MEGASOUND – Lemon Peel
Indie-pop supergroup Megasound (Kerry Alexander and Chris Hoge (Bad Bad Hats) and Elana Carroll (Party Nails)) shares “Lemon Peel,” the new single from their forthcoming debut album Megasound, out August 7th on Don Giovanni Records.
It follows lead single “Supersize.”
The accompanying video was filmed in empty corners of Saint Paul, MN (a field near the airport, a dandelion speckled park, a liquor store parking lot after hours) with yard sale table technology (an old VHS camcorder). The vacant settings are a perfect contrast to the vitality of the song and the expressed longing to engage with an ephemeral world.
Says songwriter Kerry Alexander of the track:
“‘Lemon Peel’ is a big stage ballad about standing on the frightening precipice of how we really feel. Our narrator laments the world passing her by, expressed in the song via modes of rapid transport: a rattling subway car, a doomed flight, a car zooming down the highway, semis looming. Lead singer Elana Carroll provides one of her most impactful vocal performances of the record, clinging to every ‘why.'”
“Lemon Peel” is available now at all streaming platforms and Bandcamp.
The album’s lead single “Supersize” is streaming everywhere now, and the band has released a music video filmed after hours at the Museum of Illusion at the Mall of America.
Megasound is the rock and roll progeny of three indie pop friends. Kerry Alexander has fronted Bad Bad Hats with Chris Hoge for more than a decade, and the duo have known Elana Carroll (aka Party Nails) even longer. While on tour together in 2018, Carroll joined Bad Bad Hats on stage for an encore performance. It was a cover of “Pretend to Be Nice”, hit single of comic book band Josie & the Pussycats, written by Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger for the 2001 live action movie. This swirling, musical cauldron produced a bubble of an idea: a new band. Elana on lead vocals, Kerry on guitar, Chris on drums. Songs inspired by early 2000s rock, the music of their collective youths. A fresh watch of Josie & the Pussycats sealed the deal. Megasound was officially born.
The trio began work on their first songs in November 2022, recording and writing in Kerry and Chris’s Minnesota basement, Elana’s Los Angeles studio, and across humming internet wires. Over the ensuing three years, they honed Megasound’s particular sonic palate. Their songs eschew the synths and swells of their individual projects and focus on a lean diet of drums, bass and electric guitars. Millennial musical influence looms large, in equal parts grunge angst (the cathartic rage of “Dog Leash”) and pop nonchalance (the transatlantic bounce of “Supersize”). The songwriting showcases the trio’s individual hallmarks: Alexander’s penchant for love songs (“Lemon Peel”), Carroll’s sometimes tender / sometimes brutal honesty (“Now Is All We Got”, “Speck of Dust”), and Hoge’s knack for tight arrangements.
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