The Grief And Balance Of Soccer Mommy’s Sophie Allison
photography by Elena saviano.
Sophie Allison, otherwise known as the beloved Soccer Mommy, stepped out with her fourth record “Evergreen” in October of last year, bearing wisdom and sincerity derived from the throes of a profound loss.
The record is a generous observance of grief and its many variable and unfamiliar faces. Mediated by pensive undertones and the crunch of Sophie’s guitar strings, it’s light but not delicate, steeped in sunshine and anchored by moments of unparalleled honesty.
Loss is a fickle thing and in the wake of its arrival, we often become archaeologists. We sift through the soils of remembrance, searching for the shape or sound f something familiar. With a meticulous hand, “Evergreen” begs us to consider the amending effects of time, taking inventory of the things we carry with us and the things we must leave behind. All 11 tracks of this record are a tender reminder that what is gone is never wholly lost.
Soccer Mommy kicked off an international tour late last month. Read an excerpt of my conversation with Sophie below.
How did all of this come about for you? Was music always the thing for you, or did you fall into this in a different way?
I always loved music. I started writing songs when I was five or six, and throughout my life, it was always my main passion. It was always the thing I loved to do. I think regardless of whether I had gotten into this career or not, I would be doing it for the rest of my life. I just love it. The Soccer Mommy thing started right after I graduated high school: the summer after. That’s when I started putting little demos online, little recordings that I was making myself in my bedroom that I was posting onto Bandcamp. It grew mostly through there and ended up being something that got me a record deal when I was in college. Then it just took off, and I started following that.
Something you do really well in your writing is being humorous while still getting to the heart of some pretty complex, emotional stuff. Does that come about through writing alone, or are you pretty collaborative?
I actually don’t write with anybody. I always write alone, it’s always how I’ve done it. The idea of writing with someone feels not only very vulnerable, but for me, the point of writing songs is to sort through things that I’m dealing with and figure things out. I don’t really think there’s a place for any other voice in that. It’s more about me making something that says what I’m feeling and thinking and mirrors that. When I’m recording, there’s obviously lots of different musicians playing on the record, but writing is always just me.
That’s interesting, because then you take these songs on tour, involving entire audiences where there was previously only you, for the most part. How does that feel?
It kind of feels like going to your parent’s house and finding an old journal from when you were a child: reading it and feeling totally disconnected from it. It feels like that a lot of the time, because it has been so long since you’ve written the songs. It has been years since I wrote the songs on this album, and you go through this whole process with them. You write them, you sit with that for a while. Then you record them, you sit with that for a while. You talk about them for so long. By the time you get to touring and playing them out to everybody, it’s not as emotionally raw. Playing to a huge audience becomes more about having fun and the sonics of it all: things feeling good and sounding good. I don’t think I could ever have an emotional moment in front of so many people, in general. You play through a song with the band and there’s great energy. That’s the more rewarding part, and it makes it fun, even if it’s really emotional music.
Right. This record does have roots in grief and loss and change. Those are emotions that can feel different by the second, let alone the day, the week, or the month. And when people talk about grief in a creative space, it often shakes out to be pretty abstracted, but I feel like you’re allowing us to be right there with you, seeing all sides of these feelings. There are moments of joy and relief amidst moments of deep sadness. How did you approach writing while experiencing loss? And following that, performing?
I wanted it to capture all of that, because when I was going through this loss and huge change in my life, I always imagined certain aspects of it. But there are things you have trouble really grasping how you’re going to feel until you feel them. It’s really, really complex, and it involves a lot of sadness and pain and hurt, but there’s also beauty in it. I think it’s really important to find that beauty as well. It’s important to not be afraid of remembering and feeling. So I wanted these songs to reflect all of these different things that are, at times, at odds with each other, but that are all part of life. It’s all life. Everyone experiences loss and death and change in their life and the bittersweet variety of feelings that come with that. I think it’s good to still be able to appreciate everything. And making the record, I wanted it to be a solace for me too. I obviously wanted people to enjoy the record but first and foremost, I wanted to make it for myself. I feel that way every time I make music. I could have not been doing this as a career. I could have not gotten a random shot on the Internet to make this work, and I’d still be doing the exact same things with my time. I’d still be writing all the time. So I really didn’t want to focus on melodrama. And I think when you’re approaching complex issues, the only way to get any depth out of it is to go into every piece of it knowing that it might not be exactly what you expected or what you wanted to get out of all of this.
