Artist Profile: she’s green

Photo by Liam Armstrong

she’s green has come a long way from their roots scrapping together demos in their shared house in Minneapolis, but their unique brand of “moss rock”, a folk and indie-inspired, dreamy shoegaze blend, has managed to maintain its centrality to their image and their artistic output in the meantime. With the upcoming release of their third project swallowtail, however, they have reached a new level of creative polish and cohesion— one that is imminently recognizable in the nooks and crannies, the infinite and collapsing spaces, they fill with their withering sonic atmosphere.

she’s green’s story begins at the University of Minnesota, when guitarist Liam Armstrong met the band’s other original members through the local scene in the Como neighborhood near the University. They had all grown up playing music and engaging with various bands, but they initially bonded over Armstrong’s interest, at the time, in hip-hop production and freestyling. Eventually, as their friendships took shape, the original group (outside of drummer Kevin Seebeck) moved in together near campus.

It was there that Zofia Smith, who was working on her own dream-pop demos at the time, first overheard some of the more rock-oriented music Armstrong was working on. She pushed him on the idea of fleshing out some of these tracks, and those first jams quickly transformed their music from just a social activity to the tangible seedlings of a band. 

Gray Yoshida, who was one of the band’s original guitarists, bonded with Armstrong over their love for shoegaze, and as the band began to finalize some of their first songs, it became obvious that was the slant they were naturally leaning towards. Their first EP, 2023’s wisteria, sprung forth directly from these home-studio experimentations— each member brought some of their personal demos forward, and Smith added vocals as the band worked on finding a cohesive sound between the tracks.

“Zofia, myself and then Gray, our original guitarist, contributed some of our own demos, original songs on that,” said Armstrong, “And then Zofia just kind of added lyrics to our demos, but [wisteria] was all recorded by us in our house or in the radio studio that we had access to at the U of M… It's very DIY.”

Bringing those disparate sounds together into a cohesive artistic work was a challenge, but it’s one Smith believes the group pulled off successfully. That project, and the singles that preceded it, displayed a distinct vision; a tender, tactile, and dreamy atmosphere was the thread that tied wisteria, and all of their output to that point, together. It’s not something the band identified immediately, but when bassist Teddy Nordvold labeled it as “moss rock”, they knew they had found the perfect description.

“Our biggest inspiration has been nature. I think it's really key to our identity as a band,” said Smith. “I think that it's just so textural. And when I think of textural music, moss is the perfect physical thing that embodies that aspect. Also, it's very resilient as well.”

Prior to, and especially after, the release of wisteria, she’s green found themselves heavily involved in the local scene surrounding the college, continuously playing live sets and forming the roots of a strong fanbase in their locale. They were, however, one of the only shoegaze bands operating in that scene at the time. They’d often play bills sandwiched between a folk and a hardcore outfit, and that dichotomy forced them to become more comfortable with the versatility and the duality in their own sound.

By the time they got to work on their second record, which was recorded in a similarly DIY manner, they not only had a clearer picture of their ideal creative workflow but also a more crystallized idea of the sounds they wanted to pursue.

“We just wanted to push ourselves in two different directions,” said Armstrong, “Where we could kind of also release softer, folk-influenced songs as well as heavier shoegaze songs.”

Their second project, chrysalis, was therefore their first full body of work that originated completely in the context of the band and their combined creative influences, and that unison shows in its sweeping movements and deep affectations. Moments like the soaring lead lines on “willow” and the crushing final chorus of “little birds” all thread together into a tight and intentional work of sonic force across the project’s 17-minute runtime.

The name itself, chrysalis, was meant to convey a sense of growth and transformation. But it was once they wrapped up the project and began touring extensively that the true metamorphosis began. 

Dating back to their days in the Como scene, she’s green had learned to adapt to a live environment by leaning a little more heavily into the intensity and force that was largely latent in their recording output. As they continued to play live and refine their new songs on the road, however, it became clear to them that they wanted to capture some semblance of that feeling on their third project. 

Their upcoming album, swallowtail, is therefore not only the first they’ve recorded in a proper studio, but it will be the first they’ve tracked live throughout the recording process, hoping to lean into some of the energy that has made them such a popular live band.

“[Most of the project] was live tracked, which is really awesome, because we were all locked in as a band at that point. And we felt really comfortable just playing it live,” said Smith, “And we wanted to do that [on swallowtail] because it felt the most authentic.”

Even on the three singles they’ve released so far for the project— “mettle”, “empty house”, and “paper thin”— this transformation is more than clear, and just as chrysalis served as a sign of creative growth, swallowtail serves, in a way, as the band’s path to its ultimate and inevitable sonic form. she’s green is a force to be reckoned with, and with swallowtail, they’ve successfully pulled together all of the component parts and sonic fragments that have made their sound over the past four years so deeply riveting.