For Opal — Beauty in the Noise

Based out of New York City, alternative rock band For Opal breaks boundaries with their sound, juxtaposing heavy guitar driven arrangements with dreamy vocals. The group includes Sohvi Nwanokwale (vocals), Preston (guitar), and Max Hollenbeck (drums). For Opal’s songwriting process is cathartic, a natural energy exchange when writing, with the majority of their process happening in the moment. Their music features a raw yet polished sound, highlighted by haunting but enchanting lyrics. Their 2025 single, “Fatal Attraction,” has garnered over one million plays across all streaming platforms. And their momentum has yet to cease as the group has released several singles since and continues to write, with more music coming soon.

We sat down with For Opal before their show to speak about their origins, songwriting process, and what’s coming next.

Can you give a brief insight into how this band formed?

Sohvi: Preston and I met as interns at a record label. It's really random that we became close because we worked at a major record label, and there were tons of interns at the same time that we were there. But he and I happened to become friends, I think it’s because we both just liked to talk about music. And we were really opinionated and we both kind of had musical identities. He was in this band that he talked about called Mt. Greylock, which Max was actually in during college. But he and I met, and we only really played a show together because one of my friends randomly asked me to play a show and I didn't want to play with any random guitar player that I knew. I wanted to play with a friend. And so I asked Preston because I just liked him as a person. I honestly didn't know much about his playing other than what I'd heard from Mt. Greylock. And he was really good obviously, but sometimes styles don't mesh. So yeah, we played this show at Nublu and it was just an acoustic show, very normal. We wrote an original song that nobody will probably hear outside of that space. 

Preston: You had to be there for the first For Opal show.

Sohvi: But it felt really important and special and awesome. And yeah, ever since then we've been in a band, and it didn't have a name until much later, and we didn't write our EP until months and months later. I guess that was two years ago now. 

Preston: And then I met Max at a college where we were roommates.

Actually?

Sohvi: At Berklee. 

Max: We were roommates and we had a band with our other two roommates. We hosted house shows.

Then how did [Max] join the band after that?

Max: So Preston moved out of that apartment a year before I moved out. I stayed to finish at Berklee, and then when I graduated I was playing with a different band. Myself and all the people in that band decided to move to New York, and I was talking to Preston about that. As soon as I mentioned it the first time he was like, "Yeah, you got to come. We need a drummer." So I was really excited about that. I had come in February 2025 to fill in on drums for them. So we had this one gig and it was a blast. Then it was basically six months later that I joined, I would say. 

What's the origin of the name?

Sohvi: It's funny, [Preston] wanted to name it after my name, which I didn't want to do.

Preston: I thought Sohvi was cool.

Sohvi: I think it's cool, but it's not a band name. It's my name. I wanted anonymity with the chance that anybody would ever care about the stuff that we made. I think he said something really stupid like, “what if we call it ‘something opus’” over text, and I was so mad. I remember us going back and forth about different names and “opus” was one of the ones I was like, “I'm not having this conversation.”

Preston: I like “Op,” the intonation of “Op” and something after.

Sohvi: There were a bunch of other words. And then I thought of, you know the Mojave 3, they're one of the iterations of Slowdive. So Mojave 3 is one of the more acoustic iterations of that band, and I was like, "Oh wait, we should have a number in it. So it should be like Opal Four or something." And I was like, "Wait, what if it's the dedication for opal?" And opal is his birth stone. It's also my mom's and my sister's. So that's kind of why we chose it.

Let's talk about some of your songs that you've recently released. “Iggy” has a lot of distinct political references in it. You explained that song is “for the Twin Cities that raised me, for my immigrant parents, and for the undocumented.” I was wondering if you wanted to speak about the inspiration behind the song and the personal importance of it. 

Sohvi: It's interesting. I was talking about this with a friend, but it's not really from my point of view. It's from the point of view of somebody I saw in a video, which I guess makes sense because so many of us were watching shit go down from afar. I'm from there, but I was still watching things from far away. So yeah, it feels obviously extremely personal because it's about something I care about so much, but it's not from my perspective, which is not often how I write. 

