Gal Pal Walk Us Through Each Track on This and Other Gestures

For nearly six years after the release of their debut Girlish, LA rock band Gal Pal remained mostly quiet, with the exception of 2019’s EP Unrest/Unfeeling. Today, they’re back with a bang: This and Other Gestures, a deep-dive into the sprawling internal landscapes of band members Emelia Austin, Nico Romero and Shayna Hahn.

Replete with scorching guitar tracks, intimate samples and dreamily distorted vocals, Gal Pal’s sophomore endeavor is colorful and complex. The band’s continued effort to move beyond boundaries and expectations—sometimes, they note, their own—shines through sonically and lyrically. With This and Other Gestures out now, we accompanied Gal Pal on a conversational journey through the inspiration, emotion and imagination behind each track on the album.

“Say No”
We couldn’t imagine starting this album with any other track. This song encompasses what Gal Pal is really capable of. It’s a track that floods your whole system. We really had fun fleshing out the layers and textures of this song. The underbelly of this song is about being mixed up in toxic behaviors and eventually learning how to grow out of them. This track is also so much fun to play live. If you haven’t seen it live yet, you must. —Emelia

“Varsity Star”
For a long time I tried to make sense of my own gender identity through music and art. Before I had come out as transgender, I had been purposefully vague and accessible in my lyricism, hiding away from the truth a bit. I knew I wanted this song to be different, to be specific and honest for a certain group of people. To take this opportunity and make something for myself and for people who struggled like me. Something positive and loving and hopeful. Originally ‘Varsity Star’ was a seven-minute song encompassing the two tracks following, ‘Pleasures’ and ‘Crave.’ When we decided we could break it up, it allowed for us to create completely different episodes supporting one story. —Nico

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“Pleasures”
This track was the last one we finished recording. It began as an ambient and instrumental break. Inspired by video game scores and orchestral arrangements by Joe Hisaishi, the composer best known for his scores in Miyazaki films. We knew we wanted to make something that felt cinematic and playful, something that travels and builds and layers. That was the first intention for the song, thinking about what we could do sonically to make it dynamic. For a long time this one troubled us as we couldn’t figure out what it was missing. We experimented a lot. Earlier versions are wild. We had samples upon samples, video game coins and power up blasts. It was a lot. When we realized this could be its own song separate from ‘Varsity Star,’ I saw an opportunity to continue the story through lyricism. —Nico

“Crave”
The end of the story. The catharsis. ‘Crave’ has always felt to me like the end of a long journey. Exhausted from the ache of growth. Still longing for a better future from the work spent. Happy nonetheless. It’s a fun one to play live, it’s cathartic and emotional every time. —Nico

“Design”
This was one of the earliest written songs on the record, sometime in 2019. A few songs on this record were sprouting during this time such as ‘Mirror’ and ‘Say No.’ I feel as though they hold a similar energy. There is a lot of anxiety and yearning held in this track. It’s about understanding why people do the things they do. It’s wanting to understand the design of a human being and how we are sometimes capable of doing hurtful things to others. —Emelia

“Mirror”
Before we wrote ‘Mirror’ we had maybe one guitar pedal. Probably distortion. While in a music store in Santa Cruz, an employee demoed the Boss digital delay three for Nico. There’s a setting that can hold a delay repeating the same half a second of sound for as long as you hold your foot down on the pedal—this inspired the energy and movement of the song. The concept of repetition and swaying backwards while sorta edging forward. We all understood what the song wanted to do and how this delay could be paired conceptually through lyrics and meaning. —Emelia

“Takes Time”
This song was written in the months before recording, I’d had the chords for quite a while but it became fully flushed out in the studio. Emelia and I ended up writing their own sets of lyrics, which were then integrated together to form a dissonant but cohesive song—the tension is intentional. ‘Takes Time’ came out of a place where the world was on hold, a lot of people were striving for change. It speaks to the process of becoming aware that you need/want things to be different, then bringing that into fruition. We often fall into places of comfort that no longer serve us, stop us from growing, and ‘Takes Time’ is about breaking out of that. —Shay

