The band—Kayla Hall (vocals), Kaitie Forbes (vocals), and Andrew Pacheco (producer/multi-instrumentalist)—began six years ago as something closer to a studio project. Their first song was released almost on a whim, without much thought about whether there would even be another one after it. Shows followed. More music followed. Somewhere along the way, what began casually developed into a band with its own identity.

Now, the trio are preparing for their biggest release yet. Their debut album, Plain Jane, arrives October 30, expanding on a world the trio has been slowly building through releases like Dream Girl and recent singles “Loretta's Last Call,” “Little Blue House” and “Suburbia.”

Photos by Dillon Jordan, courtesy of Muses PR.

Six Years of Moody Joody

When the band first released music, there wasn't much of a plan beyond having fun.

“We really did put out our first song on a whim with no other plans of even doing any more music, to be honest,” Pacheco recalled.

Playing live eventually changed that. Shows introduced another dimension to the project and began influencing what the band's future music sounded like. Six years later, the members don't think the version of Moody Joody that started the band could have made Plain Jane.

“I just feel a lot more confident and comfortable with myself, which has translated into the band as just writing more authentically and maybe a little bolder,” Forbes said.

That confidence has grown alongside the relationship between the three members. Hall described their early chemistry as organic, something that has strengthened much like any other relationship would over six years.

“We've just kind of slowly grown into this place where we are now,” Pacheco said. “I don't think that we could have made this record that we're putting out back then at all without all that growth.”

Welcome to the Plain Jane Suburbs

Despite growing up hundreds of miles apart, the trio discovered plenty of common ground when they started developing the world around the record.

Forbes grew up in Utah, Pacheco in New Jersey, and Hall in St. Louis, Missouri.

One thing connected all three: the suburbs.

That shared experience became part of the foundation for Plain Jane, particularly as the band began thinking about Plain Jane as a character and the environment surrounding her.

“We all very much aligned on kind of that core nostalgia,” Hall said.

That nostalgia can already be heard across songs like “Loretta's Last Call,” “Little Blue House," and “Suburbia,” but the record isn't solely about looking backward. Hall described Plain Jane as touching on self-discovery, recovery, heartbreak, and the lessons that come with what she calls a “later coming of age.”

Instead of building the album around one literal story, those experiences became pieces of a larger suburban setting.

“I like to think of this album as like a neighborhood, and everybody's moving in,” Forbes said. “We all are on the same block, and we're all experiencing this world of the Plain Jane suburbs together.”

A Record Without Limits

Plain Jane also gave the project more space to experiment than any of their previous releases.

Forbes said considerable thought went into nearly every aspect of the album, with the band treating the record as a complete world rather than simply a collection of songs.

That also meant pushing beyond what listeners may already expect from them.

"There are a lot of new sides of us that we haven't yet explored sonically too on this album,” Pacheco said.

One example arrives toward the end of the record with “Geraldine,” a stripped-back, folk-leaning song unlike anything the band has previously released.

“We've never wanted to box ourselves in at all,” Pacheco said. “We're inspired by so many different things, so we explore all of it.”

For the band, that variety is part of the reason they want listeners to experience Plain Jane as a complete album.

“We tried to push ourselves even further than we had in the past,” Pacheco said. “I'm excited for people to listen front to back and just hear all the different sides of us and what we've created.”

Country Storytelling Meets Indie Pop

The trio’s collective background stretches across country, classic rock, emo, and indie pop, with the band embracing those different influences as part of what shapes their sound.

“We never really thought about having to balance it,” Forbes said. “It just feels really organic.”

She pointed to “Fantasy Land,” which carries some of the influence of Passion Pit, an artist she and Pacheco bonded over. “Geraldine,” meanwhile, moves somewhere entirely different with a stripped-back, 12-string sound, Pacheco compared to Fleetwood Mac.

Country has also shaped the band's writing, particularly through its emphasis on storytelling.

“What I love about country music is that it's very storytelling,” Hall said. “That's what drew me to it from a young age.”

She credits listening to country with helping teach her how to approach lyrics, while the band's wider pool of reference points includes Counting Crows, Jack's Mannequin, Third Eye Blind, Sheryl Crow, and Bleachers.

Then there's “Sweet Surrender.”

When their mixing engineer heard the song, he noticed something the band hadn't paid much attention to while recording it: a little twang in Hall's vocal.

“I didn't even notice until I listened back,” she said.

The discovery quickly earned Hall another title within the group.

“Kayla's like our Shania Twain in the band,” Forbes joked.

The Road Ahead

After six years of singles, EPs, shows, and growth, Plain Jane will finally give the band a full-length record to share with fans on stage.

They already have some ideas about where they'd like it to take them.

“More festivals,” Forbes answered immediately when asked what she hoped the album would open up for the band.

“I just feel like this album is made for a festival stage,” she added.

Pacheco went bigger.

“Arena shows, let's go.”

There are also more immediate ambitions. With a growing catalog of music, the band is excited about the possibility of building headlining shows around Plain Jane and bringing more of those songs to the stage.

“Being able to headline and play a lot of the songs that we don't always get to play in an opening slot,” Pacheco said. “I think we're looking forward very much to doing some headlining shows around the record.”

Before then, the band will make their way to Phoenix for 8123 Fest. By then, Plain Jane will have had a few months to settle in with listeners, giving the band a chance to bring its new material to the festival stage.