Nashville indie folk trio verygently wrestle with the aftershocks of an unhealthy relationship on their softly smoldering, quietly anthemic “STRONGER THAN THAT,” a raw, radiant early window into their debut album ‘SORRY, SARAH’ and the hard-won strength of not going back.

 follow our Today’s Song(s) playlist

Stream: “STRONGER THAN THAT” – verygently

Flat on my back, now where do I go? / Panic attack, I’m an American psycho…

* * *

Getting out doesn’t mean the ache stops.

It can leave you grieving what hurt you, missing what wasn’t good for you, and learning that strength sometimes means letting the call go unanswered. Softly smoldering and quietly anthemic, “STRONGER THAN THAT” lives in the intimate aftermath of an unhealthy relationship – the part no one really warns you about, when the body has left but the nervous system keeps reaching back.

Flat on my back, now where do I go?
Panic attack, I’m an American psycho
Just leave me to bleed
I’ve never been bad at
catching a feeling
I overreact, I’m up on the ceiling
Now I’m coming down
And she’s walking out

Released April 10 via Nettwerk Music Group, verygently’s breathtaking single traces the fallout of love gone wrong with a trembling, open-chested grace, lingering in the panic, grief, temptation, and self-protective distance that can follow us long after a relationship ends. From the start, the Nashville trio pull us into the dazed seconds after emotional impact – breath shallow, heart racing, the whole room spinning as old wounds threaten to swallow whatever good might come next.

Comprised of Drew Erwin, Joey Hendricks, and Tristan Bushman, verygently began as the natural next step for three established singer/songwriters whose longtime collaboration evolved into a band in 2024. Since then, they’ve quickly carved out a space of their own with harmony-driven indie rock that balances heartache, humor, catharsis, and camaraderie, releasing the EPs DUMBA$$ MODE and FAME! while building momentum on the road with artists like Augustana, The Fray, The Band Camino, and Ruston Kelly. Now, with a debut full-length album on the horizon, “STRONGER THAN THAT” and the previously released “HOW IT’S ALWAYS BEEN” (ft. Ruston Kelly) offer an early glimpse of a band coming into sharper focus – three distinct voices blurring into one radiant, resonant whole.

This creative evolution matters.

verygently’s early EPs captured the rush of a new band finding its footing in real time, but this next chapter feels more settled without losing the spark that made them so compelling in the first place. Their songs still carry the looseness and wit of three friends making music because it feels good to do so, but “STRONGER THAN THAT” suggests a deeper command of what happens when their individual voices lock in: Three songwriters, three perspectives, one shared emotional language.

But I can’t meet you where you’re at
I’m stuck in the past
She’s stronger than that
And I keep calling
She keeps not calling me back
She’s stronger than that

“The universe has been very kind to us,” verygently tell Atwood Magazine. “It feels like the music we are making and releasing today is a lot more realized than our first two EPs. Starting this band has been a bit of a whirlwind and the beginning was sort of thrown together out of necessity. It’s been nice to have had the opportunity to play so many shows though and hone in the sound that I feel like is reflected more accurately on this new project.”

They cite folks like Medium Build, Ruston Kelly, Adrianne Lenker, Noah Gundersen, Father John Misty, and Sam Fender as artists they love and respect, and that constellation makes sense: verygently’s music lives somewhere between emotional candor and communal lift, between songwriterly ache and choruses that feel built to be sung back from a crowded room. “STRONGER THAN THAT” sits beautifully in that space, intimate enough to feel whispered and expansive enough to feel shared.

You can hear that deeper sense of self in every breath of “STRONGER THAN THAT,” a song that sways like a slow dance and cuts like a confession.

Written with Sam Hollander and Better Than Ezra’s Kevin Griffin, the track began with a guitar riff inspired by Griffin’s three-string cigar box, then expanded into a moody, atmospheric indie folk reverie shaped around verygently’s stunning three-part harmonies. Their voices ache and rise together, folding into one another with the kind of warmth that makes pain feel communal – not erased, exactly, but held. What began as a simple, organic demo eventually became what the band describe as “the biggest, moodiest thing” they could make, and that ambition pays off: The song feels intimate and immense at once, a soft storm of voices, strings, and unresolved longing.