And why did you choose to do that?

Sohvi: I think it felt almost too tender to write from my perspective or something, and I didn't want it to be this preachy thing that a lot of times music can turn into when you're trying to make a statement or something. Not that that's a bad thing. It's different and it's not necessarily what I feel the most affected by. I love that song. I always talk about this, but they wrote the instrumentals together first before I wrote lyrics. 

How did that come about for you guys?

Preston: I was just playing the riff in the studio when we were practicing for a gig. 

Max: We were in between songs that we already had, and then he was just like, "Oh guys, listen to this.” Just came up with it, started playing it. 

Preston: It all happened really quickly because when we started playing the riff together, it was the same day that you already started writing the lyrics.

Sohvi: Yeah, I wrote the intro on the spot. That was a cathartic one.

Well, going off that, “Fable.” OTR co-editor-in-chief Reegan was really intrigued by the drums on that song. She feels like the drums and the lyrics are very circular. So when writing, what came first, the lyrics or the instrumentals?

Sohvi: [Max] wrote the drums after the lyrics because Preston and I wrote the actual structure of that song probably in like 15 minutes. Then I wrote the lyrics later I guess. But I knew what it was going to sound like almost instantaneously, like the chorus we knew immediately.

Max: I remember specifically that Sohvi turned me onto The Sundays album Reading, Writing And Arithmetic right around that time. I just was obsessed with that album. I think I was channeling that a bit, the drums, consciously, but also a little unconsciously if that's possible. I was kind of trying to bring that lifting energy that they already laid down. That album was a huge inspiration for my part of that song.

That song is soft and sweet. Do any other mediums of art inspire your songwriting?

Sohvi: I get affected really easily unfortunately. I don't know. I could be inspired by a crumb of an experience and in that specific context I think it was so dreamy. It was so fun to write that because it was based on somebody in a situation. But really it was this thing I was living in my head. So yeah, I took a crumb and I ran with it as I usually do. I think I'm inspired by the streets of New York, like watching people – watching people fight, watching people make out. Human interaction is like the most volatile, serendipitous, gorgeous thing ever, and we live in a place where everything means everything and everything is deep. Everything is... I don't know. It can mean as much as you want it to. That sounds like a really annoying answer. I really am so inspired by the people who live here. So the people of New York are the greatest art piece, greatest ever changing art piece of all time.

Preston: Movies usually. I like a lot of Wong Kar-wai movies because I grew up in Hong Kong for a couple years, so I really love Hong Kong. His movies always make me feel so sad in a good way. 

Max: I think I'm the opposite with music, I need to listen to a wide variety of styles and people and bands in order to feel inspired. I think I like to ingest the widest range I can and to let that come out when I make my own thing. Sometimes I'm like, “Oh, I specifically want to draw on this thing,” and sometimes it comes together in a way that I don't really know what I'm drawing on. It's a combination of multiple things that I took in. I love visual arts very much. I think of when I'm coming up with a drum part I'm trying to figure out how to make my limbs work together, and seeing it in my mind. I think that's more unique than some people might expect. I recently learned that some people can't visualize anything at all. Like you close your eyes and you can't just imagine an orange, for example. Anyways, I love painting abstract expressionism, and I think that coming up with instrumental parts and song structures and building energy and releasing energy is very similar to abstract paintings sometimes. 

February you released “Knockout.” That song is sonically heavy, but also interesting in juxtaposition with the softness of “Fable.” How do you think your sound has developed with this new set of releases and do you think it's foreshadowing anything?

Sohvi: Yeah, I think we talk about this maybe a bit too much on stage, but we love so much different music and we're kind of really dramatic in the way that we're zero to a hundred all the time. So it makes sense for us energetically to make music that sounds like it spans as much as it does. But “Knockout,” I love performing that song. I'm particularly excited to play it next month because we have two guitars on stage next month.

Max: Every time I think about that show, it's that song.

