Twen On Their Musical Journey, Shifting Their Sound, And Living In A Van

Indie-rock band, Twen, is filled with colorful personalities that explode from the minute they step on stage until the minute they step off. Their sophomore record, “One Stop Shop,” released in 2022, is filled with timeless retro indie rock, with one foot in the music of decades past, and one foot in the present. Their latest release, “Lucky Onze,” takes a slight turn to a more psychedelic rock sound while staying true to their classic concept. Listening to Twen is never-ending; you won’t be able to turn their music off. 

We spoke with vocalist Jane Fitzsimmons and guitarist Ian Jones ahead of their Baby’s All Right show. 

Photo via Tori McGraw (@afterr.hourrs)

What’s your elevator pitch as to who Twen is, and why people should listen to you?

Jane: I would say it's modern rock and roll, but it has a classic touch to it. 

Ian: Yeah, we write great songs and we put on a fucking great live show and we've done it 500 times. It sounds like the 60s, the 90s, and now all at the same time. I didn't say that, somebody else said that and I agree with it. 

Jane: Kind of a string through time into the present.

Ian: Great melodies. We do everything ourselves. If you've heard about our band, you've heard about it either by word of mouth or by accident, because there's no label pitching us. We don't know anybody that is a music business higher-up who's helping us out. We just do it old school and that's it. 

Photo via Tori McGraw (@afterr.hourrs)

You released your album “One Stop Shop” 2 years ago, in 2022. Looking back two years since the release, what are your thoughts on the album now?

Ian: I think it will age like a fine wine. I think the textures on it are not going to get old because they're not trendy sounds or anything. We just did something that was very much from the heart. We refined it until it was really, really good. People keep coming up to us saying they just discovered it and that it's their favorite record and we're their favorite band. That seems to be a thing where people find out about us and they get into it. Or they find out that we've been doing it for a really long time, but we're very much under the radar. The best compliment is “it's my favorite album,” or “it’s my favorite road trip album and whenever we go on a long trip, we put that CD in.” I just think that that album will continue to grow because it never got a big press push or anything. It just bubbles up underneath and people find it. 

Your latest single, “Lucky Onze,” was a more psychedelic sound. There were a lot of sound effects and a little bit of a more experimental shift from your earlier sound. Was this an intentional change of sound and a new era of the band? 

Jane: I guess we sort of see it as a change in that we've been spending a lot of time in Florida. I think Sugar Ray, Smash Mouth, and early 2000s pop has really infiltrated our brain. It's kind of working out of our system now. 

Ian: I think we both had had a vision that was the 2000s Southern California and Florida Sugar Ray, somewhere between Limp Bizkit, Sugar Ray, Smash Mouth and what would it sound like today? 

Jane: In the song it all goes to hell. That's a part of the chorus. So it's hopeful and funny and we're on the beach time, but it's with this ominous thing nagging at you in the back. Which is how I personally feel because when we are traveling, we experience all kinds of weather. I've been getting heat advisories, air quality advisories. When you travel very quickly through places, you kind of see all the extreme weather and it's everywhere and it's a little scary. So I think that's kind of where that song lies. It's like how do you enjoy yourself and have a cool summer when it's the hottest one on record? 

Ian: In many ways, “One Stop Shop” was our first record, and this is more or less a continuation of it with a slight thematic departure to do this kind of beachy parody thing that feels fun. It's kind of like you're playing volleyball against the backdrop of the apocalypse.

All of your songs are lyrically written very well with poetic and thoughtful lyrics. What inspires a lot of your lyrics and a lot of your writing?

Jane: I don't play an instrument, so a lot of how my musical ideas come out are just melodies, like humming things. Sometimes lyrics are a part of that. The best ones are a thought or feeling that I've had and it comes out. It's just something I've been thinking about , and it'll come out in a melody where I don't even have to think about how I'm singing it. And then usually those themes that come out through that sort of stream of consciousness are just refined and then Ian will help me with the polishing process of it. So it doesn't always feel like a choice, honestly. 

Ian: A lot of times Jane will come in with a first verse and a chorus kind of hook, and then as she's doing it, I'll hear other things that might be a second verse. I remember on “Feeling in Love from the Waist Down” you brought in the first first, which was, “I define what makes a day.” We worked that one out and then I heard the second one because you came up with the first.

Jane: It’s a conversion and then completing thoughts. It's cool though, it kind of reveals itself as a whole and then you're like, “oh, that's what the song's about.” 

Ian: And on these new ones, we wrote so many fucking verses for “Lucky Onze,” we wrote it over and over and over again.