The song’s opening words came from a more instinctive place. “Those words were just kind of subconscious spit ball mumbo jumbo,” verygently share. “The song was birthed with the three of us, Kevin Griffin, and Sam Hollander. Kevin has a weird little three strings cigar box that inspired the guitar riff, and from there the phonetics kinda came out and it sounded cool. As far as collective vision goes, I think we’re all able to relate to the feeling of spinning out a bit. For us, it paints a picture of a narrator post crash out.”

That phrase – post crash out – gets right to the heart of it. “STRONGER THAN THAT” is sung from the floor after impact, when the body is still buzzing and the mind is still making bad maps out of old hurt. verygently don’t romanticize that state, but they understand it intimately. The song’s power comes from how clearly it sees the mess: The panic, the reaching, the shame, the part of you that knows better and still wants to call.

Russian roulette she’s got the bullet
Tip of her tongue now she’s gonna pull it
Hello goodbye
Sun’s gonna set so we might as well watch it
Kiss and regret with my hands in my pocket
And nothing but time
I’m looking up at the sky

“The mind and body can go to pretty strange places when you’re dealing with strong emotions,” the band share. “Anxiety is hard. Mourning the loss of relationships that once meant a lot to you is hard. Letting your wounds get in the way of potential connections is hard.”

“The original demo was very organic and simple. No drums or anything,” they continue. “And we actually got it mixed and planned to put it out, but then decided to wait and bring it into the studio when we were cutting songs for our album. The sonic world was really just trying to create the biggest moodiest thing we could in order to match the energy the lyrics convey.”

This choice gives the song its beautiful tension. You can still hear the bones of something small and organic beneath the finished track – the intimacy of the original demo, the closeness of three voices finding their way around a wound – but the final recording lets the feeling swell until it becomes almost physical. The harmonies do so much of that work. They don’t simply decorate the song; they deepen it, making the ache feel multiplied, shared, and somehow softened by the presence of other voices in the room.

The mind and body can go to pretty strange places when you’re dealing with strong emotions.

* * *

At the heart of “STRONGER THAN THAT” is the devastating recognition that wanting someone – or wanting the comfort of what’s familiar – doesn’t mean you should go back.

“But I can’t meet you where you’re at / I’m stuck in the past / She’s stronger than that,” they sing in the chorus, the line landing with equal parts shame, tenderness, and awe. Strength, here, isn’t grand or triumphant; it’s the act of not giving in. It’s the unanswered call. It’s knowing a door is bad for you and still having to talk yourself out of opening it. By the time the bridge circles around “Now I’m the enemy / I never meant to be / Just wanted something to last,” the song has become a portrait of a narrator caught between remorse and self-awareness, trying to make sense of the ways hurt people can keep hurting each other.

But I can’t meet you where you’re at
I’m stuck in the past (baby)
You’re stronger than that (yeah)
And I keep calling
She keeps not calling me back
She’s stronger than that

“This song is just about not giving into the temptation of something that’s been proven to be not good,” verygently explain. “Even if it feels like something you want in the moment.”

That resistance – the choice not to return to what has already hurt you – now sits inside a fuller frame. “STRONGER THAN THAT” is one of the first windows into verygently’s upcoming debut album SORRY, SARAH, out October 9th, an 11-track arrival that finds the trio leaning all the way into the harmony-driven, emotionally direct sound they’ve been sharpening on the road. Across the record, verygently transform late-20s anxiety, heartbreak, self-sabotage, and bad habits into something communal and cathartic: Songs that sting because they’re honest, but still leave room for humor, movement, and release.

“This album is the most actualized version of verygently we’ve ever released,” the trio share. “After two years of being a band and touring, we feel like this is the closest we’ve gotten to capturing what it is that we do live. It’s three part harmony driven, and the writing process was heavily collaborative between the three of us versus the first two EPs that were more eclectic in the conception of the songs.”

In the record’s fuller frame, “STRONGER THAN THAT” feels less like a standalone ache and more like part of verygently’s larger emotional vocabulary. It’s a song about not giving in, but it’s also a song about growing into yourself badly, honestly, and in real time – about recognizing the patterns that hurt, the people you still miss, and the part of you that wants to be better even before you know how.

