A gentle melodic guitar draws you into the softly sung, fuzzed-out track “Canary,” the debut from the Santa Maria-based three-piece band “Avalynn.” The song was released on Mar. 15 from the mind of Steven Hubert on drums, alongside Michael Espinosa and Andrew Garcia who rotate between guitar, bass and vocals.
The band emerged suddenly with its well-crafted yet underpromoted single, which was followed by a period of inactivity. At first glance, Avalynn burst onto the scene and vanished just as quickly.
After a six-month hiatus, the band took to Instagram to reveal that they were ready to take the stage, later announcing their debut show at the Aviary on Oct.11.
Before reemerging for their first show, I met with the three members of Avalynn to discuss the band’s evolution, recording process, past projects and the future of live performances.
The questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.
KCPR: Can you tell me a little bit more about how the band came to be?
Andrew: We had been friends prior and we were always in Mikey’s music room, which is where we primarily practice. And we had always been hanging out, playing covers of any song that we liked. The Beatles was mostly what we started playing — messing around with. I feel like we only started creating our own music like this past year.
Mikey: We were originally pushed forward with this band because we had the thought that these two [Andrew and Steven] were leaving, and then we wouldn’t ever create music ever again. But now they’re in SLO, it’s so much easier.
KCPR: And the name Avalynn comes from a “Slowdive” song?
Mikey: Yeah, it came from a ‘Slowdive’ song. We went through so many names.
Andrew: Oh, the stupidest names. It took us so long to come up with a name. Everybody has to agree or nobody signs off on it. And so we were just going forever and ever, doing name after name after name.
KCPR: I also love the cover art for “Canary.” Who made that? That little postage stamp.
Mikey: Yeah, that was all me. I found vintage stamps and scanned it.
Andrew: Our school gave us access to Photoshop. But we graduated, so now we don’t have it. I mean he’s [Mikey] still in school.
Mikey: I’m still in school. I got one more year — senior year.
KCPR: Yeah, wait, how old are you guys?
Mikey: I’m 17.
Steven: Mikey’s the baby. I’m the oldest. Andrew’s right in the middle.
Andrew: Yeah, so [Steven] and I are 18, and [Mikey’s] 17. [Steven and I] just graduated this past year. We’re both going to Cal Poly.
KCPR: What was the timeline like for that first song that you put out?
Steven: We had like a dozen demos for that song.
Andrew: It started just directly after Christmas. I got access to GarageBand after not being able to record anything so I just took out my acoustic and played and recorded a demo of what I wanted the vocals to sound like and what I wanted the guitar to sound like. And then we kind of just hammered it out over and over and over again until we were like, ‘Okay, we kind of got an idea.’ They both helped me with lyrics.
KCPR: Did you have any prior experience recording yourself?
Andrew: Yeah, kind of, I just kind of would throw down whatever on BandLab. But the latency was horrible and it was just a nightmare to use, so it was a huge relief to finally get GarageBand and get all the ideas that I had down.
Mikey: Yeah, I’ve started since I was in middle school. I saved up money for Logic and learned at a young age and just recorded myself over and over. I started recording bands from the Santa Maria scene. Now I have a little setup going and that’s where we recorded our whole song, which is in my room.
Andrew: It’s helpful to have him as the brains behind all the recording stuff because we just have to do the music.
KCPR: This isn’t your first project, right?
Steven: I taught myself how to play drums back in 2021, like during the pandemic era. And I joined a band in Lompoc who needed a drummer, Radiation Invasion. I was in it probably a year. I got some experience playing live shows and we won a couple of battles of the bands, so it was nice to make some money. But the experience of playing live shows was definitely something that kept me interested in joining bands because it was so much fun. They’ve been in more projects than me though.
Andrew: I was a part of a cover band for maybe like six months. We played two house shows. I mean it was obviously a cover band, so you’re not getting crazy reception or anything. It helped me kind of get out into the light and get a feeling for what it’s like to perform in front of an audience, even if it isn’t your own songs. Mikey and I — we did the marimba band at our school — which is like a bunch of Mexican music, anything from rancheras to boleros and a bunch of rock stuff too. It really helped us with performing in front of huge crowds.
Mikey: Me and a group of friends started Dire. It was originally a three-piece with just a singer, drummer and guitarist. We’ve been up and down the coast doing shows and recently broke up. So all my time is probably going to be dedicated to this and our two side projects. Andrew just released his solo EP. And I’m still working on my songs. We’ll see where that goes.
KCPR: How do your personal projects differ from Avalynn?
Mikey: I know [Canary] at least wasn’t this, but I always really wanted to explore a more ambient kind of thing. I really like ambient shoegaze, like ‘Bowery Electric’ or ‘Isabel’s Dream.’ I like sampling and breakcore, and that’s kind of what I really want to dig into. I always want to expand.
