Lowercase People, consisting of Noah Saunders and Tommy McKelvey, toes the line between thoughtful bedroom pop and straight experimental indie music. Having just released their latest EP Influx (read about it on PL at the link) days before the COVID-19 pandemic, they’re using their time to regroup, get back to basics, and figure out how to collaborate on the best breakfast sandwich recipe while they’re apart.

Do you think all foods can be categorized as a soup, salad, sandwich, or individual ingredient?

Emily: Should we get the question out of the way? Should we just do it?

Bre: Yeah let’s do the question. So this is one that we ask every band that we’ve gone on a date with, and it’s definitely sparked some controversy. Emily, you can do the honors.

[I did do the honors]

Noah: Oh man, don’t ask us this question or we’ll really get into it.

Tommy: So when you talk about oatmeal -

Emily: Salad.

Tommy: Oatmeal is the ingredient of oatmeal. Right?

Bre: It would either be a really wet salad or maybe more of a stew or chowder, I guess.

Noah: But wouldn’t oatmeal be its own individual ingredient?

Tommy: Oatmeal is hot cereal.

Bre: So it’s like soup then.

Noah: Yeah.

Bre: But Emily thinks salad. I think for the health factor I’d say salad.

Tommy: I’d say yes then. If we’re living in a society where this exists then I agree.

Bre: People’s number one argument has been that pizza is a sandwich [thank GOD she explained it this time] so I’m surprised that wasn’t your first answer.

Tommy: What about calzones?

Bre: That's still a sandwich.

Emily: I’d argue that it’s even more of a sandwich.

Tommy: A calzone’s not a sandwich.

Noah: That’s like a wrap.

Emily: And a wrap is a sandwich. It’s a subcategory of a sandwich. A sandwich is a sandwich is a sandwich.

Noah: I just watched an episode of Seinfeld where George keeps giving his boss calzones but then he gets banned from the restaurant so he has nowhere to go to get them anymore.

How has quarantine affected your EP release?

Noah: I don’t know if I wanna talk about music on this date… [to disclaim, we did let them know that the interview wasn’t music-focused and if they brought up their release too many times unprompted that would count as a red flag]

Bre: You get a pass since that’s literally the question.

Tommy: In terms of shows, we were hoping to get an EP release show, but we probably weren’t gonna get one anyway with the virus.

Noah: Yeah this gave us something specific to blame the lack of a show on that was totally out of our control. But I think in terms of the release itself, it made things easier but also more nerve wracking. So many people are on social media right now, but I also thought maybe because of that people might also be too distracted to fully listen.

[at this point I couldn’t fully listen because Tommy had his zoom set up with a green screen and at that moment he walked up behind himself and we all yelled. He’d just filmed a video of his empty kitchen earlier and staged himself walking around.]

Noah: But anyways - things are so saturated on social media right now that I was worried people were going to see it and just kind of look past it.

Tommy: I thought about that too. Social media has its good and bad, but I was worried that people were gonna breeze past it, but if it’s new and anticipated music then I hoped people would be more inclined to listen.

Noah: It’s cool, though. I checked the listening stats on the EP and they were consistent throughout the entire thing so it looks like people are listening from front to back.

Emily: Do you think all the downtime is good for your creative process or is this a nice recharge?

Noah: I said to Bre earlier that I’ve pretty much just been in this room the entire time. I’ve been working on a lot of stuff, just to like make covers and practice production and mixing stuff. I’ve also been spending more time learning actual instruments as well and not just working on tech stuff.

Tommy: We recorded the EP at Noah’s so I only have a few pieces of equipment where I am. But that being said, I’m glad that I can be at home and practice. Even though we did just put out the EP I always feel like I should still be practicing.

Noah: We also just got this new recording interface so now we each have one of those. We’re slowly transitioning so we can each have our own setups.

Tommy: I think quarantine has been good and bad. We can work and produce stuff, but sometimes it is good to just take a healthy distance from all this because you don’t want to wear that out too quickly.

Noah: I’ve been watching a lot of Andrew Hale’s “Chatting With” videos.

What do you tell someone is your favorite album when you want to sound cool, and what’s your actual guilty pleasure favorite?

Emily: They can’t be the same answer. Please. So many bands try to cheat this and be like “I’m so genuine” or “I don’t believe in guilty pleasures” and that’s not true. Everyone tailors certain conversations to certain people and situations, so be honest.

Tommy: Initially, I thought “Continuum” would be a flex album. It’s so well known and so good, and John Mayer’s less-is-more approach is just so good. I guess that could be my guilty pleasure, too.

Noah: I listen to “Continuum” like every morning. As far as guilty pleasure, I’d say sometimes I listen to the first Ariana Grande album. That came out when I was in eighth grade and I bought the CD at Target and I loved it. I listen to Harry Styles a lot. He’s sick. I think it also depends on who - well it’s a date. I know people automatically cringe at Twenty-One Pilots, and I don’t listen often, but they have some songs that I go back to that I think are so good. My impressive answer would probably be a John Mayer album. “Heavier Things” or “Continuum,” or maybe even - I don’t think I’m this pretentious - but maybe Miles Davis. I do love him but I don’t listen all the time.

Tommy: I’m sticking with John Mayer for my impressive answer. Guilty pleasure, the new Billie Eilish is great. The production is awesome. Like zero reverb. Tame Impala is also great.

[Bre and I both rolled our eyes]

Emily: That’s a red flag. We get it all the time. Stereotypical e-boy.

Noah: Tommy seems to change his opinion on Tame Impala every day. Some days he’s like “I can’t stand Kevin Parker” and other days he’s like “you know, that Tame Impala album is actually really, really good.”