Now I’m the enemy
I never meant to be
Just wanted something to last
(she’s stronger than that)
Now I’m the enemy
I never meant to be
Just wanted something to last
(she’s stronger than that)

All of this makes “STRONGER THAN THAT” feel raw, soul-stirring, and achingly human: It understands that healing rarely arrives cleanly. It can look like panic, relapse, restraint, mourning, self-blame, and still choosing not to cross the line. Strength, here, isn’t some clean arrival at peace; it’s a shaky choice made in real time, with the past still close enough to touch and the future not yet fully visible. verygently don’t turn that struggle into a lecture; they turn it into harmony, into ache, into a dramatic swell of sound that makes alienation feel a little less lonely. “STRONGER THAN THAT” is a song for the aftershocks – for anyone who’s tried to love through the wreckage, anyone still learning the difference between longing and return, anyone who needs to believe that not going back can be its own kind of grace.

“We hope it can make people feel less alone in times they’ve felt alienated by intense emotions,” the band say. In “STRONGER THAN THAT,” they do exactly that – transforming the haunt and sting of old wounds into a radiant, rich reminder that strength can sound soft, very gentle, and breathtakingly alive.

Atwood Magazine caught up with verygently to talk about the making of “STRONGER THAN THAT,” the strange places anxiety and grief can take the mind and body, and the harmony-driven, fully collaborative world of their upcoming debut album, SORRY, SARAH. Read our conversation below, and let the song linger as a reminder that getting out doesn’t mean the ache stops – but sometimes strength begins in the space between reaching back and letting the call go unanswered.

Atwood Magazine caught up with verygently to talk about the making of “STRONGER THAN THAT,” the strange places anxiety and grief can take the mind and body, and the three-part chemistry behind one of their most raw and resonant songs to date. Read our conversation below, and stay tuned for more to come from verygently as they continue to unveil the soul-stirring sounds and vulnerable contours of their upcoming debut album.

Getting out doesn’t mean the ache stops – but sometimes true strength begins in that space between reaching back and letting the call go unanswered.

But I can’t meet you where you’re at
I’m stuck in the past (baby)
She’s stronger than that
And I keep calling
She keeps not calling me back
She’s stronger than that

— —

:: stream/purchase STRONGER THAN THAT here ::

:: connect with verygently here ::

:: stream/purchase SORRY, SARAH here ::

— —

Stream: “STRONGER THAN THAT” – verygently

A CONVERSATION WITH VERYGENTLY

verygently: We are three good friends who started a band for fun back at the start of 2024, and the universe has been very kind to us!

verygently: It feels like the music we are making and releasing today is a lot more realized than our first two EPs. Starting this band has been a bit of a whirlwind and the beginning was sort of thrown together out of necessity. It’s been nice to have had the opportunity to play so many shows though and hone in the sound that I feel like is reflected more accurately on this new project.

Our north stars are kind of all over the place. I’d say we all love and respect artists like Medium Build, Ruston Kelly, Adrianne Lenker, Noah Gundersen, Father John Misty, Sam Fender to name a few!

verygently: The mind and body can go to pretty strange places when you’re dealing with strong emotions. Anxiety is hard. Mourning the loss of relationships that once meant a lot to you is hard. Letting your wounds get in the way of potential connections is hard.

verygently: Those words were just kind of subconscious spit ball mumbo jumbo. The song was birthed with the three of us, Kevin Griffin, and Sam Hollander. Kevin has a weird little three strings cigar box that inspired the guitar riff, and from there the phonetics kinda came out and it sounded cool. As far as collective vision goes, I think we’re all able to relate to the feeling of spinning out a bit. For us, it paints a picture of a narrator post crash out.

verygently: The original demo was very organic and simple. No drums or anything. And we actually got it mixed and planned to put it out, but then decided to wait and bring it into the studio when we were cutting songs for our album. The sonic world was really just trying to create the biggest moodiest thing we could in order to match the energy the lyrics convey.

verygently: I think this song is just about not giving into the temptation of something that’s been proven to be not good. Even if it feels like something you want in the moment.

verygently: I hope it can make people feel less alone in times they’ve felt alienated by intense emotions.

verygently: Ken Yates and Jarrad K!

— —

:: stream/purchase STRONGER THAN THAT here ::

:: connect with verygently here ::

:: stream/purchase SORRY, SARAH here ::

— —

Stream: “STRONGER THAN THAT” – verygently

— — — —

Connect to verygently on
Facebook, 𝕏, TikTok, Instagram

Discover new music on Atwood Magazine

 © Chase Denton

:: Today’s Song(s) ::

 follow our daily playlist on Spotify

:: Stream verygently ::