Lowertown Discover a Light at the End of the Tunnel

When Olivia Osby transferred to Avsha Weinberg’s high-school in Atlanta, the pair quickly developed a friendship that would blossom into the self-aware wistfulness and empathetic lo-fi gloom that is now Lowertown. The band itself is the homemade passion project of the longtime friends’ earliest movements into the Atlanta music scene, flowering into a beloved success and concentrated combination of the two’s spirited energy and intensity. As soon as I get Osby and Weinberg on the phone, I am immediately excited to question them about the music scene that they were brought up in. I’ve seen them talk about their growth in prior interviews, but never exactly in full detailing of the DIY fairytale that drives self-made music buffs into an excited wake.

Weinberg’s brother had been “a part of the college scene at Georgia Tech” and, through his connections, he was able to play his first live show in the underground scene when he was only 13 years old. I am awed to hear about his initiation, having only gotten to attach onto my own city’s underground scene once I attended college myself. By age 16, he and Osby were attending college shows at the school, dangling onto the glorious tail end of Atlanta’s scene—the same one where iconic alt-rock band Deerhunter had been born. Presently, the ecosystem has died down—growing less prominent, with fewer new indie bands coming into the fold. “It’s hard to see bands of our genre leaving Atlanta, I would say,” Osby notes. Ahead of Lowertown’s first headlining East Coast tour, it feels integral to discuss their origins in live music.

[Credit: Brittany Deitch]

Weinberg explains how the two began attending shows and became devoted show attendees: “We saw the same band over and over again, week after week. It was this band who we still love—Pinkest. They were playing almost every week in Atlanta. We grew to have most of our friends there and we didn’t have that many friends in high school. So we just built our friendships up through going to a couple of different venues in Atlanta.” Osby jumps in to describe the beauty of the scene at the time, how inspiring it was. “Atlanta is pretty scrappy sometimes. Everyone just finds a weird warehouse or a weird room somewhere and we’ll all pile in and do a bunch of shows there every other day,” she says. “It’s pretty cool. And also [to be able to] throw shows in the woods and everything, I think it’s a very unique scene there and unique culture.”

When Weinberg and Osby begin explaining how they came to kickstart Lowertown, Weinberg’s video freezes mid-sentence—where he sits with his mouth open, and Osby and I laugh as we wait for his image to resuscitate. “I can’t stop laughing at the painting of him in the background, because he’s in his partner’s room right now, but it’s just really funny,” she says. We become side-tracked from the original conversation. “I like how the wall is just him, and then a guitar,” I reply as Weinberg reconnects and we are forced to explain why we’re laughing. “I’m talking about the painting in the background,” Osby explains. “Oh my god, I’m not at my own house and I do not have a painting of myself,” Weinberg rebuttals, before explaining that he had sat for the painting one night when he was drunk, while Osby and I laugh at his sudden defensiveness.

Soon, we’re back to mapping out their origin story. The duo took their time as frequenters of Atlanta’s music spaces and used it to vault themselves into a collaboration—utilizing the summer between their sophomore and junior year of high school to begin making music and learning together and eventually, forming what we know as Lowertown and growing into a staple of the DIY scene. Their debut album Friends was released in 2019 and it was produced independently in Weinberg’s basement.

[Credit: Brittany Deitch]

“A big aspect of it was the naturalistic sounds. There were toilets flushing. There’s a lot of tapping on the table that the computer was on, tapping our feet. It was very much about having fun,” Weinberg explains. “So there were points where I would put a microphone in the middle of the room, then Liv and my older brother rolled the ride cymbal in circles and then Liv sat the drumstick on it. It was just really messing around but having sounds that were natural to the room. I think we are coming back to that a bit.” “I was still not that great at music yet. I just started learning guitar, and Avsha is really good at most instruments,” Osby adds. “I wanted to do music for so long, but the school we went to, all of the bands were just dudes. I felt really out of place, like nobody would take me seriously. Avsha and I were best friends. He really liked my voice, and he was showing me a bunch of demos. And I was like, Dude, these are cool. I think we could do something cool together. And he was the first person to believe in me and my music, which was really nice.”

Osby mentions that it was a long road before she was finally taken seriously as a woman within the music scene—that she hadn’t felt truly respected for her artistry until only recently. “I feel like the more fem you are, the more people don’t take you seriously,” she adds. “My stage persona and my artist persona is definitely more fem than I am day to day. I think a big reason why I started doing all of this crazy stage makeup for Lowertown was because I feel like it, in a way, desexualizes me a bit and just makes me into a creature. I think that’s better for performing for me, because people can be assholes and I just like to be ‘an entity’ instead of someone being sexualized on stage.”

As a woman deeply entrenched in my own area’s DIY scene, I relate too easily and familiarly to the hand that Osby has been dealt. It’s almost like one has to shed their gender, or mask it somehow, in order to be taken seriously as a woman—and it’s unfortunate. The continuous task of having to prove oneself over and over again in the industry just to be taken half as seriously as others is an exhausting one. Despite being an unfortunate victim of a patriarchal overlording, the band still talks of their live shows with love. As they embark on their first ever headlining show, Osby and Avsha rehash prior experiences with performing as a form of “bootcamp.”

[Credit: Brittany Deitch]

Lowertown has previously played tours with Beabadoobee, Porches, as well as SXSW, Shaky Knees and Pitchfork Festival over the past three years. The band’s unique sound has morphed a lot since, evolving into a delicate balance of loud, punkish jolts of emotion and soft, bedroom pop cries of sorrow. No new record sounds quite like the last, and the duo is thrilled to demonstrate this evolution through their upcoming string of East Coast dates, which kick off on September 14th. When performed live, their tracks come through with impassioned will and hardiness; every show is largely improvisational and executed thoroughly and honestly.

Lowertown’s performative stylings have a natural theatrical aspect to them that they aren’t always able to embody in front of the younger crowds they’ve opened for in the past—largely in fear of scaring audiences they had to fight tooth and nail to win over. During these September headlining shows, Osby hints that the duo will be unbound. “I really think we try our best to make our shows something you’ll remember. Avsha and I go to so many concerts every single week that sometimes it can become a blur,” he says. “A big goal with our live shows is for it to not fall into the blur of going to so many shows. I think it’s something that stands out in people’s minds, and I hope it does because we definitely are playing for our lives every single time we play. I feel like I’m fighting for my life, trying my best.”

This tour holds a big place in Osby and Weinberg’s hearts too, as they’ve spent all of their energy on making it happen. They are still doing it completely DIY, with grace for a tactic so familiar and at-home for them. Osby and her drummer co-booked the dates, while Weinberg helms the stage setup. With extremely heartfelt music, it’s difficult to not be drawn into Lowertown’s live spirit and develop a deeper connection to the already meaningful music. Weinberg talks about the new sound and how it differs from their previous projects: “I think it’s just less angry. I think we’re leaving a little bit less processed anger, because I think that was a big aspect of I Love To Lie,” he posits. “It’s raw, unfiltered anger.”

[Credit: Brittany Deitch]

For now, Weinberg and Osby have gotten all of their anger out—though, that doesn’t mean they’ll never find themselves rediscovering it in the future in a new shade of light. It’s reflective of who they have become for the time-being, more electronic, bass-driven and light-hearted. But their signature style of deeply meaningful lyrics still remains. “Often I get really insecure about being incredibly vulnerable. I think often I’m very self-aware of how things come off,” Osby notes about balancing an intensity with a conflicting sound. “I think we’re really not into beating you over the head with an emotion in a way. The lyrics may be really depressing, but the instrumentation is very positive or very loud.” “I think that we always have a through-line while recording a song,” Weinberg adds. “We’re always dedicated to pushing that one idea out as much as possible. And that rarely ever means following this one thread and making sure, okay, this is a sad song, so we do sad instrumentals. That rarely is how we related to music growing up.”