“Think About Your Crush”
Isolation played a major role in the creative practice for ‘Think About Your Crush.’ Amid the pandemic we were all writing separately, thinking independently versus how we had usually understood song writing and the genre of our band. I began experimenting with drum machines, beats I could find online, and relaxed chord progressions. I wanted to try my hand at pop music which is something I couldn’t imagine doing in a rehearsal space writing with Emelia and Shay at that time. I never intended on bringing it to the band until Emelia heard it from the room next door and said she liked it. Like any other song, we all brought our own flavors to it, but this one was always the outlier that proved we could allow ourselves to lean into any kind of music that felt right and fun. Never forced or limited. —Nico

“Angel in the Flesh”
‘Angel’ was a challenge. It was one that I wanted to fit into a more conventional pop rock format – snappy verse, quick little chorus, verse again, big guitar solo—resolution. My brother showed me a lot of pop punk and emo pop as a kid. Songs like ‘Popular’ by Nada Surf were in my head constantly; with that beautifully concise and punchy form, catchy and angsty. I wanted to make something like that. We usually didn’t write in a way following rules so much, but this was fun to do that. It felt like a tiny puzzle we scavenged the pieces for and it was slow finding those pieces. The longest one to put together for sure. Felt like a new guitar riff or progression was decided once a month inching toward the end. My roommates were possibly sick of it before it even found its way to the studio. It was incredibly rewarding once we did find it. —Nico

“Pure”
This song is a journey to say the least. It’s the climax of the record. The beginning of the end. The start of the beginning. In the middle, there is an experimental free section where everything goes to chaos. It sort of peels back the layers of this record and shoots everything into the abyss. It’s possibly the ego-death of this record. ‘Pure’ talks about calling back to your truest form and that death can lead to that truth. In that truth everything is pure and honest. —Emelia

“Always There”
After our ego-death, ‘Always There’ brings us back to life. The song is about feeling cared for by lovers and friends and how they can uplift the parts of yourself that you don’t always like. We all loved layering this song in the studio, a lot of what the song is now came alive when we were tracking it. It became a whole new song when we were done. —Emelia

“King Mama”
Oof, ‘King Mama.’ It is incredibly emotional for me. I wanted to create a little world here. A short story carried through samples taken from my family’s home videos and a phone call with my mom. In the home videos you can hear my older brothers playing with me as a baby. In the videos they are about eight and twelve, now both in their mid-to-late-thirties. You can hear my mom and dad. It’s nostalgic for me and hopefully others can feel that from it too and attach their own stories to it. Emelia and I studied film in college together and I think that background plays a major role in how we create music. We like to create a mood and a world. The phone call with my mom is the first phone call with her after coming out as trans. I knew I needed to record it to capture whatever she had to say. This was just such an important point in our relationship. This song is hers and an ode to our family. —Nico

“And the Sun Was Still Hot”
This song serves as an homage to a dear friend lost to suicide. Grieving looks different for everyone—I would often talk to my friend on voice memos after she passed, and one of them is layered into this song. There are no lyrics, for there are no words to capture this sort of loss, instead I aimed for a more visceral experience of emotionality in the instruments. I compiled a crescendo of guitar parts that were then improvised with bandmates in the studio, building the song into what it is now. —Shay

“This and Other Gestures”
The title track for the album holds a lot of meaning, it’s been a really cathartic one for us that has continued to evolve over time. It’s a testament to witnessing collective struggle, thinking about what we can do as individuals and communities to uplift one another – how to convey care, especially in a world that can be so devoid of that. I drew a lot of inspiration from working in mental health care and seeing an intense culmination of pain and hope, both in my area of work, and in the lives of those around me. ‘This and Other Gestures’ serves as a metaphorical gesture, it’s what we can give, our expression of care, gratitude, resilience, and hope. —Shay