When I first moved to New York City, one of the largest cultural epicenters in the world, I couldn’t help but feel a little overexposed. People always talk about “opportunity” in the big apple, but they never talk about the bottomless well of opportunity being so vast that if you don’t learn to tread water and seize those opportunities fast enough, you’ll get left behind, drowning in the deep sea of your own insignificance and depression.
Another thing people never consider before moving here, is how fleeting lasting relationships are. And that’s by design. When you’re thrust into an environment where self-reliance is king, patience is virtually non-existent and instant gratification rules all, is it really that surprising that most New Yorkers would sooner travel to a different country than a different borough to visit their significant other?
This amorphous nature of relationships of all kinds, especially the ways they morph and change in New York, is a prescient theme on See This Through, the latest EP from Brooklyn-based power pop band Sorry Darling. Every track is brimming with longing and desperation over honey-coated jangle pop melodies and bombastic instrumentals. “There’s no angle, there’s no angle, I just want to talk to you,” bandleaders Liz Wagner Biro and Steve Bailey plead on the closing track, “No Angle,” illustrating how difficult it can be to have honest conversations with a friend, a relative, or a lover who has decided to ice you out, when all you want is to understand how you got there.
A Grrrl’s Two Sound Cents caught up with Sorry Darling to discuss the new EP, the genesis of the band, and why this is their most mature body of work.
How did Sorry Darling first form and how would you describe the band to a stranger?
Steve Bailey: Liz and I became friends when I first moved to NYC. I lived with her then-boyfriend, now-husband in a wacky sitcom apartment full of creatives in Bushwick we called ‘The Starship’. We both were playing on and off in bands separately but we always liked talking about music together. Eventually that organically became its own thing and then the ONLY thing circa… 2019?
I’d describe us as a big-hearted, song-oriented, guitar rock band the likes of which haven’t haunted the radio since… well… people cared about radio.
Liz Wagner Biro: This version of Sorry Darling solidified in 2022, we had a winding road to get here! And since the internet loves its hashtags: indie rock / alt rock / bubblegrunge / indie pop with hooks and heart.
Dan Holodak: I was a stray drummer wandering the streets of Brooklyn until Liz found me at a band lotto event (where a roomful of music-types are assigned at random into bands and given 1 day to prepare 15 minutes of music). A few months later she asked if I wanted to audition for Sorry Darling.
I would call Sorry Darling alt janglepop rock.
Is there a specific point in the band’s development you can point to where your music and performance output started to feel like a serious long-term endeavor and not just a hobby anymore?
Bailey: I think Liz and I both have always harbored a sense of seriousness about what we were doing in terms of music, even prior to working together. At a point we both realized mutually that the only way to do it was to REALLY do it, so that’s been the push since then as best we can. Whether or not that pans out is up to the fates!
Wagner Biro: Totally agree, we’ve been serious about this from the moment we realized it was something worth being serious about, which was early on.
Jackie Land: Honestly, I don’t think there’s ever been a point where I haven’t taken this band seriously! I was very sold on the demos that Steve sent me prior to auditioning for the band and it just felt like such an instant fit. I think the fact that Dan and I joined the band simultaneously was another factor that helped all of the musical and interpersonal dynamics gel.
Holodak: I would never call anything I do very serious but I do remember playing with this group feeling immediately like it had a magic to it that was worth putting work into.
Are there any specific people or influences in your lives you can point to who made you realize you wanted to be a musician?
Bailey: I came up in a musical family, specifically a guitar playing one, but it didn’t really sink its teeth into me until late in high school around the time TRL really started playing pop punk bands. I found myself drawn to the more songwriter-y ones – All American Rejects, Sugarcult, that kind of thing – and that made me want to do the same. Once I got to college and experienced the full glory of harddrive swapping I got into all kinds of music and made up for lost time. Late 70s UK punk and new wave was VERY important to my stylistic development at that point – people like The Jam, The Pretenders, The Skids, The Clash…
Wagner Biro: My dad was a musician, my step-dad bonded with me by buying me a bunch of “Greatest Hits of _____” compilation CDs every holiday, my mom used to let me pick the CDs to shuffle in the 6-CD changer (shout out to the 90s babies that remember that era) at her store… It’s always been a part of my identity. Not gonna lie, Josie and Pussycats came out when I was in middle school and that really started the dream. Still one of my favorite movies and soundtracks of all time.
Land: I saw a Beatles impersonation group when I was 6 and I didn’t get that they weren’t actually The Beatles. I thought they were the real deal. I was later informed that they were not, in fact, the actual Beatles, but I just couldn’t shake the need to participate in music since that moment! I decided to pick up bass in high school when I heard Incubus’s Fungus Amongus [for] the first time! Couldn’t get enough! Was also (and am still) a bit of a metalhead with an unhealthy Cliff Burton obsession.
