photo by: Cameron Jordan
Interview: Aja Volkman-Reynolds Discusses The Powerful Emotion of TWO’s Pull The Knife Out
“Honesty ain’t ugly, it’s humanities glue.”
TWO, the new duo of Aja Volkman-Reynolds and Dan Epand formerly of LA indie rock outfit Nico Vega, released their debut EP Pull The Knife Out, on their own TWENTYTWO RECORDS label on July 17th. The EP was written entirely by the duo with Epand producing. With fierce instrumentals and soaring vocals, the record is filled with lyrics that Volkman-Reynolds explains comes from “the deepest part of my heart.”
The EP also features the band’s first single, “In This Rough” for which they shot an incredible drone-heavy, and surely quarantine-approved, music video. “I need this all to die so that I can live” Volkman-Reynolds sings throughout the thunderous chorus.
On release day, I had the pleasure of having Volkman-Reynolds as my guest on our Instagram Live Interview series. For 40 minutes, we dove deep into the dark and light ends of this beautifully emotional record.
photo by: Cameron Jordan
TWO’s Pull The Knife Out is now officially released, what does the record mean to you?
It’s a release in so many ways. Any time you have creativity bubbling inside of you and it’s this pent up force, you feel this volcano that’s about to erupt – you feel pressure and stress of all that you have to do. There’s also this, “How am I going to do this during COVID?” Then the eruption happens, the artwork flows and everything starts to come out. It’s this big sigh, but in other ways it’s just the beginning. We have a lot of work to do with this record, it’s hard to get people to hear things and make that impact. Now our focus is going to be word of mouth and getting this thing out there. We’re going to self-fund a radio campaign. We’re doing it all ourselves which is a lot, but music is healing in itself. So, it feels good and I’m excited about the future. I’m ready to roll.
WATCH: The full interview with Aja Volkman-Reynolds here:
