Emily the band on queer platonic love, creation without expectation, and their newest EP "mwah!"

Emily the band is a three-piece queer girl group based in Central Illinois. Made up of vocalist and ukuleleist Emily Antonacci (She/They), guitarist Camryn “Cami” Proctor (They/Them), and drummer Abbey Haste (She/Her), emily the band has been serenading Central Illinois with indie alt-pop tunes for years. Ahead of the release of their newest EP “mwah!”, Lavender Editor-in-Chief Jada Fulcher sat down with Emily and Cami to talk about how the group came together, what they’ve been working on, and what they’re looking forward to for emily the band. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

Jada Fulcher: I would love a little bit of an origin story, if y'all could give it.

Emily Antonacci: Do you want to do it? 

Cami Proctor: Sure, yeah, I'll take a turn doing the origin story. Our origin story is certainly one of friendship. Me and Emily met while in attendance at the same high school. Well actually that's not how we met, we met when we were younger, but we were in high school when we really started to fall in love as friends. I would say I was probably 16, and Em was about 17, and yeah, around that time was the first time I ever heard Emily’s original songwriting. I totally fell in love with it. At first we just were buddies playing Emily’s music, and we had a lot of success with that. Then Abbey ended up meeting [us] and falling in love. We were at first gonna play one show together with Abbey as a drummer, but then we loved playing as a three piece so much and we all fell in love so much as friends, that we transitioned the sound into emily the Band instead of just Emily, and everything just started falling into place from there. 

Jada Fulcher: I love how you're talking about it like falling in love with your friends. That's very sweet, very queer, very iconic. So you all have been playing for more than half a decade. How does it feel to have played with the same people for that long?

Emily Antonacci: It's the best, like I have the best time, and our shows are so fun, and it's also our job. So of course, there's like the stress that comes along with that. And we live in a society, like the capitalism of it all, sometimes we get stressed that we won't be able to make ends meet when it comes to like the business side of the band, but it's very refreshing and comforting that we're just with our best friends doing what we love, and we're on the same page about the values of it all. So it's great, it's wonderful. It's also super cool to see Cami and Abbey fill in for other people as their backing bands, and I love watching it. It's like seeing your siblings speak another language, it's so cool. 

Jada Fulcher: That’s amazing. That's also very interesting, you talking about the business side as well. How does it feel working together as coworkers and business members?

Emily Antonacci: It's pretty sick. I mean, I feel like at first it put a type of pressure on our relationship that was difficult to navigate, but we've been doing it. This is like, I guess, coming up on four years as a band, and like four years of really taking it seriously, and so our like baseline is we are friends and chosen family first, and then we are band members and like business partners second. So, yeah, it's interesting navigating that. I think it's certainly gotten easier over time. At first, like when we first started emily the band, Cami and I were like besties, playing music together, making a record and then also we were working at this coffee shop together. So there was like an era where it was just like too many things together. But yeah, I feel like we've got a good balance now.

Jada Fulcher: Tell me about the first moment where you were like, “Oh, we're a band”?

Cami Proctor: That's a really good question. For me, I think the turning point was the first time that we wrote and arranged a song together, like it didn't really feel as much like it was Emily bringing something to me and Abbey and we’re filling in the gaps. It felt like all three of us had a very equal say and like the presence of the songs and how it came across. Honestly, if I remember properly, that might have been our song “brooklyn lady”. I feel like that was when we really hit our stride, learning how to create and arrange together as a band.

Emily Antonacci: I agree. We had our first show as a trio for the release of our EP “living room” back in 2021, and we had practiced, I think we started rehearsing, like, maybe in January or December, like we gave it a lot of time to settle in, and so we were like playing and getting used to playing as a trio, it was cool. Cami was kind of like the hinge between me and Abbey, because Cami and Abbey were in The Blank Stairs, and then Cami and I had played just random one-off shows a bunch. And so me and Abbey, like learning to communicate musically, was part of it, and the connection of us three was part of it. So it was probably in, like, yeah, the Summer, Fall of 2021, where I was, oh, we are a unit. 

