The Ophelias Discuss Their Brilliant New LP ‘Spring Grove’ » PopMatters
Art rockers the Ophelias say they “have been reaching for a more guitar-forward sound, trying to capture our live sound. This time, we stuck the landing.”
Spring Grove The Ophelias Get Better Records 4 April 2025
It’s exciting to see a band reach another creative peak after following them for years, and the Ophelias are destined to reach an even wider audience with Spring Grove, which is their finest work to date. Produced by Julien Baker, the band has captured their dynamic live shows better than ever.
“We have been reaching for a more guitar-forward sound, trying to capture our live sound. The instinct was always there, and we kept trying for it. This time, we stuck the landing. Calvin Lauber engineered the fuck out of this record. Julien is so particular about how to get the guitar sound she wants,” lead singer and lyricist Spencer Peppet explained.
She continued, “The more delicate stuff is more easily accessible to us. Those songs are more easily fleshed out. We have Andrea’s [Guttman Fuentes’] violin, and Mic [Adams] is so good at quieter drums. The previous records I still really like. [Crocus track] ‘Becoming a Nun’ led to ‘Black Ribbon’ on the EP, and that to Spring Grove. We needed that to dial in what we wanted to do this time out.”
The Ophelias are scattered throughout the country, so collaboration is primarily remote until it is time to record. The band formed while members were in high school and continued even after they moved in different directions for college. Today, Peppet and guitarist Jo Schaffer are in Brooklyn, Guttman Fuentes travels for her graduate studies, and Adams lives in Chicago. This process works for them.
“There’s a vulnerability to sharing music, and being able to send it to share gives a little distance. I use voice memos as part of my writing and send them to the band. Mic usually adds drums first, then Andrea and Jo add in their parts,” Peppet said. “We did even more demos than usual for Spring Grove, and it was a really fun process. We got really detailed with the notes we could give.”
This method is necessary for the Ophelias but also keeps absence, making the band’s hearts grow fonder. “I would love to be in the same room with my bandmates more often. I love them. When the band started, we were seniors in high school, and I played the songs I wanted to be on Creature Native. We wound up writing the entire record in that first practice.
“We had all been in bands before this, but there was something so special about that first practice, writing ten songs. I am happy with how we work now, but I still enjoy getting in a room and playing around. I love touring because I get to lock myself in a van with my besties. We go from hardly seeing each other to living together for a few weeks. It’s kind of perfect,” she said.
Thematically, Spring Grove is a song cycle about relationships, but not romantic ones. Peppet had past friendships, work relationships, and even her relationship with herself on her mind this time out. “The songs are written from a number of perspectives. A lot of these songs have so many facets to them. One verse can be about 2015, and then another verse in the same song is from a few weeks ago. Julien was talking about how sometimes with lyrics, it’s about finding the image that accurately represents the thing more so than saying the thing.
“That shifted my brain. Spring Grove has more accurate depictions of experiences than actual things that happened,” she explained. I wrote ‘Cumulonimbus’ and said everything I needed to, and now it’s done. That was incredibly helpful to me. Sometimes I come back to songs and realize how they helped me process events.”
While she realizes that fans will interpret her words as they choose, she is fine with the pivot in her content and that listeners will ascribe their own meaning to her words.
“Jo and I have been together for years, what business do I have writing about romantic heartbreak? People are quick to ascribe romance to songs about loss or grief. Lots of these songs are about friendship loss. Some are about even less classifiable relationships, and those deserve the same gravity as others. I was still having deep feelings about all these relationships and my relationship to myself. Alienation, frustration, and confusion are so potent. I don’t mind if these songs are read as breakup songs if they deepen the significance for the listener. I like that music can do that,” she noted.
Peppet is aware that men have more leeway to “play a character” in their lyrics. “I remember one of Mitski’s records, probably Be the Cowboy. Someone called her work diaristic, but I could see that they were short stories. Why is she not allowed the same malleability? Why couldn’t she just make up a story for a song?” she said.
After collaborating with Baker, working with her as the producer of Spring Grove was every bit the meaningful and rewarding experience the band hoped it would be. In addition to production and mixing, Baker also sings and plays guitar, banjo, piano, and synths on the record.
“We love her. She told us she wanted to produce our next record after we worked on ‘Neil Young on High’. Julien is one of the coolest lyricists I’ve ever encountered. Her words are true poetry; they stand on their own. I sent her 20 songs and we did rank choice voting with the rest of the band,” Peppet said.
One of the most memorable events of the sessions happened during the recording of the title track. “We were recording the song ‘Spring Grove’. We did the bass and drums live and were still working on them, but Mic wasn’t quite satisfied. Calvin said, ‘Go back in there and hit the drums as hard as possible.’ Watching him play that hard brought tears to my eyes. It was so genuinely affecting.
“Mic later said that it was the first time anyone had given him permission to be that loud. That it was meaningful to him made it even more powerful for all of us,” she recalled. “And we got the best gas station tofu in Memphis,” Peppet laughed.
