Written by: Oliver Heffron
Nashville alternative pop band In Color has hit the ground soaring. Their debut single, “Headlights,” immediately propelled the group into the limelight, racking up over 30 million streams and earning their first No. 1 on Alternative Radio on their first swing. Not a bad start!
After following up with their debut EP, Snow Day, which featured standout hits like “I Want You,” “Liar,” and “Is There Anyone?,” the band has been steadily releasing excellent new singles all year, like “Big Deal,” “Jet Lag Mouth,” and “High.”
Their sound is unapologetically ambitious, layering indie pop and alternative rock elements to create an anthemic, larger-than-life sound that stays grounded in a distinct and compelling perspective. Their new single, “Marionette,” mixes in sample loops with 80s electropop to capture the feeling of holding onto a love in your body, even when you’ve worked it out in your mind.
In-between stops on their first US headline tour, In Color—Matt Hastings (lead vocals), Holden Clontz (bass), Val Hoyt (guitar), and Miles Laderman (drums)— caught up with Nuance to discuss the band’s origins, sudden success, and plans for the future.
When the four members of In Color first met, they were not looking to form a band. They were just trying to get through a blizzard. Their paths had been crossing for years, with Val and Miles first meeting at an Atlanta middle school before attending Belmont University, and Holden becoming best friends with Matt soon after moving to Nashville. Lead singer Matt Hastings explains, “We've all been friends for like eight years. All of us have lived together. We've been roommates, we've not been roommates, just lived a lot of life together.”
Photo Credit: Kamal "Eazy" Holder
It wasn’t until the group was snowed in for multiple days during a rare Nashville snowstorm in early 2024 that the four started hanging out every day at Val and Matt’s place, and didn’t want to quit. Between playing video games and “being 22,” the four musicians started talking about where they were in their careers and where they wanted to go. Matt explains, “It was a lot of conversations about where we were at in life, and as creators. We've been friends for so long, but that was a conversation that really sparked the ‘should we be a band?’ conversation.”
Discussing their favorite artists and sources of inspiration, each member brings something different to the cookout, yet their tastes share a common theme. Whether it be Matt’s love for Kings of Leon, Val’s fanhood of the Smashing Pumpkins, Miles’ passion for Wilco, or Holden's upbringing on Nickelback, the band all shares an appreciation for alternative groups that broke into the mainstream with unapologetically ambitious sounds. When the four first set out to record in the studio, they hoped to emulate those inspirations while finding their own unique sound. It just so happens they nailed it on their first single.
During In Color’s first studio sessions, they wrote about fifteen songs before writing “Headlights,” which they knew was the start of the band’s identity. Matt says, “That solidified what we wanted to go for and what we wanted to come out of the gate with, and sound like, and portray.” Describing the recording session, he stresses how naturally the song came together, saying, “That song came about very, very quickly. The bass line, and the synth part, and the drum loop that’s in the song were the first three things that were added, and then the first melodies that were sung are the melodies that are in the song.”
A few months after the band released “Headlights,” the single suddenly and unexpectedly picked up steam. Guitarist Val Hoyt explains, “I remember Matt and I were out in L.A., and it was just kind of a random morning. I woke up, and I looked at our Spotify for Artists app, and it was like 1,400 people listening right now, and I was like, 'That’s never happened.' Usually the most we would get was 150, 200 people listening. It just came out of nowhere.” On how it felt to suddenly have a growing fanbase, Matt says, “It's never not crazy to us that people listen to our music. It was just a wild feeling, and to see so many people connect with it, and still to this day people hear it for the first time. We're super grateful."
With “Headlights” blowing up, the band needed to come up with a music video, so they turned to their friend, director and Nuance co-owner Slater Goodson, to help them visualize their sound, in a hurry. Matt explains, “We schemed that concept in the van while we were on tour. Our label, everybody was like, 'Hey, you got to figure out a concept and send it to us,' and we were like, 'Okay, we know we're going to be in the van for the next six hours. Let's lock in and figure out what this looks like.' And that's what we did— all four of us with Slater.”
Photo Credit: Kamal "Eazy" Holder
After seeing the result—a striking, intimate nod to William Tell—the band knew they’d found a good director. “Slater executed it so incredibly… shooting it was so much fun. We're super happy with it.” Goodson went on to direct the video for their hit single “High,” which sees the band perform the soaring break-up anthem in a vast desert near Joshua Tree. Matt says, “That one was really fun to shoot. And it was kind of like we kind of just had a vacation for a day because we got to rent four-wheelers and be in the desert and just hang out.”
Reflecting on their current tour, the members of In Color share how they’ve become adept at using Airbnb and have learned valuable lessons along the way. “We stayed at a really crazy Airbnb in Detroit,” Matt shares. “Where do I start describing it? There was a pool of water in Val’s room. There were some questionable stains…I’ll leave it at that.”
When they aren’t finding sleeping arrangements, the band has been enjoying playing their new, unreleased music for fans most of all. Holden says, "My favorite songs to play live on this run are all of the newest ones that we're playing that we wrote most recently over this past summer that we're hopefully going to be releasing in the next six months or so… the new stuff—we got new stuff coming—and those are the most fun to play to me." Miles adds, “The new songs are super fun, high energy. Those have been a blast."
During their whirlwind travels, the band spent three weeks on a writing retreat in the Ozarks, and the very last song to come out of those sessions was their new single, “Marionette.” Discussing the meaning behind the song, Val explains, “In the intro, 'your body has a brain that goes against your own'—this sense of your body stores trauma and memory in it in a way that no matter how hard you try and push it out or ignore it, it still stays within you.” Matt adds that it’s proven to be a great song to play live, “We’ve been playing it every night. It’s really fun.”
When discussing their favorite parts of being on the road, it’s clear that the members of In Color have never truly lost sight of the group’s core: they just really like hanging out with eachother. “It’s about the 23 hours that we’re not playing a show,” Matt says. “Those are the most memorable moments.”