That cheesy line, “expect the unexpected.”
Absolutely.
The subject matter and feel of this record is so different from your last few. Did you at any point feel there were expectations that you would make a certain type of music or write about certain things?
I have moments where I’m like, “Is no one going to like this?” And that comes from anxiety. But the people who follow my music have always been really open to me trying things. I think that every single record I’ve made has had a different approach on the production side, and I always want to be doing that. I don’t just want to bring in new songs and use the same production ideas, because I find production to be really exciting and inspiring. It’s what can take a record from being good to being great. So I’m always trying to come up with ideas that speak to the songs and can create a bigger picture. And for this record, I had a lot of ideas for production. I know that there was a lot in the record that sounds similar to a lot of other stuff I’ve made throughout my career, so it wasn’t a huge leap. I actually think my last record was a much bigger leap production-wise and gave people something really different than what they might have been expecting. I like giving people the opportunity to be surprised and excited and interested, rather than giving them more of what they’re expecting. It makes it so people can connect with my records more, and production is such a huge part of things. If you don’t bother to get inspired on that end, I think you’re missing a big opportunity to step your music up.
What about the production on your last record felt so different?
It’s not the whole record, but there’s definitely some outside of the box stuff. There’s a lot more horror-y stuff on that record and a lot more electronics. “Color Theory” had electronics on it, but it’s definitely a little bit more pop-y, but again, I love all of that kind of stuff. I think at this point, people who listen to my music expect that I’m going to try to do something that feels fresh, at least to me. I think it’s hard for me personally to be inspired when writing or recording if I don’t have a new headspace or idea that’s grounding everything.
It’s really exciting when you can tell how much an artist loves what they’re making. The song that comes to mind first is “Abigail” off this new record. The music video is set inside Stardew Valley which is so awesome. I love that game. How did that work its way in? How often are your songs rooted in fiction?
Technically, that song is autobiographical, because we’re married in the game!
Right. Duh.
But with that song in particular, I was hitting a wall writing about a lot of the topics I had been writing about for this record. I was still playing guitar all the time and trying to come up with ideas but lyrically, I wasn’t coming up with anything to talk about. I was playing the guitar chords and had a melody in my head, and I thought it would be fun to sing a name. I had been playing Stardew and started singing her name, Abigail. I was thinking it would just be a writing exercise to have something to work on, but I ended up really liking it. Every once in a while, I’ll put in a song that's fictional. “Anchor” on this record is fiction. I’m always tying in a very true emotion, it will never be a completely random story. “Following Eyes” on my last record is fully fiction. It’s a ghost story, it’s not rooted in reality. Every once in a while, I’ll throw something in the mix that is technically fictional, but it’s all based in my own life and feelings.
I personally believe that fiction basically doesn’t exist. Anything we create is going to have extremely traceable elements of the self.
Right. When you’re writing, the way you write emotional scenes or experiences is always based on your own emotions or experiences. You can be telling a fictional story, but it has roots in something that happened to you.
Yep, and it’s a way of processing everything.
It totally is.
And how do you know when a project of yours is done?
It’s hard sometimes. I personally think 11-12 songs is the greatest possible amount of songs that belong on a record. Trim it down to the best stuff. But sometimes, you’ll have nine songs ready to go and wondering if you are going to write anymore. Usually, there’s a song for me that comes when I’m feeling fairly finished that has a little bit of a different feel. I kind of know at that point that I’ve reached the final stage. On this record, it was “Lost.” I think I had already met with the producer when I wrote that one. Usually there is some kind of obvious growth that deviates from all the other songs, and that tells me that I’ve reached the end.
It’s like a little hat on top of the project.
Yeah! It’s like you can see where the music has been taking you, as opposed to still feeling like you need to explore the same themes. I usually can feel a shift in the writing, where it feels like there’s resolution on what I’ve been thinking, and some wisdom and clarity.