Jada Fulcher: Speaking about coming together as a group, how did it feel sonically when it switched from Emily writing and Cami and Abbey figuring it out musically to really writing together. How did the sound change?

Emily Antonacci: I think we've gotten more rock with it. That first EP that we did, we weren't thinking about how it would translate into a live performance when we were writing or recording it. Like it had drum machine and all these synths, and it was like its own animal. And so when we did “the heartbreak album” in 2022, it became more of like thinking about the live translation of it all. And then that album was mostly things that I had written on my own and brought to the group, with the exception of “brooklyn lady”, and then this record has been like another chapter more dipping into the rock side of things. I feel like that's kind of Cami and Abbey's origin. Do you agree?

Cami Proctor: Yeah, I do agree. And also, something we talk about a lot, the way Em approaches music and the way I approach music, I feel like we sometimes have really opposite but complementary things we're drawn to with that. Emily is so lyrically-inspired, and one of my favorite lyrical songwriters ever, and that's something that in my own songwriting that is often a snag for me, but for me, the arrangement side, the chord progression side, I know how to use that to make the feelings of what Emily is saying even deeper. 

Jada Fulcher: Moving forward now from the heartbreak album to mwah! I’m seeing very different vibes. Talk to me about that shift. How have things changed? How are they staying the same? 

Emily Antonacci: It's coming up on a year since we did all the visuals for the EP. Originally we planned for it to come out last April, but it just ended up needing more time to breathe and become what it is. If you would have asked me like six months ago how I felt about the timeline, I would have been very pessimistic and frustrated, but now that I'm on the other side of it, I'm like this is what needed to happen. We knew that these six songs kind of went together and knew the general theme was either like, “I love you, you're my friend”, “I love you, you're my partner”, or “kiss my ass, I hate you bitch”, and so all of those fit into “mwah!”. We love maximalism, and Cassie, our friend, helped us creative direct it. She checked out a bunch of I Spy books from the library, like that was kind of the baseline inspiration, having stuff in there that represented each song. One of our previously planned release dates is featured on the album cover where there are numbers, so I wonder if anybody will catch on to that. We just had such a specific vision, and it was executed perfectly. I'm so happy with how everything looks, and also, when we realized that Valentine's Day was on a Friday, and typically new music comes out on a Friday, I was like, this could not be more perfect.

Jada Fulcher: Thinking more about the musical shift, vibe-wise how has the music changed since “the heartbreak album”?

Cami Proctor: I definitely think our sound has developed a little more complexity. Speaking for myself, one thing that is really super joyful and engaging about playing guitar for me is I love chasing the feeling of getting better and better, and a big part of creating this EP for me was pushing the boundary of what was possible on guitar, especially because we don't play with bass. Before creating this EP, we were in talks like, “should we get a bassist?” because that's what most people say when they see us, like, “oh my gosh, it's so surprising. You don't have a bassist”, but we came to a conclusion, at least for now, that that's part of what's interesting about our sound, is it's unexpected. It really pushes me into writing guitar parts that I think are fairly atypical, and so that's something I’m proud of with the EP. Our sound shifted into this place that was just more experimental for us and a little more complex, a little more just like us, kind of pushing the boundary of what's possible in our arrangement.

Emily Antonacci: I think also the “living room” EP was very fun, not thinking about the live arrangement, and then we totally shifted the other way for “the heartbreak album”. There's not much else on that record that we don't have live. There's bass and a little bit of synth, because we wanted to sound very similar, but now we're more in the middle.

Jada Fulcher: Hell yeah. Also, I will say the fact that y'all are ukelele, guitar, and drums, when I first saw that, I was like, “Oh my gosh, that's so amazing!” I went through a really big Sonder Bombs phase sometime in the past, so when I saw y’all I loved it. 