It does absolutely resonate in a completely different way. It’s more of a kick to your gut instead of a punch right in your face. It hurts worse, to put it simply. One of my favorite elements of Lowertown’s style is the way they distill their thoughts so elegantly and simply into the open, transparent space of their music—as if they’re just saying it for their own pleasure and not because there is anyone listening. I feel it deeply in their discography, specifically with their single “Best Person You Know”—which they released in 2021. I haven’t been able to shake the lyrics from my head since my first listen, especially when Osby sings “The words that you say don’t make you any more of a man / miss seeing things being done with your hands / Do you believe in God, or anything at all? What morals do you stand by? Have your standards started to fall?” The words are so direct and confrontational, yet simple, without beating the ideas into the listener’s head. I’m a sucker for a song that talks about God but isn’t really talking about God.

Osby shares that she is attempting to alter the shade of emotion that she invests into her art and become lighter with it. “It’s really hard for me to write a silly song sometimes. I think that’s one exercise that I’m trying because songs that are just easygoing are awesome,” she notes. “Every song has to be life or death, the most meaningful thing I’ve ever made. Sometimes art can just be more lighthearted. With our last album, when we wrote “Bucktooth,” that one was just supposed to be a silly song inspired by the Johnny Cash songwriting stories. It ended up being one of people’s favorite songs from that album. Not every song has to be so drenched in intense emotion.” “It’s very…beep-boop,” I interject, referring to their new single Bline that’s due out September 20th.

Weinberg chimes in after me, beginning to discuss the upcoming single—which, like “Bucktooth,” is fun and upbeat, yet a completely new direction. “It definitely is beep-boop,” he laughs, “but it was just us having fun in the studio. I had this sample, and I wanted to try and do something pretty free-form with it. We ended up having this mix of spoken-word stuff and also a hooky, really groove-driven [arrangement]. It’s a groove song.”

Since Lowertown’s third album I Love To Lie was released last year, Weinberg and Osby have been working on more music that will allow them to find themselves now— along with what they feel still resonates after all these years of making music together. Today, it’s electronic. Tomorrow, it might be something totally different. The duo feel as though they’ve failed as artists if they make music that sounds exactly like something they’ve already released before. In their latest EP Skin of My Teeth, and specifically within the song “Bline,” they are honing in on an unaddressed lack of belonging somewhere—all while constructing the track with a sonic happiness, and therefore, a hopefulness. “I think that is why we became friends in a weird way, because we didn’t feel like we fit in,” Osby confesses. “But [‘Bline’] doesn’t feel as broken as I Love To Lie. Those same feelings are there, but there’s hope and lightness in it. And the way that those same feelings are approached—it’s less angry and it’s all over. It’s like, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”

[Credit: Brittany Deitch]

Mesmerized by what might’ve led the pair of friends to this point now, I ask what feelings they have experienced along the way that has catapulted them into their newfound expression for the upcoming body of work. Osby responds, eagerly, sharing that she feels “humbled by life.” We all share a moment of silent knowingness for the universal feeling.

“I feel humbled by life. I think, especially being an artist and just being a young person and just being a human being, life is really unexpected,” she continues. “And I feel a new resilience and excitement for life and for making art in general. I think, for the first time in a while, I have the biggest appreciation for just the ability to be making music and to be considering myself a musician and to be doing all these things that I’m doing. I think I became a little bit numb to all of the amazing opportunities that I was having and all these amazing, unique experiences I was having. I think it was just happening so fast that I didn’t even get to have perspective on how cool everything is and how lucky I am. I think I have that perspective again, where I realize how lucky I am, and I’m just so grateful to be doing music and to be doing it with somebody I really respect who gets me sonically and cares just as much as I do. So I think I just have a lot more perspective and appreciation for my life at this moment in time and maturity and humbleness.”

Watch the music video for Lowertown’s new single “Bline” below.