Valley is an indie band based in Toronto consisting of band members Rob Laska (vocals), Alex Dimauro (bass), and Karah James (drums). They have just entered a new era with their latest alternative pop album Water the Flowers, Pray for a Garden. This new album is an insightful exploration of grief and resilience, becoming their most personal and intimate record yet. In a recent °1824 press conference, the band was kind enough to take some time out of their busy schedule to chat with us about music and their approach to this new album.
This new record feels like an emotional reset and a fresh new start for the band. Karah explains, “A lot of the themes kind of felt like a pivot point about realizing that you are not a kid anymore, but also like you don’t feel like adults, so it’s kind of like trying to figure out why we are just continuing living in this grey zone but also just resisting losing our youth and resisting that spirit of having to deal with adult problems. So, I think that’s where this album first stemmed from—how do you not lose this inner child spirit?” The album is a celebration and exploration of the 10 years knowing each other as friends and bandmates including all the rough patches and difficult moments they experienced together. It has become their big garden, “You have your weeds, your pests, your flowers, your vines—all these things that make up a person’s life.” The band reflected on all these past experiences and focused on what parts felt the most honest to the spirt of their band. It feels like a return to their roots in their most authentic and idealized form. Rob explains, “You kind of lose a piece of you that you forgot you had to protect sometimes, and you spend a year reengineering how to get it back. Stop expecting things from the music. Just give it your all. And that’s enough.” Water the Flowers, Pray for a Garden charms its listeners with its lush upbeat melodies and introspective lyrics that bloom brightly with spontaneous layers of nostalgic comfort.
The album tackles some relatable themes of adulthood, such as heartache, self-acceptance, learning to let go, and not taking everything in life so seriously. But getting to that emotional touch point has been a long emotional journey for them. “Processing things together as band was really difficult,” Rob says. “And we learned a lot about ourselves that we didn’t know. We established a deeper understanding of what it feels for us to hold each other in that space and processing life that’s changing in front of us.” The band had long conversations with each other about these feelings before even thinking about writing or recording a song, and the band came out of the other end with a deeper connection to each other as a band, as well as with their own musical creativity.
The culmination of their life experiences as a band met at a perfect time when working with Chase Lawrence from COIN. “We just collided so beautifully,” Rob says. Very early on during the production process, Chase implemented a lot of empathic ideas for the band that fostered a very healthy working relationship and became a positive pivot point for their project: Just make music with no demands or expectations. “Chase led with so much heart and empathy for us. And he really knows how to pull the truth and authenticity from someone. He’s a ‘no bullshit’ kind of guy. He only wants the truth and your heart.” That idea of personal truth and honesty eventually became the root of the band’s self-resilience going forward. “When you do that, the world will let you down a lot less because you are just content with being happy with what you are doing.”
- Carlo De Dios
