NYC-based Atlantans Olivia Osby and Avsha Weinberg might’ve named their forthcoming album Ugly Duckling Union, but their artistic growth should be a surprise to no one. Raised on the internet and molded by DIY ethos, the next Lowertown full-length, their first in four years, is their self-proclaimed “best one yet.” The duo’s been releasing music under that name since they were 16, productive in the face of typical teenagerdom, and Ugly Duckling Union indeed makes good on their precocious promise. We sent them some questions: about live shows, solo projects, and the South. You can read the answers below. Ugly Duckling Union comes out May 22nd.

Now that you have some physical distance, what’s your relationship with the South like?

Avsha: I think everything we ever do will be forever molded by the South. The musical community and history in Atlanta especially is so eclectic and elusive, it creates a bond to the city that influences most of my emotional and creative thoughts to this day. It can really test you, but it makes finding the right community even more rewarding. It took serious work to find places I belonged in the South, but because of it, I feel like I was rewarded by finding a lifelong friend in Liv. Both of our families still live there so I definitely still feel that it is a refuge, it’ll always take me back in if I need it.

Olivia: I wouldn’t be who I am now without having grown up in Atlanta. I’m someone who moves at a slower and quieter pace than the average New Yorker. Atlanta is sprawling and integrated into the various natural terrains that make up its geography: swamps, forests, mountains. The people are so kind and there is a large sense of pride and support for the art and people that find success from ATL.

I have Atlanta to thank for my strong connection to nature which also heavily influences my art and overall relationship with myself and others. Me and A try to go back pretty often, and still keep in close contact with many friends who still live there. In a big way, the essence of myself still lives there and any time I come back home, I can feel myself relaxing into this feeling of deep resonance with my surroundings. I don’t feel that kind of specific power anywhere else in the world. I wouldn’t have wanted to grow up anywhere else. 

You both have solo projects. What keeps you coming back to Lowertown? What do you love about working together?

Avsha: Solo projects are a really great way to experiment and give in to the urge to control everything, but there is something so magical when you are creating with someone that knows how to complement your ideas perfectly in a way you could never have thought on your own. Liv and I have known each other for almost 10 years, so we’re almost telepathic in the way that we work, but because we still have different tastes, it’s like writing with a parallel universe version of myself that is blonde and short.

Olivia: Lowertown is a certain world that has been built brick by brick over many years. We’ve always known since the beginning what we want it to be, and that vision is very focused and specific but constantly evolving. Avsha and I are the kinds of people that compulsively will make art no matter the circumstances. I always want to experiment and grow and try different things, and many times I may not see that art fitting into the world of Lowertown or on the level it needs to be.

Music is a language of communication and connection, and I’ve recently over the past few years really enjoyed writing with other friends and collaborators. It’s a great way to grow and challenge yourself, but ultimately, at the end of the day, Avsha is my other half in so many ways. Our strengths and weaknesses compliment each other and bring out the best in each other. He’s the one person in the world I’d follow anywhere or trust with anything, so I’m lucky the biggest portion of my creative time is intertwined with his. We’ve created things together that I could never dream of achieving. I think as we’ve gotten older, we’ve gotten better and better at communicating and letting go of our egos and self consciousness and truly working together on the deepest level.

You’ve shared the stage with acts ranging from screamo bands to rappers. Do you prefer to be on a bill with a clear sonic throughline, or an eclectic one? 

Avsha: Definitely eclectic. Of course, from the perspective of performing, you can tell when the audience is worn out of a specific sound or getting restless, and that usually happens with a bill that is too homogenous. But also, we love to go to shows, and there’s nothing that is as trying on the soul as the third of a four band bill is about to start, all of whom are variations on each other. You could get tired of Beethoven if he was on a bill with Mozart and Haydn. 

Olivia: Eclectic. Growing up in Atlanta, it wasn't abnormal for a rapper to share a bill with a hardcore band and a singer songwriter. I always think it’s a great way to bring different groups of people together under one roof and expose them to different music and communities. A and I love so many kinds of music and I think it’s exciting to be able to platform and hang with other kinds of artists. I always find it inspiring to see a show with a varying bill, those are always my favorite shows. I’m also extremely ADHD and when a show starts to feel monotonous I find it way harder to stay engaged the entire time.

I also think the difference in sound highlights the strengths of each artist.

We’ve shared a bill with so many different kinds of artists and the cool thing about LT fans is they’re super cool and open minded and usually are super excited and down to enjoy any kind of music.

Olivia, what inspired your goth-esque white stage makeup? For both of you, how important is what you’re wearing during shows?

Olivia: It developed as a kind of mask and character I put on. It’s my forcefield between my inner self and my performance self. Once I become that character, it’s like a muffler for my self consciousness and ego, and I feel a power that can only be achieved on stage. At the time I started the makeup, I felt pressured from outside forces to be more palatable, less angry, more sweet and feminine. It disgusted and infuriated me. It was partially my revolt against all these old men telling me how to express myself. That’s not the person I am, and there’s a million girls that feel authentically outwardly femme and sweet. I don’t need to force it and feel stiff and unnatural if there are other women already naturally expressing themselves that way and doing it better than I could forcing it on myself.

Being a woman in entertainment, there is so much pressure and expectation to look a certain way and to be perfect and clean. I’ve never felt like any of those things. The only way I’m able to get up and perform in front of people is if I let go of any expectation of being put together or beautiful. I want to express and connect with all emotions, the ones that make you uncomfortable, the ones that make you feel vulnerable, I think letting go on stage allows the people in the audience to do so as well. I want to feel free and able to connect with everyone in the room. There’s a looseness and freedom once I become that character. I’m not afraid of being ugly, I’m not afraid of people judging me or making a fool of myself. I am only focused on the feeling that I have and expressing that through the music.