Emily Antonacci: I have such a band crush on The Sonder Bombs. Their catalytic converter got stolen, like maybe two years ago, and so they had said “Hey guys, please get things from our Bandcamp, because our car is broken” and I got the last t-shirt they had in stock. It's a few sizes too big, but it is my most worn garment. Also I DM’d them  like, “Hey guys, next time you’re in Chicago, we should play a show and I'll make sure nobody steals your catalytic converter”. So, yeah, they're such a dream. I want to play with them so bad.

Jada Fulcher: Talking about “mwah!”, so we're getting four singles plus two new tracks. Can we get a little sneak peek on what we're getting with these new tracks, maybe some background stories?

Emily Antonacci: Absolutely! So the four singles, we were kind of releasing them as we were making them, and now with the EP as a whole, they're actually all kind of remastered a little bit so they all fit together, which I'm so excited about. I think when people listen to it top to bottom, it's just so cohesive and delicious, and that is so Cami’s doing, because so many of those things I don't even know how to articulate, but Cami just gets it and knows how to execute it and how to communicate it with our co-producer Connor about getting it in the mix, it’s so cool. So yeah, we have the four songs that are already out. It's “marceline”, “and back again”, “sweet aquamarine”, and “tuesday street” featuring Patty PerShayla, and then the two left are called “ace of spades” and “queer platonic crush”, which both of them I'm so pumped for. “Ace of spades” is the first track and when we were recording it, I think I did that first line maybe ten times because I was like, “oh my god, it's the first line of the EP, this needs to be perfect”, and I'm so glad with how it turned out. That one's actually about a couple years ago, Cami and Abbey and The Blank Stairs, they were playing a show in Champaign and one of the other bands on the bill, I didn't know that I had met one of them three years prior, when I was dating somebody. I was like in college, it was a very strange period of my life, and this person was like, “I recognize it from this period in your life, from the person you were dating”, and I was like, “Oh God, I haven't talked to that person in three years”. Then I was like, I'd be really bummed if I never saw that person again in my life, that person I was dating. So I ended up inviting them to a show we had at Rose Bowl a few weeks later, and that song is just kind of like me talking about how I was really happy that this ex-partner was open to being my friend and being in my life again. Because I ghosted them for three years, like I would not talk to them, because it was just, it was a mess, I was a mess. I was growing. So anyway, yeah, “ace of spades”. It's about my ex and we're friends now, which is wild. 

Cami Proctor: Can I talk about “queer platonic crush”? I really want to talk about “queer platonic crush”. I'm really excited about all the songs in the EP. I'm trying to take inspiration from a friend of mine in saying just openly that our EP sounds great. We worked so hard and it sounds amazing. I love it. I think it turned out amazing, and I’m so excited for people to hear it, but I'm particularly excited for people to hear “queer platonic crush”, because it is the most co-written song on the EP. It is literally a love song about our friendship as a band and with our wider friend group also, because we have the privilege of sharing a lot of friends and a lot of love in our lives. We really felt there was a big gap in the market of love songs about that deep, really emotional platonic love. We wanted to put one for all the lovelies who really super love their friends and if they could, would like, marry all their friends and just be married in a big group, because they love their friends so much. We just harmonize on the chorus so beautifully, and I'm just really excited for people to hear that one, because I hope that people already feel that way, that already are open to platonic love being as beautiful as it is. I hope it finds them and makes them feel seen, but I also hope that “queer platonic crush” makes some people that maybe don't feel that way question why. There are certain people in this world I think that don't feel comfortable seeing friendship as deep as it really can be. Or maybe they're like romantic love is the highest kind of love, and I want them to hear that song and think “why do I feel that way”, when in truth, for so many people, platonic love is the glue that holds our whole life together. It is so intimate, it is so important. 

Jada Fulcher: Here is a question that is a little bit of a hot take: What is the best song on the EP?

