Atwood Magazine sat down with Pretty Jane and discussed the familial emotions of their music, their upcoming EP, as well as cigarettes, mountains, and library cards. The Nashville-based trio brings home a feeling through their music.
Stream: ‘Cattails’ – Pretty Jane
On a sunny Friday afternoon, Pretty Jane sits comfortably in front of a shared computer screen.
The room is filled with a variety of instruments, from massive keyboards on the walls and shelves to guitars leaning on the couch or in front of the lens. Fresh off tour, the trio is back in the studio.
Pretty Jane is more than a band: It’s a “living, breathing organism.” Bassist Luca DiVergilio and guitarist Ethan Strain met first. The two were dating the same set of twins. Shortly after, DiVergilio moved to Spain. When he returned, vocalist Trevor Dalrymple was dating DiVergilio’s ex.
“The headline version is that we met because we all dated the same set of twins,” Dalrymple says half-jokingly.
Dalrymple, DiVergilio, and Strain started the band at Michigan State University and officially relocated to Nashville two years ago, with Dalrymple and Strain moving there a year after DiVergilio did.
The group often uses the phrase “kiss your friends” in conversations about everything from their music to their stage presence to their relationship. What started as a “tip of the hat” to how they first met quickly evolved into a more profound and meaningful commentary on love.
In a world where creative fields seem to be oversaturated by social media, with musicians becoming influencers and influencers becoming musicians, Pretty Jane’s authenticity is what makes them stand out.
“I think ‘kiss your friends’ is kind of a reminder that like life isn’t really that serious and that you should kind of take chances and take more risks while you’re here,” DiVergilio says.
They encourage you to “make bad decisions” with those you love because time is limited.
It’s not meant to discourage you or dangle the finite clock of life over your head, but rather to dwell in the infinite feelings and relationships that extend beyond mere moments.
“The bad decisions are the way that we’ve found ourselves, the way that we found our songs, the way that we found ourselves as people,” DiVergilio explains “and so it’s just kind of us encouraging other people to do that.”
Earlier this summer, the band joined West 22nd on a national tour that wrapped up mid-June. “We had these two girls in Texas follow us around to a couple of shows,” Dalrymple says. “Keep in mind they’re from Texas, and they popped up in Minneapolis on the last stop of our tour run, so that was pretty cool.”
DiVergilio adds, “They photoshopped a picture of us and put explosions behind it, then made a shirt of that. It was awesome.”
Although the band has a strong fan base in their hometown of Nashville, Tennessee, the comforting relationship they create carries nationally and internationally. In Chicago, fans arrived hours early to stand at the foot of the stage for Pretty Jane.
While their appearance is rather rock-esque, from muscle tanks and mullets to studded guitar straps and sunglasses, their music curates a feeling of comfort from a childhood friend mixed with the glory of an early college adrenaline rush.
During the tour, a fourth single from their upcoming EP was released. The track, “Cattails,” is a blissful folk track that made waves at live shows and online, with Spotify putting it on their Fresh Folk playlist.
“Normally, we’re home for stuff like that, and you can really sit in the moment,” Dalrymple says of the single’s release while on the road, “but it was just like, ‘Oh, the song is out, and then we’re on to the next show.’”
Pretty Jane debuted in 2022 with the single “Spaced Out.” The trio released several singles, but this EP marks the first long-term project they’ve released.
“I think the EP has been a grant exercise in finding our sound,” Strain says.
Although Pretty Jane tends to be defined as a “folk band,” the group makes an effort to highlight a number of genres rather than be pigeonholed into one.
“I think the consensus is that we all hate indie rock,” Dalrymple shares with a laugh, earning nods of agreement from the others. “I think we’ve really fallen out of love with that genre, and so I think this EP is us taking a step into the newer influences that we found since moving to Nashville.”
DiVergilio highlights Dalrymple’s vocal progression as a literal means of Pretty Jane finding “their sound.”
“I think he’s really coming to his own as a singer and I can say this as a proud producer and proud bandmate,” he says. “I think I’ve really enjoyed seeing Trevor [Dalrymple] find his own voice as a singer.”
