With their amps turned up and hearts pointed outward, Toronto indie pop darlings Valley charge headfirst into their next chapter with “Vending Machine,” an irresistibly catchy and emotionally unflinching anthem that rejects love on demand in favor of loving people for who they are, not what they can give. In conversation with Atwood Magazine, frontman Rob Laska gets to the heart of a band rediscovering what matters most, channeling that clarity into something louder, freer, and far more human – a reminder that real connection and having each other still matter most.
Stream: “Vending Machine” – Valley
Life day to day without real human connection behind it is just meaningless… only real human connection will save us.
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Valley are back to entertain us – but on “Vending Machine,” they’re not letting that word go unchallenged.
The Toronto indie pop trio’s first single in nearly two years arrives with soul-shaking force: Big drums, blaring guitars, radiant hooks, and a full-bodied rush of charisma from a band stepping into their next era with zero hesitation. Following 2024’s Water the Flowers, Pray for a Garden, a therapeutic triumph born from grief, growth, and the work of becoming their most authentic selves, “Vending Machine” finds Valley pushing further outward – louder, brighter, and more uninhibited than ever. It’s a song about what happens when care gets mistaken for access, when love becomes demand, and when the person behind the glass finally starts to realize they were never meant to be stocked, selected, and consumed on command.
“Vending Machine” carries the spirit of Valley’s last era forward with even more passion and grit. Water the Flowers, Pray for a Garden was a soul-bearing reset from a band learning how to grieve, grow, and keep choosing each other in real time; watching them carry those songs into Brooklyn Steel last fall only made that chapter feel all the more vital – and visceral. “Vending Machine” doesn’t abandon that hard-won truth – rather, it electrifies it, channeling vulnerability into voltage and self-knowledge into a hook big enough to shake any room you put it in. Now comprised of Rob Laska, Alex Dimauro, and Karah James, Valley sound newly charged here: Still rooted in the emotional openness that made their last chapter so affecting, but ready to meet that vulnerability with teeth, humor, and a full-throttle alt-pop roar.
Touring that album only deepened the band’s understanding of what connection can look like when it isn’t built on transaction.
“It showed us that people were willing to meet us in the room again regardless of preconceived ideas of who Valley is or records we’ve made,” the trio tell Atwood Magazine. “It was all rooted in the real connection we’ve made with our fans that’s beyond the music. You cannot purchase that, it’s non-transactional. It’s a lot of care, love and time. We love our val pals. Touring is beautiful that way, it’s the intersection where the music shakes hands with lives lived and soundtracked by us, all happening in a room. The fact that people continued to show up after making such a vulnerable album felt really special.”
“Vending Machine” opens with a child’s voice asking, “Do you need to be entertained?” – a funny accident that quickly turns into the song’s thesis. The line came by chance during recording in Franklin, Tennessee, when co-producer Chase Lawrence’s niece FaceTimed between drum takes and the studio mic happened to be running. The question is less invitation than indictment – and from the jump, entertainment sounds exhausting: A demand disguised as affection, setting the stage for a song about how draining it is to be loved for what you can give instead of who you are.
“‘Vending Machine’ is a song about transactional relationships with people,” the band share. “A vending machine exists to give things on demand. It doesn’t have needs or emotions. People only approach it when they want something. A source of comfort, attention, validation, or entertainment. It’s love that depends on output, not connection.”
Take whatever you want from me
You fell in love with the vending machine
Take whatever you want from me
You fell in love with the vending machine
Alright
The lyrics keep circling the split between desire and depletion: A person who walks in “like a miracle,” kisses “like a chemical,” and still leaves the narrator feeling locked up, chewed through, spit out, and used for parts. Valley make the metaphor sting because the machine is both object and mask – an image of being approached only when someone needs comfort, attention, validation, or a hit of entertainment, and a version of the self that has learned to perform availability until connection becomes consumption. Even the bridge’s “You want a sentimental meaning / Just to sleep at night / If you’re still living in your head, then you’re out of your mind” cuts through the fantasy with a grimace, refusing to dress up a transactional dynamic as romance just because longing makes it easier to endure. The vending machine is funny until it isn’t: Bright, accessible, useful, lonely, and always separated from the hand reaching in by a sheet of glass.
“It’s always felt like the image in our heads, a symbol of consumption that comes from a longing to feel loved,” Valley share. “We’ve all felt like the machine, we’ve also known what it’s like to be on the other side of the glass. The vending machine houses all connections whether they’re healthy or not. It stocks just as much love, dreams, comedy, healing as it does anger, grief, resentment, questioning, fear, doubt, truth, lies.”
Lock me like an animal
To the edge of self-control
Chew me, spit me, kick me out the door
But, baby, baby, I’m a carnivore
You better learn to love yourself, honey
Oh-oh (When you walk my way)
I don’t even need your loving at all
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
This tension between performance and personhood powers every second of “Vending Machine.”
The song hits with a rush of guitar overdrive, turning Valley’s polished alt-pop instincts into a roaring, arena-sized eruption of want, resentment, and release.
When Rob Laska sings, “You better learn to love yourself, honey / Oh-oh,” the band break into an irresistibly catchy vocal cascade that sends chills up the spine; when they flip into the pointed, staccato strut of “Take whatever you want from me / You fell in love with the vending machine,” the hook lands like a sneer, a confession, and a dare all at once. There’s freedom in that line, but also frustration: The brutal recognition that no amount of giving can make love honest if the other person only knows how to take.
“I guess what we’re really saying there is, love is meaningless when it doesn’t feel honest,” Laska explains. “You need to find the love in yourself or you will spend a lifetime trying to purchase it, extract it, manufacture it from the life in front of your eyes.”
Take whatever you want from me
You fell in love with the vending machine
Take whatever you want from me
You fell in love with the vending machine
Okay
For all their indie pop shine, Valley have never sounded this gloriously, unapologetically loud.
“Vending Machine” bursts at the seams with distorted guitars, pulsing rhythm, and vocal firepower, but its scale never swallows the feeling at its core. The band wanted the track to have bite without losing its sense of play, and that balance is exactly what makes it hit: It’s feral and funny, wounded and wired, a song serious enough to sting but loose enough to feel like three people blowing the roof off band practice.
“It was really fun to record,” Valley share. “Super playful. It felt like a good door to the house we’re building. With what the song is about, it was important to make the song sonically have some bite but not take itself too seriously. A lot of dry console guitar sounds, really feeling the room in the drums and vocals, treating the recording process as if we were capturing us playing at band practice or soundcheck, simply messing around and having fun. I think you can really feel that. It sounds like a band entertaining themselves while connecting on something real lyrically.”
Valley have long been masters of turning heartbreak, longing, and nostalgia into communal catharsis, but “Vending Machine” lets that catharsis bare its teeth. It’s dramatic, unrelenting, and wholly infectious – a song about being consumed on demand that refuses to be passive, polite, or easy to use up. And when the final chorus shifts from “You fell in love with the vending machine” to “You fell in love with a version of me,” the whole thing cracks open. The machine was never only about what other people take; it was also about who we become when we train ourselves to be useful, available, entertaining, and easy to reach.
“You’re allowed to question your authenticity or the ways you show up as you get older, which ultimately leads to connecting with yourself to change, to grow,” Laska says of that final shift. “I think it’s important to look back and not stare, but learn. The version of yourself that bred consumption from the people around you, and in our case publicly, might not have been coming from a real place to begin with.”
This is what makes Valley’s 2026 return feel so invigorating.
“Vending Machine” is a beautiful punch in the face – a jolt to the system and a spark in the chest, leaving us breathless and emboldened as Valley remind us that love without connection isn’t love at all; it’s just another transaction waiting to be declined. More than anything, the song argues for the opposite of disposability: For care, for rooms full of people, for shared belief, for relationships that can’t be bought, extracted, or selected from behind the glass.
As Valley put it, listeners should “build meaningful relationships” and “find ways in your life to be in pursuit of something that brings you together with people in a room and doesn’t feel disposable, not through your device or on one side of the glass but collaborative, shared belief in something bigger than yourself.”
That’s the heart beating beneath all the noise: Valley taking the machinery apart, laughing at the absurdity of it all, and choosing real connection anyway.
Atwood Magazine recently caught up with Valley’s Rob Laska to trace the life inside “Vending Machine,” from the accidental FaceTime that gave the song its first voice to the playful chaos pushing their next chapter forward. His candid answers move with the same live-wire charm as the track itself, swerving between humor and bite before landing on a truth that says more than any grand statement ever could – how after everything they’ve been through, being a band still comes down to something beautifully simple: Having each other.
Read our interview below, and let “Vending Machine” be a rousing reminder to love people for who they are, not what they can give.
You want a sentimental meaning
Just to sleep at night
If you’re still living in your head,
then you’re out of your mind
Take whatever you want from me
You fell in love with the vending machine
Take whatever you want from me
You fell in love with a version of me
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:: stream/purchase Vending Machine here ::
:: connect with Valley here ::
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Stream: “Vending Machine” – Valley
A CONVERSATION WITH VALLEY
Atwood Magazine: Valley, hello my friends – it’s so good to have you back. It’s been nearly two years since Water the Flowers, Pray for a Garden. Last time we spoke, you were in a collective reset – moving through grief and growth, and choosing the most honest version of Valley. How are you feeling now, at the start of this next chapter?
Valley (Rob Laska): Hi! Feeling good. It’s been a min, so I feel a little out of practice socially but getting back on the horse (cow) is fun.
Around that album, you talked about letting everyone out of the room and putting authenticity first – that people just want to know who you are, and the rest doesn’t matter. Did making and touring that record change how you think about what Valley can be?
Valley: Definitely. It showed us that people were willing to meet us in the room again regardless of preconceived ideas of who Valley is or records we’ve made. It was all rooted in the real connection we’ve made with our fans that’s beyond the music. You cannot purchase that, it’s non-transactional. It’s a lot of care, love and time. We love our val pals. Touring is beautiful that way, it’s the intersection where the music shakes hands with lives lived and soundtracked by us, all happening in a room. The fact that people continued to show up after making such a vulnerable album felt really special.
“Vending Machine” opens with the question, “Do you need to be entertained?” Why did that feel like the right first thing for people to hear from Valley after this time away?
Valley: Funny enough… that is Chase (our co-producer’s) niece! We were recording at a studio in Franklin, TN – between drum takes, she Facetimed him and the first thing she said when he answered the phone was, “Do you need to be entertained?” Tanner, our engineer had the mic running, it was one of those moments that instantly felt hilarious but also important. There’s a lot of hope and humour in the way she said it almost like she was in a cartoon, it felt like something to think about deeper. Like do you? Do we? And why? Or why not? What does it mean to be entertained these days? It provoked us to dive into our purpose as a band and what we ‘provide’ for people.
You’ve described “Vending Machine” as a song about transactional relationships – love that depends on output, not connection. What made that idea feel urgent to write about now?
Valley: Feels like an experience that is a bit of a constant vortex to avoid these days. Feels like life is more and more about literally ‘more.’ And delivered on your doorstep or device in record speed. Life day to day without real human connection behind it, is just meaningless? I think whether you are in pursuit of anything in this current timeline or thinking about the future, only real human connection will save us.
We are making everything a vessel for entertainment these days, but at 1000mph versus taking the time to nurture it with time, with care and most importantly with people. This is how I’m choosing to feel about it today, but in context of a relationship with another person verses a machine, the truth hits the same.
The chorus is so bold: “Take whatever you want from me / You fell in love with the vending machine.” How did that image help you name the difference between being loved and being consumed?