Cami Proctor: I’m gonna go with my gut answer. I think the best song on the EP is “ace of spades”, because I think we really created the perfect first song for an EP. I think “ace of spades” is a perfect first song. It builds in energy, by the end it feels so high in energy but somehow it leaves just enough room for the energy to keep going up and up and up after that. Also I love the production on it. It’s so atmospheric and so different-sounding than anything else we’ve ever made. When I listen to it, it just feels like a whole atmospheric vibe is washing over me. And in order of production it was the last song we got around to, so by the time we recorded that song we were just so warm. We were just so in the process. I think something that always is gonna happen is the first song you record on an EP, an album, it’s almost always gonna like carry a little bit of that shakiness because that’s just how firsts are, and that’s okay and beautiful in its own way, but we were hot. I also just love that song.

Emily Antonacci: My knee-jerk reaction is actually “marceline”, which is the first one that we recorded. For me, everytime we play it it’s usually my favorite part of the set because we make people sing along. That is always so fun. I feel like also neck-and-neck with it for me is “sweet aquamarine”. That’s the song that I’ve had the most people come up to me and be like “I have an estranged family member and I feel so seen by this song”, because I was writing it just for myself, but when I realized what I’d written I was like “I wish I had this when I was in the space of the pain of the situation”, and so the fact that I’m able to do that for other people, I’ve just felt so glad. So either “marceline” or “sweet aquamarine”.

Jada Fulcher: What are your musical inspirations? Either for the band or just in life.

Emily Antonacci: We were talking about this the other day. Currently, like looking at the span of my life, I’ve realized how much this one Relient K album affected my musical artistry. Which is strange because I am like a gay, atheist and Relient K is like a Christian rock band. But it’s their album from like the mid-2000’s, it’s called “Forget and Not Slow Down”. Allegedly it’s about how the lead singer cheated on his fiance and the internal reckoning he had with it afterwards, but that album has been a huge influence for me in the way that I like to create albums, because it all like flows together, and we've done that on every record that we've made.

Jada Fulcher: Very interesting. I will say I've not listened to a lot of Christian rock, so I'm now gonna have to find this album and see if I can hear it.

Emily Antonacci: It's like, this specific album is, like, there are religious references, but I feel like to the heathen like myself you can also appreciate it for what it is.

Jada Fulcher: Some Christian rock is kind of good.

Emily Antonnaci: They make bangers. They really do.

Jada Fulcher: Cami, do you have any specific musical inspirations that you've brought in?

Cami Proctor: I always answer this question differently, because I have infinite ones. I just love it so much. But the way I'm going to answer today is a way we often answer, which is our friends, the people that create music that we have met in our community and also from communities a bit farther away. For example, freaking iconic shredder, iconic songwriter, amazing, super visible, badass, non-binary shredder babe, Sweetmelk, our sweet friend Kenna. Their music, truly the impact it has had on me cannot be overstated. They are amazing as a person, as a friend and as a musician. We're lucky to be on the same label as them. Same with like Snack’d Out if you like math rocky, midwest emo-y stuff, it’s been so fun playing with them and sharing community with them. A Small Meaningless Rebellion, beautiful, beautiful music. Me and Abbey just had the opportunity to travel around a bit with a new friend, Maximiano, and we got to play their beautiful album “The Real Truth”, which was one of my most enjoyed, most resonant albums of 2024 for me, and now they're our friend, and they're just like this amazing, radiant person. I could go on and on. So that is my big inspiration, because it's like I have so many artists I'll probably never meet, but I do love their music, and it has inspired me so deeply, but there is something about loving someone's music and deeply knowing them. 

Jada Fulcher: The issue of The Lavender that just came out is The Future Edition, so we’re talking about what’s coming for us and being intentional. So what are goals emily the band has for this year, let’s do a little intention setting. 

Emily Antonacci: I feel like, in the broadest way I can describe, it’s joy, community, and creation. Yeah, I think that hits them all. We're really chasing what makes us happiest, and we are also trying to be really intentional about being active members of our local community. I feel like in the past I’ve been looking at the big picture of people listen to our music in a lot of places, and that's so cool, but with like, everything going on with the shit show that's happening in the nation, and just like everything that we're all aware of, like [I feel like] zooming in on our immediate community and the love that we can give here. Whether that be like in Peoria, or Champaign, just like Central Illinois, I think that's huge this year, and every year forever more. And then creation, we're creating this year, and it's gonna be huge.

