Coming off their last album, 2022’s Orange Blood, Mt. Joy found themselves playing the biggest shows of their career and headlining famed venues including New York City’s Madison Square Garden. The band’s follow-up, Hope We Have Fun, finds the “Astrovan” outfit basking in what frontman Matt Quinn calls “the Gilded Age of Mt. Joy.”
“It felt like we were playing these big shows and a lot of our dreams were coming true,” Quinn tells ABC Audio.
With that success, however, comes stress, which is reflected in the opening Hope We Have Fun track, “More More More.”
“Your problems that you had when you were maybe striving for the things you’ve achieved don’t really go away,” Quinn says.
To help them tackle those highs and lows, Mt. Joy recruited guest artists Gigi Perez and Nathaniel Rateliff to sing on the tracks “In the Middle” and “Wild and Rotten,” respectively.
Quinn wrote “In the Middle” with Perez at a songwriter retreat before he even knew who she was or had heard her breakout hit, “Sailor Song.”
“I probably would’ve been really nervous if I knew that she was this star songwriter and singer, so I think it just really worked in our favor,” Quinn says. “The timing of it was great, it was just two people working on a song together.”
He adds, “Then I remember going home and looking at her Instagram and being like, ‘Wow, she’s a really big artist and really successful,’ and rightfully so.”
As for Rateliff, Quinn was already a fan when he approached him to collaborate.
“I wanted people to feel like they were in the room listening to Nathaniel Rateliff sing a harmony with me,” Quinn says.
Hope We Have Fun is out now.
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