tunesday – a chinwag with the aces

How’d you all become pals? We started the band when we were eight and 10 years old. Cristal and Alisa are sisters, Cristal and Ken were good friends and Ken met Katie a couple of years later. It’s been us four ever since! 

What is your newest album, I’ve Loved You For So Long, about? It’s about introspection and was written during the pandemic. We were all grieving our second album – we weren’t able to tour or promote it and it felt like all of our hard work was for nothing. It helped spearhead a journey of going deeper into our upbringings.

What was your biggest inspiration for the album? We were inspired by our experiences growing up as queer women in a patriarchal and homophobic culture. We feel that it is an experience that a lot of kids in America struggle through on their own, and we want more than anything to help those people know that they are not alone. Sonically, we were inspired by ’80s new wave and ’90s shoegaze. We wanted to strip it down to how we played as kids — drums, bass, guitar and vocals.

What does your creative process usually entail? It is ever-changing but we work on the melodies and lyrics and then get the bones of it down. How would you describe your sound? Fun indie-pop with a lot of guitars that you can dance and sob to. We like to take people on an emotional ride.

What would you tell your 14-year-old selves? We would tell them that their lives are going to be even more amazing than they could ever dream of, and that they’ll find a community that will make them feel like all of the parts of themselves that they are ashamed of are the most special things about them.

Check out The Aces over on their Instagram, and have a look through their upcoming tour dates here. 

This lovely interview comes straight from the pages of issue 115. To get your mitts on a copy, swing past the frankie shop, subscribe or visit one of our lovely stockists.