• News

• All

Nov 08, 2024 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Garrett Stier

Phabies are a new indie quintet based out of Grand Rapids, Michigan making music that plays with shades of fuzzy indie rock, vintage guitar pop songcraft, and pastoral folk. They debuted in 2022 with their album Fire Seed and followed with last year with a Christmas single, “Pink Christmas Tree” and another new single, “No Sharks,” released earlier this year. Now the band are back with their latest track, “Tell Her.”

“Tell Her” strips away much of the indie rock layers in the band’s music, instead putting the focus on bandleader Laura Hobson’s vocals and her existential lyrics. Her vocals ring out above stately and pastoral acoustic chords, enlacing into a dance of crystalline folk harmonies. Meanwhile, Hobson’s lyrics are warm and plaintive, meditating on the intransience of life. She invites the listener to seize the moment and chase after love and connection: “Do you wanna get in trouble?Are you gonna stick around? / Tell me what do you think happens / When we’re dead and buried in the ground? / Climb the apple tree, scrape your knee / Go and feel something in your body…Tell her there’s time left, so much to live for / The ocean in a cup, go on and lift your hands up and touch her / Go on and tell her / Tell her you love her.”

Hobson shares, “‘Tell Her’ is a ‘life’s too short’ type of song. Pleading with life itself, it points towards the dull nature of existing and yet, if this is all we have, resolves to ‘tell her you love her.’ The song takes the form of a haibun, written during a course taught by Phil Elverum (of Mount Eerie). I woke up uncomfortably early and meditated for 10 minutes before free-writing. This song came out in a complete form with no editing necessary.”

Check out the song and lyric video below, out everywhere now.