Sohvi: Yeah, we're playing Music Hall of Williamsburg. And a really, really great guitarist is playing with Preston. I'm just really stoked about it.

Preston: I also like that with “Knockout” we have the heavier stuff, but we can get really soft too at the same time. 

For this next set of releases, are the one-word titles intentional?

Sohvi: Well, the next one we're supposed to put out is not one word, so no, I guess. But that's a really great observation. You know what's hilarious? I have evidence of him telling me we shouldn't call “Fatal Attraction,” “Fatal Attraction.”

Preston: I wasn't a fan of the name.

Sohvi: And I was like, “Okay, well it's not really up for debate because it's named after a movie, so it has to be.” I have the evidence saying, “I'm not asking you, I'm telling you.”

You began releasing music in 2024 and you have more coming soon. How has your songwriting process changed or become more collaborative over the last couple of years? 

Preston: I feel like it always starts with me and Sohvi.

Sohvi: Yeah, it's been pretty much very similar. I guess it's been different when working with different drummers of course, because they've all written their parts differently. But in general, I feel like it stayed the same, which is kind of awesome.

Preston: In my head, even whenever I write songs, it's always the harmony and then the melody first before anything else and then you can start getting creative with the rhythm or whatever afterwards. But I also think because we work so quickly, it makes sense to just flesh out an idea completely at least harmonically before we bring it anywhere else. So we always start with us.

Sohvi: [Preston] and I are in symbiosis most of the time, which is really special. I don't talk about this with friends a lot, but I don't know anybody that I could ever write with the way that I write with him. 

I mean you’ve said that some of your songs have been written in a few minutes. After that process do you hold onto it for some time?

Sohvi: Kind of depends. I mean “Girl,” we recorded the day after we wrote it, which is so weird. But then “Iggy,” we had to hold onto it for a little while just by nature of like, I don't know, recording time purposes. 

Did it change over time at all from when you wrote it? 

Sohvi: It's pretty similar.

Preston: Very tiny, two chords changed.

Max: I would say that for the rhythm section, at least what me and Spencer, who played bass on the recording, little details get honed in. 

Preston: I like going into the studio with not too much planning. I like having just like the structure and what everybody thinks they're going to do, but not like I know I'm going to do this. 

Can you all give one artist that inspires you?

Preston: Title Fight.

Sohvi: I think it changes so often, but right now probably Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Max: In drum mode, I got to say like this guy called Makaya McCraven. He's just like an awesome drummer. He inspires me.

What are some of your favorite memories of playing live shows?

Sohvi: My favorite memory, I guess my favorite live show that we've ever played is, you've been to Purgatory, right? That one felt crazy because it was the first show we played after “Fatal Attraction” came out. There were a bunch of people I didn't know there and that never happened to me. Like one of my best friends saw somebody in a costume because I told people to come in costumes on Instagram, I guess. And they said, "Do you know Sohvi?” to him. And he was like, "Yeah, don't you?” But anyway, that was pretty cool. 

Preston: The first Nightclub 101 show. We played a song that we hadn't released, and I had to sit down to play it just because anatomically I can't do it. And then everybody in the audience sat down. 

Max: My favorite show of ours was Sultan Room for Girl Noise [Festival]. I don't know if I could say why. I think the lineup was crazy. They were so fucking cool. It just felt like an honor to be playing with people like that. It's always an honor, but they were awesome. I think we all were just so excited to be there. I remember Sohvi put energy into it and was just punching the air while singing and stuff. I remember that it just felt good.

What's coming next?

Sohvi: Music Hall of Williamsburg, July 23rd. It's a Thursday.

Preston: 6:30 PM.

Sohvi: 6:30pm. Torture [and the Desert Spiders], Monobloc, and SHAGGO. We're so excited for the show. This show's going to be epic. And then we're putting out maybe two singles before the end of the summer. 

Check out For Opal on Spotify and Instagram. Stream their newest releases here.

Don’t forget tickets to their Music Hall of Williamsburg show on July 23rd, your favorite OTR editors may or may not be there ;)

All photos by Tori McGraw (@afterr.hourrs)