Holodak: I started playing drums shortly after seeing the movie School of Rock for the first time. Probably extra inspired by being around the same age as some of the kids in the movie. My influence can be pretty broad but certainly leaning toward the alt rock I grew up listening to on 102.7 WEQX (the REAL alternative) in Albany.
This year you released your first EP, See This Through. Can you tell me a little more about the concept and why it was important to explore the evolving nature of different relationships on it?
Wagner Biro: The concept came about by honing in on the songs we’d been toying with – committing to some and letting others go (for now). It just worked out naturally that they’re all about different aspects of relating and honestly, that will likely continue into future releases because at least for me personally as a songwriter it’s what inspires me most.
Bailey: I think it was one of those things where the concept came after we had the songs, really. At that point our definitive lineup had solidified (with Jackie Land on bass and Dan Holodak on drums) and we were eager to just get in the studio and make something happen. As we recorded the songs and got to hear them produced at a higher level of quality, we started to see the sonic and lyrical threads that tied them together. Ultimately it just feels like a more realized and mature work than anything I’ve personally been involved in, so that’s really satisfying.
I’m a big fan of the dual lead vocals being on an even playing field in your songs, rather than one person’s voice being the obvious “main character” in the song. What led to that creative decision in the band?
Bailey: Serendipity again on this one, I think. Liz and I have always liked singing together although I’ll be the first to say that she has much stronger vocal presence than I do. The co-lead thing developed organically because we had songs where one of us came up with a melody that sounded great but didn’t fit the other person’s range. Liz has always been a lover of counter melodies so she started doing those instead of harmonizing and it started to become a signature thing for us that we weren’t hearing too many other bands doing. I think now we’re trying to do it a bit more intentionally, but it definitely feels like an honest expression of the kind of people we are – trying to do the same thing but never quite in the same way. It keeps the art interesting and a little surprising.
Wagner Biro: Exactly. The very first song we played together years and years ago before we even planned on starting a band, Steve played it for me and I was like “hm… I can’t quite pull that off but let’s just sing together” and I improvised a counter melody along with him and then that just stuck. It’s become our thing and the former a cappella kid in me is not mad at it.
I understand that you worked with Jeff Berner at the famous Studio G in BK on this EP. What was that experience like and what did you all take away from it?
Bailey: He definitely knows how to elevate your live sound into something that sounds fuller, tighter, and more complete. It was a really rewarding experience to work the songs out in a proper studio and get that feeling that you were listening to something more legit when he pulled up the mixes on the monitors. If your hairs start to stand up on your neck and you feel like you’re listening to someone else’s band, it means something good is happening. That happened a LOT in those sessions at G.
Wagner Biro: Totally. Also, Jeff has an incredibly well-calibrated ear for disharmony and isn’t shy about saying “do that again” or catching tiny errors that my ears miss. I love him for that, his perfectionism kind of soothed my anxiety about getting it right because I really trusted he’d make sure we did.
Holodak: Jeff encouraged my tambourine dreams and for that I will always be grateful. Although he vetoed the bongos pretty hard. He is a fickle God.
If you could form a supergroup with any other current local band in Brooklyn, who would you pick?
Bailey: If we’re going full-on Oasis egotism here I’d stick with the four people we’ve got, because I think we rule.
That being said, some combination of New Myths, Catty, and Wifey would be an insane band.
Wagner Biro: Awwwww, Steve! And hot damn, would have to agree on all fronts. Let’s throw Strange Neighbors in the mix for me, too.
Land: The way that our respective influences and styles mesh makes Sorry Darling my #1 dream team! But! If Endearments, A Very Special Episode and SD wanted to team up and create a dark, western-influenced post punk band, who would I be to stand in the way of that?
Holodak: Far too many wildly talented groups in NYC, would love to explore the possibility of a ridiculous gigantic folky rock group with mega talents of Bandits on the Run, Gemma Lawrence, Pip the band, and so many more, just cram 100 individuals on that stage and tap the whole city’s maple syrup musical magic.
What does the rest of the year have in store for Sorry Darling?
Bailey: On the live show front, we’ve got shows at Mama Tried and The Sultan Room coming up soon. On the recordings front, you should be hearing from us in July…
Wagner Biro: One last video is in the works for the EP and then yes, we have more music coming for ya followed by a weekend release tour in July… After that I think we want our next thing to be a proper LP and that’s gonna take some time. We’re chipping away at a track listing but also not rushing it. Sorry Darling has a lot more to say.
Holodak: Liz Wagner Biro’s film directing debut!
Wagner Biro: He’s not wrong! Time will tell if I’m any good at it… 😉
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