And then I have Avalynn where it’s like my safe place, more indie rock-inspired.
Andrew: Mine, I guess it differs from Avalynn where I’ll have like a song written, recorded and done in a day because I just sit there for like seven hours. I have one microphone that I move around. [I] record drums on it, put it like five feet away and then record guitar, go into my car [and] record vocals. So it’s just kind of like a really hammered out, done in one-day process. Whereas Avalynn, I feel, is more long and drawn out.
KCPR: Is that a quick process for you, recording and mixing? Is this something you guys do on your own or do you have friends that come in and help out?
Andrew: Recording goes pretty quick. We’re done with everything in like an hour. It’s just mixing. [Mikey] goes crazy over it and he’ll take forever to get it out. It’s good to have someone like that at the end of the day.
KCPR: I remember you guys made a post introducing the band. It was very minimal. It was just like “Avalynn, indie rock band.” And after hearing “Canary,” I feel like that was an undersell.
What are your thoughts on genres and having a classification for music? Do you think it’s necessary or something that shouldn’t be paid much attention to?
Steven: The genre question has been a struggle for us because we’ve never really sat down and thought about what we are and what kind of music we play. We’ve asked ourselves you know and we’ve made jokes about it, but we’ve never really been able to come up with a certain one or two-word genre of the music that we play.
And the stuff we’ve been working on just a couple of hours ago…I wouldn’t say that song sounds anything like “Canary.” So I guess indie rock was kind of an undersell but, it was so broad.
Mikey: I think knowing a band’s inspirations is more telling than actual labels.
KCPR: Another thing you brought up — looking forward to your first show. Would you say Avalynn is more so a recording project right now?
Mikey: If it was up to us, we would have been playing shows like in June. I just had my house flood, so it took like three or four months to get everything out and then in. So we didn’t practice at all. We were down the whole time since ‘Canary’ was released.
Andrew: The universe wouldn’t let us.
KCPR: Even with that, it was a strong start putting that song out. Having not played any shows, you didn’t really promote it too much. The last time I checked, it had some 3,200 streams on Spotify.
Mikey: Which is kind of crazy, we don’t really know how that happened.
KCPR: What’s the reception been like?
Andrew: I don’t know how to put it. But I feel like it’s really helped us build up the motivation to be like, ‘Yeah, let’s get back and make some more material so that we can get more shows and be able to put ourselves out there more.’ I think we’re all excited to just get out there and start playing.
KCPR: Who are the artists or musicians that influence you guys?
Mikey: I really like the Philadelphia shoegaze scene. ‘Feeble Little Horse,’ ‘They Are Gutting a Body of Water.’ [Also] ‘Toner.’ A lot of ‘90s bands like ‘Dinosaur Jr.,’ ‘Sebadoh,’ ‘Pavement.’
Andrew: Yeah, pretty much the same influences as him, especially the local scene because Santa Maria is just hardcore basically for all of it. That was one of my first influences. It was the energy that they brought to shows. And it was like, ‘Yeah, this is what I want to do.’ I’d love to get in on these shows.
Mikey: To add to that, seeing ‘The Let Downs’…the energy they would bring, having just two people…they harvested so much energy and just like the crowd went crazy. And that was really inspiring.
Steven: Well, for the songs, I don’t really write them. I write the drums for the songs. They let me do that. My favorite drummer is Eric Slick.
Andrew: Well, he doesn’t just…It’s not like he just plays the drums. Like, he’s there to structure the songs, too. He still directs it. Like, he has the ideas for a lot of stuff, but it’s more like we are the ones who execute the ideas.
KCPR: Yeah, it’s a fully collaborative process. So then, since you’re looking to get into live shows, how do you see that going? You’ve got Mikey and Andrew both on guitar, bass and vocals.
Mikey: We’ve considered just having me switch off from guitar and bass, so it’ll be like one guitar-guitar song and one guitar-bass song. We’ve considered inviting a friend to just do the bass live and write our own things for guitars.
One of our main things about Avalynn is that we want to have — since we’ve been friends for a long time — we want to keep that same home feel and closeness.
Andrew: It’s pretty hard to get your ideas out if you’re not already friends with the people or you don’t already have that connection prior. I feel like just having that kind of friendship for a long time is just enough to help us really influence each other and get the best possible sound that we can.
Now over a year after their formation, Avalynn is set to perform live. Their debut show will take place on Friday, Oct. 11 at The Aviary, a DIY music venue in downtown San Luis Obispo. Their second show is just a week later on Oct. 18, also at The Aviary.
More updates on shows and new music from the band can be found on their Instagram.