Tommy: He is the guilty pleasure. He’s a fun listen and his production is okay. But if you dig deeper, his songwriting skills lack because he’s so reliant on production. If you look at that John Mayer album, while he does have some production on it, he’s more in tune with the writing.

Noah: He seems kinda like an industry plant to me, Kevin Parker.

Here’s where we tried out our first “interactive” segment and took a Buzzfeed quiz that told us which couple we were from “Friends” based on some date-planning questions…

[to set the mood, Noah put on some Little River Band for us to jam to while we each took our quiz]

Tommy: Who’s… who’s David Schwimmer again? And who’s Jennifer Aniston?

Emily: Uhhhh Ross and Rachel?

Noah: What, I got Joey and Kathy. Kathy cheats on Joey!

Emily: Couldn’t even tell you who that is.

Bre: Joey and Kathy… I don’t remember her either.

Noah: She’s dating Joey, and he doesn’t have a good birthday present for her, but Chandler gets her something really thoughtful. At one point she’s cutting Chandler’s hair, and then they kiss.

Bre: Uh oh. Okay Emily share your screen.

Emily: Okay I got Monica and Chandler.

Bre: That’s what I got.

Tommy: That’s what I got too.

Noah: I wish. But you guys probably didn’t put “love” as the most important trait in a relationship.

Emily: Nope I chose honesty.

Bre: Me too.

Tommy: I chose “being yourself.”

Emily: This is all very revealing.

Has quarantine put a damper on your love lives? How are you making moves in quarantine?

Noah: I’m dating someone, so I’m not trying to make any moves.

Tommy: And I’m not.

Bre: How are you handling dating someone that you can’t see right now?

Noah: You know, we fight a lot. [he was kidding] It’s really just all texting, and then I’ll go twenty minutes without responding because I’m working and she’s living with her sister right now. So she’s entertained, and I’m entertained.

Tommy: How’s it been staying with your parents?

Noah: It hasn’t been bad! I do my thing, I’m in here mostly. I’ve been making killer breakfasts. I’ve gotten really good at eggs.

Tommy: What kind of eggs are you using? [his voice had a weird competitive edge here]

Noah: Tommy and I love breakfast foods. We have a passion for breakfast sandwiches.

Tommy: We’ve stayed up for 12 hours trying to perfect our egg recipe.

Noah: I do sunny side up and olive oil on avocado toast.

Bre: But Tommy how are you handling relationships while you’re stuck in quarantine?

Noah: I forgot that was even the question.

Tommy: It’s just the same thing I’ve been doing for the last like, year and a half. I do my thing. It’s alright.

Bre: Emily and I have been perfecting how to slide into DMs.

Noah: I didn’t think girls actually did that.

Bre; Yeah, Emily will send me a guy on Instagram and the next thing you know we have a group chat going.

Noah: No way.

Emily: It works!

Bre: Yeah, who gets an Instagram follow, phone number, and Snapchat all within less than twenty-four hours? We do.

Noah: I was actually considering making Lowercase People a Tinder just to promote stuff.

Bre: I’ve been doing it! I’ve gotten like 180 new Instagram followers on my photo account. People are so bored right now so it’s working.

Tommy: My relationship with dating apps is weird. I’ll go weeks without it and then I’ll go back on and remember why I went off in the first place.

So when you get out of quarantine, you’re going to go on some really awesome dates, right? What’s the coolest date you could think to plan?

Noah: I feel like I've only ever been on one real date. Like, I’m taking her out, paying for everything. It was a one-time thing. We went to Philly, did the whole thing. Dates for me now are just us going out to eat, paying separately, and then chilling. I can’t think of like a “perfect date.”

Bre: Then if you could take your girlfriend somewhere awesome, where would you go?

Noah: We actually were talking about maybe doing a weekend thing in Baltimore or something like that. Maybe Boston. Like a city neither of us has been to before. But I also don’t mind hanging out. An ideal date is like dinner and then just going back and hanging out and talking.

Tommy: Yeah it doesn’t take much to impress me either. But also that’s just me.

Noah: I saw this TikTok that was like “every person answering the music question on a date.” So they ask what they’re listening to and the guy’s like, “I’m super quirky and weird. I like everything but country. But like, that’s just me.”

Tommy: Or “my taste is super underground. I like this new band called Tame Impala. And have you ever heard of Mac DeMarco?” [this made my heart absolutely stop]

Noah: Also, most of the dates that I’ve done have been my girlfriend driving around with me while I work DoorDash.

Tommy: I did it with them once. They got tired of me after a while.

Are your first kiss stories worth telling?

Bre: How old were you guys?

Emily: I was fifteen or sixteen.

Tommy: What would you do if I was like, “well when I was nineteen…”

Bre: Stop! I had mine when I was eighteen!

Noah: My first kiss was in eighth grade during a basketball game, and we went into the hallway and it was like a super quick thing and then after we were like, “did that just happen??”

Tommy: Noah and his brother went to this super small private school, and I remember it was a big thing when he and this girl were going to hug. So it was spreading around school like, “they’re gonna do it, oh my god, where should we go???” And then they hugged and it was “huge.”

Emily: That’s better than my kiss story.

Bre: Mine was at a frat party freshman year of college. I didn’t ask for it. I was sitting on the sofa and then all of a sudden this guy was next to me. It was terrible because he was terrible. And he wasn’t even in the frat, he was on the lacrosse team.

Emily: Both options are glaring red flags.

The Date Where Lowercase People Get Weirdly Competitive About Their Breakfast Habits