basically a group of songs about coming back from rejection and what one does in the face of rejection and falling off the horse. And we tried in this album to like really lean into a more organic sound, kind of going back to our singer-songwriter folky roots a little bit. We recorded in Nashville so there's a bunch of Americana elements, country elements that made their way in. But yeah, it's our third full length record. And I would say the only other thing that's exciting to add about the project as a whole is that we released it ourselves independently with distribution through Thirty Tigers. So this was a new experience for us because previously we put our first two records out with different labels and this is us striking out on our own. And hopefully winning!”
How does Winner differ from your previous albums?
Hana: “You know, we've always been really interested in production and electronic music and programming and all of that stuff, and that features heavily in the sonics on our first two records. Our first one’s quite electronic, our second one's still got a fair amount of electronic but it's more kind of rock and roll, and I think for this one we wanted to do something that didn't have any like bells and whistles. We used primarily organic instrumentation, we didn't do a whole lot of programming, we wanted something that felt like, you know, kind of pure in terms of the writing process, really starting from just like the song on a guitar and adding to it but not including anything that was really programmed. So yeah, I think we tried to go sort of back to our roots, as JJ said, in that sense and make something that anyone could make with just a guitar and a drum kit and a bass.”
What are some of your favorite themes that you tend to write about? Why?
JJ: “I think one of the themes in all three of our albums is like how we relate to other people that we're in partnership with, or working with. I think it's like a big theme for us is to kind of unpack experiences, interpersonal experiences and like almost create as much of a cathartic moment from the music as possible as we process those things. And I think some of them, specifically on Winner, those themes I think were heavily to do with kind of the music industry and how we felt like our place in it. How we felt rejected by it. And then of course, those kinds of songs can be mapped onto a lot of different experiences that we were having and that other people might listen have had. So I think, yeah, just heartbreak in many forms, I would say is the biggest theme.”
Why do you think that you two work so well together, musically?
Hana: “I think we've never really known the answer to that. It’s just sort of been like something we've realized as we started getting to know each other and each other's tastes. We just loved a lot of the same stuff and kind of had this common vision for what we wanted to make, so it's always kind of just been like an innate thing that's been there. I mean certainly, you know, we've had similar yet different upbringings, we went to college together, so in a lot of ways, we're being influenced by the same things. But I think that's always been something that we haven't questioned too much and we've kind of just let it take us where it takes us.”
What are you most excited for on your tour?
JJ: “Personally, I think playing the new songs. I feel like that's always the most beautiful part of going out and playing music live once you've released something new. It's just like how people react to hearing them as you're singing them to the audience and, I don't know, it just feels very exciting to play new songs both for other people and just for ourselves, I think. Then I feel like the other main thing that I'm really excited about is just having experiences and connections with people who listen to our music. I think the pandemic has been so isolating in many ways, that being able to go to cities that we haven't been to for four years and be able to meet people at the merch table and just like see who our listeners are feels very exciting for me and kind of grounding. I think all of this music stuff exists like up here, you know, in a very intangible way and to play music live on tour is a real way of understanding how music affects people and what people like and stuff like that.”
What do you hope people will take away from listening to your music?
JJ: “I hope that people feel like everybody lost something in the pandemic and that that's not a reason to give up. I think it's really easy to feel alone in general and also in your suffering, and obviously there are different forms of loss and rejection and everything, but I hope that this album is comfort to people because there have been a lot of times in the last few years where it's been really hard to keep going. And I think people can relate to that and hopefully listen to the music and feel inspired to keep fighting for whatever it is that they're trying to achieve.”
Where do you hope your music takes you in the future?
Hana: “I think we just want to have it, you know, affect as many people as possible. I think that's really the goal. The main goal. You know, there's certainly like kind of bucket list things that we think about, but we just try to keep making music that we think can positively affect people and just try to get it out there.”
Are there any future projects that we can look forward to?
JJ: “Yeah, so we've really been excited on this album to create an interesting visual world that accompanies the music. So we've had few different videos come out already and we're going to be releasing more visualizers and stuff as the summer comes. So you can keep a look out for those.”