You released your album in 2022 and you've had a couple singles come out recently. There were some breaks between releasing music. Sonically, during that time, how do you think that you've kind of changed as musicians since the release of your first album to some of the more recent singles?

Jane: The Smash Mouth, Sugar Ray thing really infiltrated the camp.

Ian: We also didn't expect everybody to get that. We think that those records are great. 

But not everyone thinks of Smash Mouth fondly.

Jane: Like wow, Smash Mouth.

Ian: Well, we were doing Sugar Ray covers last year just as a gaff. And in some cities some kids just had no idea what song we were singing. It's like, “you really don't know this song?”

Jane: They have such a good way for melody and it has a very rhythmic kind of swaggery thing that I have been connected to recently. 

Photo via Tori McGraw (@afterr.hourrs)

Ian: Well, on our first record we were working with a producer and so a lot of the guitar tones and shit were made in conjunction with somebody else. And I was so unhappy with the product and I was so unhappy with the sonics of our first record that when we did “One Stop Shop,” it was much easier. We didn't have to answer to anyone. Nobody else was setting up the microphones. It was a direct correlation between what was here and what we were doing and what hits your eardrum. It didn't have to pass through anybody else. And so that's something that we've carried into the new singles, like “SeaStar,” “Stunts,” and “Lucky Onze,” because we are doing everything ourselves. We write, we produce, we engineer, we mix and master it. It is directly from our heart to your eardrums, or our heart to your heart. So that is the biggest difference, that it's truly us rather than us with somebody else. I also think our record sonically sounds individual in a playlist, the mix and stuff. It's not mixed like a lot of contemporary records. “One Stop Shop” in particular is mixed much more like a 70s record. The drums aren't as loud as on modern records, both in rock and pop music. Your drums and vocals are the loudest thing. And if you're on a Spotify playlist, that shit is all going to start to sound the same just because of where people are placing things in the mix. 

I was interested in your music videos, which have great branding and great imagery. I was hoping that you guys could talk about the process of making those videos. 

Jane: I stumbled into that with the band, it became a huge outlet for me. On our first record with a label budget, we had a music video budget and I had a vision of these dirt bikes. And we got paired with this cinematographer, Casey Pierce in Nashville, and he just turned out to be an amazing person, an amazing friend. And I didn't actually like his editing style on the video that we did. I was seeing something different. So I edited myself and I have never done that before, so I kind of just figured it out as I went. So then I picked it up and then I was like, “oh, I absolutely can do this.” And it's such a fun way of combining visual and audio, which I do both of. Problem solving with a budget also is a thing which I think is fun actually. We do not have a big budget and Casey totally gives us favors with what he charges for the cinematography part of it. And then I'm spending all the time on the editing. 

Photo via Tori McGraw (@afterr.hourrs)

Off the topic of music, what made you choose to live in a van full time? 

Ian: It’s the best fucking decision we’ve ever made.

Jane: We're like three and a half years in now.

What are some of your favorite parts?

Jane: Literally everything about it. It was a slow progression to get there. 

Ian: I mean imagine waking up every day and something you've built with your own two hands and it's catered exactly to your needs. Everything is spatially perfect for you.

Jane: There's enough space for all of your things and it goes with you wherever you go.

Ian: You don't have to pay a landlord. So you're already keeping a fucking way larger percentage in this economy of your income. 

Jane: We know how everything works.

Through this journey of being musicians and what's one moment that really sticks out to you that you've been the proudest of what you do?

Photo via Tori McGraw (@afterr.hourrs)

Ian: We're doing Red Rocks this summer, but that hasn't happened yet. But that's a good milestone. Honestly, my metric now for what is a beautiful moment is a lot different than it was when we started the band. Because when you start, you want X, Y, and Z. The goalpost always moves because once you get X, then you want Y and then you get Y and then you want Z. We're seven years in now and we were both in bands before this band, so the most gratifying thing is to be here, still doing it. We don't have to work regular jobs. We're able to support ourselves sometimes. And to watch our band grow, this will be our biggest New York show yet.

Jane: I like meeting people that are fans and when they're in really random places that you don't think that it reaches to. 

Ian: Cover songs, when people learn the songs. 

Jane: That is always very touching because I'm like, “holy shit, we're just doing a thing.” 

Ian: Tattoos, when people get matching tattoos and shit like that. It's just crazy to see fans now because for so many years nobody gave a fuck. And now people are really taking the music into their heart. 

Follow Twen on Instagram and Spotify. Buy tickets to their upcoming tour dates here. 

All photos by Tori McGraw