Cami Proctor: I think we are, as a band but also as individuals, we are really aiming to create more this year without expectation. Literally, before we got on this call, we were just recording the second episode of our podcast, which is something we've been wanting to do for a long time, but something was just always putting us off. I think at least, just to speak for myself, it was like expectation. I was like, What if people think this is annoying? What if it's not good enough? There's so many podcasts out there anyway, Why would anyone care? And just literally doing my best to be present, push that aside and be like that literally doesn't matter, because we can make this if we want to. No one has to listen. This is just for us, and it is just creating this podcast for the sake of creation, and people have found joy. I wasn't expecting so many people to love it the way they have, but we can make it for ourselves without much expectation. 

Jada Fulcher: Now onto the ins and outs. You've already listed things that are very ins and outs-y, but if you have any other ins and outs to share as individuals, I would love to hear them. 

Emily Antonacci: In: Touring, innovation that excites, and new production moves.

Jada Fulcher: Innovation that excites may or may not be the tagline for Microsoft, I will say.

Emily Antonacci: Yes indeed. Or like Intel, I don’t care, but It's ours now. 

Jada Fulcher: Hell yeah. Okay, and what outs are we giving?

Cami Proctor: Out number one: Shows that blow. No more playing shows that blow. Out number two: Perfectionism. And also out is hard work for no pay. It’s out.

Jada Fulcher: Ain't that the truth. 

Cami Proctor: The truth is, just to speak for myself, we talked about how we have to be business people as musicians under capitalism, and specifically in the US right now under late stage capitalism, you literally have to be if you want to be doing music. That is the thing I resent the most about doing music in the way our society is. But the way this helped me think about that that's more intuitive to me is just like, if we need money to be able to pay our rent and pay our bills and to feed ourselves – which I think is complete bullshit, I think you should get the things you need to not die for fucking free, but that’s the situation – that you do need to get paid for time if you're giving something valuable. And there have been a lot of times in the past where we’ve compromised that, and we are just at a place with our skills where we are way past that. We just had to come to the conclusion that if we're spending our valuable time on this, we have to be getting money to pay our bills, to be able to eat, to be able to take care of ourselves. 

Jada Fulcher: Closing this interview out a little bit, give me an idea of where we're going to see you next. I know your EP comes out on the 14th, on Valentine's Day, and you talked a little bit about touring. So what dates do you know of already that you're able to share? 

Emily Antonacci: We've got our release show, it’s going to be at The Space in Champaign on Saturday, February 15. That's going to be with Sweetmelk and our friend Liney Blu from Kansas City. And also, there's going to be drag! It’s gonna be nuts, It's Herra Winn, Herra’s Drag Menagerie. I can't remember how many performers there are going to be, but it's gonna be like, music, drag, music, drag. It's gonna be nuts. I'm super excited. 

Cami Proctor: And we're gonna dress in drag-inspired looks for ourselves, and anybody that wants to come to the show and wants to dress in a drag-inspired look, it would actually be amazing. I think it'd be fun if we all dressed up. 

Emily Antonacci: Then we're gonna be in Chicago; Iowa City; Lawrence, Kansas; Urbana, and I think that's it right now. We have the release show, and then in March, we're doing like two weekenders. So that's our world tour, we're calling it a world tour, because who's going to beat our ass if we call it a world tour? And then we'll have things in the later Spring and Summer. We've got Bloomington coming up. I'm sure we'll be in Peoria, and hopefully we'll make it back down to Nashville. We haven't played a show there in a while, but we shall see.

Cami Proctor: Yeah, we’re definitely trying to expand our range of places that we want to go this year, and we're working on slowly expanding that circle. So if you're a friend and you see this, and you're like, “Oh, I live a couple states away and I want to see a show,” hit us up! We’re all about that. 

Check out "mwah!" by emily the band everywhere music streams starting this Friday, February 14, or preorder their CD by February 14 through their record company Pretzle Records!