Valley: It’s always felt like the image in our heads, a symbol of consumption that comes from a longing to feel loved. We’ve all felt like the machine, we’ve also known what it’s like to be on the other side of the glass. The vending machine houses all connections whether they’re healthy or not. It stocks just as much love, dreams, comedy, healing as it does anger, grief, resentment, questioning, fear, doubt, truth, lies. At least that’s how I feel about it today!
The song ends on “You fell in love with a version of me,” which feels like the whole thing cracking open. How did you want that final shift to land?
Valley: You’re allowed to question your authenticity or the ways you show up as you get older, which ultimately leads to connecting with yourself to change, to grow. I think it’s important to look back and not stare but learn. The version of yourself that bred consumption from the people around you and in our case publicly, might not have been coming from a real place to begin with.
I love the line “You better learn to love yourself, honey / I don’t even need your loving at all.” There’s freedom in it, but there’s also a lot of frustration. How did you want the song to hold both?
Valley: I guess what we’re really saying there is, love is meaningless when it doesn’t feel honest. You need to find the love in yourself, or you will spend a lifetime trying to purchase it, extract it, manufacture it from the life in front of your eyes.
“Vending Machine” is loud, playful, and kind of feral – especially coming after such a tender and therapeutic album. How did you want this song to sound and feel as the beginning of a new era?
Valley: It was really fun to record. Super playful. It felt like a good door to the house we’re building. With what the song is about, it was important to make the song sonically have some bite but not take itself too seriously. A lot of dry console guitar sounds, really feeling the room in the drums and vocals, treating the recording process as if we were capturing us playing at band practice or soundcheck, simply messing around and having fun. I think you can really feel that. It sounds like a band entertaining themselves while connecting on something real lyrically. And the outro is obviously so silly and meant to almost feel like the song is tripping out, it’s meant to almost feel like the epiphany / realization in real time of what the song is about.
There’s always been catharsis in Valley songs, but “Vending Machine” bares its teeth a little more. Does that feel true to where the band is right now?
Valley: I think that’s what felt exciting about vending. It felt like taking a bite of a rotten apple thematically and having fun with the taste; this feeling can suck, let’s make a song that conveys that and not take it too seriously.
The video has so much personality and chaos in it. What did you want the visual world of “Vending Machine” to say about this new chapter?
Valley: Expecting the unexpected, extracting life and making something natural exist in unnatural environments, being perceived as entertainment, is that a good or bad thing? Finding the truth in both. Stevie the clown wants to be your friend!!! And of course Adit (our director) is a visionary and so gifted at conveying the chaos with heart and joy at the centre of it all.
After everything Valley have lived through together, what feels most exciting about being a band right now?
Valley: Having each other.
What do you hope listeners take away from “Vending Machine,” and what have you taken away from creating it and now putting it out?
Valley: Build meaningful relationships. Find ways in your life to be in pursuit of something that brings you together with people in a room and doesn’t feel disposable, not through your device or on one side of the glass but collaborative, shared belief in something bigger than yourself!
I guess also, people are allowed to fall in love and consume versions of you that are not you anymore and you’re allowed to grow from that, life is complex and you learn a lot.
Flaming Hot Cheetos, a Kinder Bueno, and a crispy cold Coke Zero is vending machine royalty – so maybe just think about that.
In the spirit of paying it forward, who are you listening to these days that you’d recommend to our readers?
Valley: Loving the new Ryan Beatty album, new Lorde is still in full rotation (Virgin), Chanel Beads, Smerz has a great new-ish album, “BABY DONT HURT ME” BY EMMA OGIER might be the greatest song ever written, and shout out to our friend Eden Joel – “18 Wheeler” is a hell of a song and you should go listen to it. There’s a song we made together that I’m really excited about! 🙂
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:: stream/purchase Vending Machine here ::
:: connect with Valley here ::
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Stream: “Vending Machine” – Valley
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© Vanessa Heins
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