Saying Pretty Jane cultivates profound relationships would be an understatement. Their dynamic translates to their music, cultivating an emotion beyond a simplistic label or title.
The intimate nature of Dalrymple’s vocals creates a harmony with DiVergilio and Strain’s instrumentals that manifests itself in the weight anticipation, romance, and proximity that makes it impossible to part ways with the music. The feeling their latest tracks create is almost addicting, whether you’re consuming it through your headphones or deep speakers at a live show.
“All of the songs on the EP are about tension in close quarters intimacy,” Dalrymple shares.
While some tracks are more upbeat like “Stand So Close,” while others are more melancholy like “Spit,” all of the songs create an atmosphere of physical intimacy through the sound and lyrics.
The EP is inspired by The 1975, Dijon, and Wednesday, amongst many others. “They feel separate from the ordinary person, like Adrianne Lenker or Matty Healy,” Dalrymple says. “They just feel like feel like people that artistically have sort of transcended this barrier where they make music and say things in a way that other people don’t.”
Dalrymple also credits Cameron Winter as an influence. “I think he’s like our generation’s Tom Waits. He’s really special, but the similarity between all of them is that it feels like they have something that’s special that becomes larger than life, and when you listen to it, it takes you out of life for a moment.”
Although Pretty Jane began as a “college band,” it has evolved into much more.
While they were all in different places — literally and figuratively — when the band first started, they’ve all found each other in a collective epoch today.
Dalrymple, DiVergilio, and Strain currently live together in Nashville. “We kind of live, breathe, sleep, Pretty Jane, and our relationship is kind of our life,” Dalrymple says. DiVergilio and Strain agree.
“I’ve never, ever put myself into something more than I put myself into this,” he continues. In the same handful of hours, the band will discuss philosophies of life and in the band to cooking in the same kitchen, all to go to bed and wake up to repeat the process the next day.
“It’s definitely overwhelming, but in the coolest, most beautiful, special way where we sort of assimilated into this one organism that, for the most part, thinks and breathes the same way.”
Pretty Jane cuts deeper than a band. It’s easy to write Dalrymple, DiVergilio, and Strain off as “bandmates” or “friends,” but their familial sense manifests itself across their lyrics. They’re able to “read each other’s minds” in the studio, cultivating a unique sound in their upcoming EP and artistic outlook on the future of Pretty Jane itself.
Not only does Pretty Jane live together, but they also bought a bus prior to their tour with West 22nd earlier this summer. Although tours can be exhausting, spending days driving in a cramped vehicle, Dalrymple, DiVergilio, and Strain found they were able to use that time to write.
“We may be working on an album as well,” Strain teases.
In between shows, they stopped in North Carolina at Dalrymple’s father’s house. Surrounded by the Appalachian Mountains, Pretty Jane found themselves in a “really good creative space.”
DiVergilio made a makeshift studio including Dalrymple’s father’s old microphones. The trio sat together and let things come out naturally.
“It wasn’t necessarily the lyrics that came first,” Dalrymple says. “It was whatever came out ended up in the project and it had this really cool organic element.”
Where some artists tend to stick to a particular creative process or method when going into a project, Pretty Jane’s approach feels true to themselves and the natural aspects of creativity as a whole.
Dalrymple takes an old nylon string guitar around the neighborhood, or, in this case, the mountains, and DiVergilio and Strain join him on a walk. “It’s a piece of shit,” Dalrymple says, but it’s become an integral part of their creative process.
“It doesn’t have a strap, and so I duct taped a piece of like string to the bottom of it. It falls off all the time, but I’ll strap that thing on, and we’ll walk around the neighborhood.”
Aside from a headlining show in Nashville on July 19th and their upcoming EP, DiVergilio got a library card and got into cigarettes after being the “most vocal anti-cigarette campaigner.”
“I feel like that’s a front pager,” Dalrymple replies, earning a laugh from the group. “Some important nuggets.”
What do they want to leave readers with?
“Pretty Jane hates indie rock, kiss your friends, and f**k ICE,” the three of them say. It’s a positive note to end on: True to the honest, active, and comforting nature of the band.
Stay up to date with Pretty Jane here and get tickets to their show on July 19th in Nashville here!
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© Annaliese Baker
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