Louisville, KY-based indie side project Future Fossils — Second Story Man‘s and Julie of the Wolves‘ Carrie Neumayer (guitar, vocals), Parlour‘s and Work Shirt’s Clayton Ray (drums) and Brittany Segura (bass) — can trace their origins back to when the band’s founding members Neumayer and Ray started jamming together as a therapeutic outlet during the summer of 2020.
Although the band’s founding duo had seemingly incompatible aesthetic sensibilities, they were both quickly surprised when they discovered a generative and dynamic creative process that worked for them. Neumayer and Ray sculpted songs from improvisational writing sessions centered around rock instrumentation — vocals, guitar and drums– and samples and beats Ray created on an Akai MPC.
Brittany Segura joined the band in 2021, helping the band flesh out their sound. As a trio, the band went into La La Land Studios to record their self-titled, debut EP with engineer Anne Gauthier, who encouraged an experimental approach to the recording and production process. But interestingly enough, the EP’s lead single, “Trees” sees the band adopting a straightforward, 120 Minutes-era MTV indie rock/alt rock approach centered around jangling guitars, thunderous drumming and enormous hooks paired with Neumayer’s plaintive vocals. As the band explains, the song’s lyrics make a metaphorical connection between trees, the human heart and grief.