You're starting a Lowertown Minecraft realm. What do you want to build? Will you play a show in there?

Avsha: Yes~!~ Back in the early days of the band, we actually started a little Lowertown Discord with friends and fans, and we started the very first Minecraft realm with six or seven Discord friends, we called it Lowercraft. We built a beautiful town with a tastefully decorated HQ. Unfortunately, we had a bad case of griefing and everyone got a bit deflated. We are bringing back the Realm to build the Ugly Duckling Union universe from the ground up. The story of the Ugly Duckling Union follows our main star Dale who is all over the covers of the album, and we’re going to be building his whole world, with all the intricacies and exports of the various territories he travels to. Of course, one of our biggest dreams would be to play on the Midcity Debris stage, but their bookers are super exclusive. Hopefully we’ll be able to wear them down and get an offer.

When planning things like that, is it just for fun, or do you feel pressure to market yourselves creatively? Have the expectations lessened now that you're independent?

Avsha: The expectations have definitely lessened since going independent. The crazy thing is that we were doing all these things that were being asked of us by labels for fun. We really loved any opportunity to talk with new people and bring our community together, but when an authoritative figure came in and told us our career depended on it, our teenage contrarian selves kicked in and we just didn’t want to do it. Growing up kind of isolated in the South, we knew how special it was to find friends especially on the internet. It felt sort of obvious that if we made a place for our fans to meet and build cities and fight the ender dragon, things that were genuine to us that we did together growing up and bonded over, we’d be making a nest for all the Ugly Ducklings like us.

Olivia: I just love building a world for music to live in. Most of my favorite bands are naturally creative with how they get their fans to interact with their music and that’s always my goal. I live for world building. I just always want everything we do to be on our terms and in a natural way, it sucks when bands get so pressured to do all these things just from a label perspective. People can feel when there’s no heart in it, just strictly for promotion. I want everything we put out to be full of love and intention .

How’d you come up with the title of your upcoming album, Ugly Duckling Union? Do you feel more like the duckling or the swan?

Avsha: We are Ugly Ducklings through and through. Ugly Duckling Union is all about power in community. We first started playing shows together pretty young, so it always felt like we were misfits, ugly ducklings, trying to justify our presence as a band or ourselves as musicians. As we started growing, we saw that so many of our fans were a lot like us, misfits who got obsessed with weird little things. We knew how much it meant to us to have our communities in Atlanta, in the ATL music scene, and on the internet, so we started the Ugly Duckling Union, the group of misfit toys.

Olivia: I’ve always felt like an ugly duckling in a world of swans. I realized most of the art and people I resonate with are Ugly Ducklings as well. The outcasts and loners and people that do things their own way, and most of the time it’s not even consciously to be different, it’s because they couldn’t possibly do it any other way. They’re so themselves in a powerful way. The older I get, the less I hate myself for being an ugly duck, and I’ve realized it’s where all my power comes from. That’s what has given me all the things i’ve gotten in life. If i kept on the path of what I thought people wanted of me or what would make others like or understand me or dulled myself down in some kind of way, none of the art I’ve made would exist, I wouldn’t be touring, I would probably be doing something I really hate and pulling my hair out every night and numbing myself to get through each day.

An Ugly Duckling’s power comes from doing what they believe even when no one else believes in it, in doing things the way they want to do them until the right people find them. Slowly we’ve found the people that get the music and every year the community grows. I feel the passion and love and connection whenever we play a show. Sometimes it makes me emotional. I think art and spaces for people who feel like this are so important. Every generation needs its ugly ducks, and those are usually the ones that end up changing things and progressing art forward. We need a diverse world of expression. We need people that try things a different way. Most of the greatest artists and thinkers are ugly ducks!

What can listeners expect sonically? You’ve had an impressive evolution from your bedroom roots.

Avsha: Ugly Duckling Union is a return to form with brand new tools. This whole album was recorded in my basement in Brooklyn, which is exactly how we used to record our first records, just in my basement in Atlanta. All the instruments were performed, tracked, and produced by us in the bowels of my rat infested house, which I still live in, and you can really hear it.

In Friends, our first album, I always loved how you could hear the sound of running water from my family flushing the toilet while we were recording, and I like to think that if you listen really hard to the album, you can hear the scampering of my rat family. The central theme of the album is community in places that we used to have growing up. We were always on Reddit forums and Tumblr pages, and watching Youtube videos about our favorite movies and anime. We wanted to create something like that again for people online that feels totally self governed. The urge to find that community feels like a more developed version of the themes on Friends, but the confusion and isolation processed into whoever we are now. 

Olivia: What A said. A lot of this album was us going back to the essence of our friendship and really going in with the intention of writing together with the reason why we started making music together in the first place. The whole process was such a healing experience for our friendship and artistically since we’ve been doing this together for about 9 years. You see and go through a lot in that time . It was a full circle moment , and it was making something in a selfish way. Purely what we wanted to make. We had our own little world and had so much fun with each song without the pressure of time or expectation from any outside force or outside people telling us what to do or sound like. It’s classic us, but matured and with the years of playing experience and the perspective of 2 people who have seen and done a lot more than the last record. Also it’s a coming back together after band and friendship tension . Back to Ltown basics , but better and now we can play a few extra instruments now.