Indie-pop trio Moody Joody has been constructing an elaborate world since they started releasing music in 2020. And with their debut album Plain Jane, their suburban world comes together with startling clarity. This is a world that peaks into every corner of real life. One minute we’re dancing along to groovy, disco-inspired ‘Rosie’s Party,’ and the next, we’re contemplating all the paths our lives could take in ‘Suburbia.’ And all the while, we’re soaking up the nostalgia of the Y2K style that they’ve made their own.
In Plain Jane, Moody Joody is shamelessly human. They reckon with their past, they make mistakes, they have fun. Most of all, they try to do their best. They put on their shimmering makeup and spend nights out on the town, and sometimes they end in tears.
While Plain Jane is full of the contradictions that plague young minds growing up in suburbia, one thing is certain. The album has been Moody Joody’s dream for a long time. Since they released their first single, ‘The Heat,’ they’ve been developing the concept for their debut album. Since it was such a long time coming, Moody Joody’s Kayla Hall, Kaitie Forbes, and Andrew Pacheco joined us to discuss how they brought Plain Jane to life.
Stepping Into Moody Joody’s World
Welcome to The Honey Pop! Can you tell us where you came up with the name Moody Joody?
Kayla: Kaitie and I came up with the name for Moody Joody I think just over coffee when we were brainstorming. Our original idea was to be “the yeehaw girls,” which is so funny to me now. Moody Joody was the perfect way to introduce ourselves into the world of music, because we get to explore all of the sides of ourselves as women and the human experience.
How did you come up the character of Plain Jane and who is she to you?
Kayla: The title Plain Jane was something that came to me actually right around the same time we came up with band name. The two are a sort of yin and yang sparked by conversations between Kaitie and I around what it meant to take up space as women in the world, and the difficulties that come with that. It can feel easier to hide your true self and sometimes you’re forced into it in the society we live in. In the beginning of Moody Joody, we wanted to create this sort of alter ego for ourselves, so we covered our eyes in the artwork for a long time. I think that we were still at that time maybe hiding some parts of ourselves that felt more comfortable to embody if we were able to separate it. I think who Plain Jane is is that part of ourselves where we decide to stop hiding who we are and how we feel and shed the layers. Our bio for a long time was actually just, “who is she?” The weight of the message of Plain Jane and building out an album concept around defining that exact question felt very important to all of us and we decided it needed to be album title.
Kaitie: Plain Jane is the version of ourselves that was taught to be polite, always agree, do what she’s told, and never disappoint anyone. She’s the girl that I’ve been deconstructing for the last 6 years as we’ve been writing this album.
How do you see the character of Plain Jane relating to the title character in Dream Girl?
Kayla: I feel like there’s a moment of the veil thinning in the character of Dream Girl. Dream Girl’s character explored this moment of feeling like “if I fall apart at the seams, and show you who I really am and fall from the pedestal, will you still love me? Or rather, will I still love me?” Shedding the layers of the Plain Jane versions of ourselves leans into saying “you know what? I don’t need to be perfect, but I do get to love the parts of me that make me human and the things that make me, me and feel proud of that.”
Kaitie: I think Plain Jane is dream girl. She puts on a facade of perfection & makes herself small to make others more comfortable. She’s afraid to show who she really is because she knows it’s not who she was expected to be.
How do you relate to the suburban world you created for this album?
Kayla: We all grew up in the suburbs in different parts of the US. ‘Little Blue House’ reminds me of throwing an LFO CD into my silver boombox and laying on my bedroom floor. I think there’s a lot of songs that evoke that nostalgic feeling, and reminiscing. ‘Summer ’09’ is one of those too. The suburbs, and growing up in a conversation Midwest area, can also have an impact on the sort of keeping up with the joneses, or judgmental, mindset that can also make you feel small or shame for being different or wanting to take a nontraditional life path. I think unlearning some of that conditioning was really important in becoming the woman that I am today and one of the reasons this album is empowering for women to carve their own path and not feel forced into doing what society expects of you.
Kaitie: We all grew up in the suburbs and suffer from intense nostalgia haha. But the suburban world we created is representative of the place that conditioned me to be a certain way, and the place that I’ve had to leave behind to become the most authentic version of myself.
Bringing A Concept To Life
Your imagery, everything from cover art to outfits, makes the album feel so cohesive. How did you create the visual presentation of Plain Jane?
Kayla: Everything about this album has been very intentional. Since we had the concept for so long, we wanted to create a world that goes with it. The album tells a story and we hope people see themselves in that story. The cover feels really powerful to me, almost eerie. Luke Rogers, the photographer and our creative director for the album, nailed it. I love that it evokes this feeling of fear that a man is about to walk into the room. That there’s this almost “shut up and sit still and look pretty and sing your songs and don’t ruffle feathers…” But this album will show you that Moody Joody isn’t here to do anything other than burn that statement down and rebel against it. This album is feminine power – in the rage and the softness. The visual matching those messages feel important to us.
Kaitie: Visuals have always been so important to us, not only because it’s just simply fun and we enjoy that part of it but because I think it really helps people feel immersed in this world, and helps them see themselves in it.
Something else that brings the album together is your cinematic music videos. What is it like to bring your songs to life in this way?
Kayla: That’s been one of the most fun parts of the process. Working with Luke Rogers on creative direction and building the world of visuals together has really helped us hone in on marrying the music to a visual within one album cycle so it all stays cohesive. Our music video stylists, Annalia Alba and Kaylin Zillmer, have also really added so much to the world too. I really that visuals can strengthen the message of the music and show you where some of the inspiration for the songs comes from too.
Kaitie: It’s so rewarding! To think back on the days these songs were being written all the way to seeing them come to life through a music video, it feels surreal.
Writing Plain Jane
You’ve mentioned that you started working on some of these songs years ago. Which song took the longest and what was it like getting it ready for this album years later?
Kayla: Outside of the intro, the first full song we wrote for the album was ‘Rosie’s Party’ which was actually titled ‘meet me at the disco’ at first. We wrote it sometime in 2021 or 2022. I think it’s also the last song we revisited for the album to throw some bgvs on. It’s a full circle moment of starting something before we knew Plain Jane and everything she would become and finishing it as we wrapped the recording process and close her chapter.
Andrew: I actually just found the voice memo that Kaitie sent of the title-track ‘Plain Jane’ in our group chat from January 2021. It was originally going to be the chorus of a longer song, but we later just decided to use it as intro to the record. I don’t think we re-wrote anything about it, just completely changed how it was presented and turned it into something slightly eerie and dark.
Was there any particular album or artist you listened to while working on Plain Jane that influenced the sound?
Andrew: We have so many different influences, both collectively and as individuals. There wasn’t any single thing that influenced the record sonically – we’re always pulling from completely different places. That’s how you end up with songs like ‘Fantasyland’ and ‘Geraldine’ on the same album. We just like to keep things interesting and not box ourselves in. Broadly speaking, I will say that we are most influenced by artists who make *ALBUM* albums. Not just collections of singles, but worlds for you to get lost in. The idea of that was something that really guided us.
You’ve also mentioned that you had some of the song names figured out before you wrote the songs. What was the process for finishing a song once you had the title figured out?
Kayla: ‘Geraldine’ was one of the songs on the album that we had the title for prior to writing it. I had written a sort of lullaby to my late grandmother that had Alzheimer’s. We transformed that into an ode to Kaitie and I’s grandmothers and reflecting on sweet moments of growing up. Because of knowing we’d built out this world with people’s names and neighborhoods and places in the world of Plain Jane and had that locked in for so long, it created the space for that special, sweet moment.
Andrew: It was all about just pairing the lyric with the right vibe. Most of the time it came pretty naturally, but there were a couple that were tough to crack. We knew the title ‘Average Joe’ would be on the record, but I found myself just procrastinating us working on that one. For some reason I just couldn’t figure out what sonic world that lyric needed to live in. We actually started that song over a completely different musical idea at first, but we abandoned it because it just didn’t feel right.
A major theme in Plain Jane is self-growth. How did you grow or discover something new about yourself through the process of making this album?
Kayla: One of the things I’m proud of that happened in the last 6 years of is coming out as bi. Growing up in a conservative Midwest suburb, there’s certain expectations placed on women and their roles in society that took some time for me to unlearn, and shame (that later alchemized into empowerment) that ensues during that process, especially when someone else is trying to force you back inside a box. I’m proud to be who I am, I’m proud to use my voice, I’m proud to love who I love. I’m grateful to have the love and support of my family and a space to live authentically inside the world of music and outside of it.
Kaitie: I’ve really had to sit with the Plain Jane version of myself especially as we get closer to the album being released. I’ve felt those feelings of people pleasing, fear of letting people down & showing my true self to a past that feels uncomfortable with it. But I’ve grown to have so much compassion for that version of myself and have felt very validated by the feelings that have been coming up. I feel so proud of her for being brave enough to leave it all behind.
You also focus a lot on nostalgia in this album. What about this album, be it the sound, imagery, lyrics, or something else entirely, makes you feel the most nostalgic?
Andrew: It’s really the combination of all of the above for me. I feel like especially since we dug so deep into the suburban theme, there’s so much in these songs that make me think of my childhood. Even the sounds and melodies feel like old memories to me. And it’s funny because it’s kind of double-nostalgia now, because having lived with these songs for a while, when I hear them I also feel nostalgic for the time in which we wrote them. It’s a never ending cycle of nostalgia!
Speaking of nostalgia, what is your favorite memory from summer ’09?
Kayla: Summer ‘09 would’ve been the year after my freshman year of high school. I had this group of friends that we called ourselves “the basement bunch” and would just hangout in a rotation of our parents basements. That time was so pure and carefree and precious to me. We recently lost one of our friends, Bobby. He was a bright light in this world. There’s songs like ‘Suburbia’ and ‘Summer ‘09’ that make me yearn for childhood where you are shielded from some of the harsh realities of this world.
kaitie: the overall FEELING. I became extremely obsessed with music this year in all regards. I started singing in front of people and realizing how much more I wanted out of life. It was existential & exciting.
Once you’ve resurfaced from the world of Plain Jane, we would love to discuss all things Moody Joody. What was your favorite song? Let us know at @thehoneypop on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
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