In Conversation: The Montaines
Indie rock band The Montaines released their latest EP, Color Coded, today, September 25. The eight-track EP finds the four-piece exploring the effects of love, tinged with echoey guitar and longing vocals.
Written by Sofia Treviño
Based in Washington, D.C., the band is growing in the East Coast scene and spent the last part of 2025 touring with English rock band Lovejoy. Ahead of the drop, Slipfast caught up with brothers Alec O’Brien and Jack O’Brien of The Montaines to discuss life on and off the stage.
Slipfast: For most people, it’s either full send on a band or a job. How do you guys balance both the music and a full-time career?
Alec: It’s tough. What's great is that everybody is on the same page. Outside of our actual jobs, the band is our number-one priority. It might as well be a second job. Pretty much all of our free time goes to the band and trying to move things forward there. It’s a fun thing to have to work around.
Slipast: It's very impressive that you were able to pull off taking a month off from work to tour with Lovejoy.
Alec: I don't think our companies were very happy, but everybody was like, “Can we take this time? It's okay if I'm not paid, but can I still have my job when I come back?”
Everybody's been really supportive. I think people who see that we're really passionate about it want us to succeed just as much as we do.
Slipfast: What were your goals going into this EP?
Alec: The biggest goal was wanting to stay true to our live sound. We didn't want to add too much frill on top of what’s going on with just four guys with instruments, so keep it as true to ourselves as possible. We didn’t want to compromise the art that we are making.
Slipfast: What overall theme did you want this EP to convey?
Alec: I would just say that this is us, and this should be a reintroduction to us and what we're going to continue to be putting out.
Jack: A lot of the EP is open to interpretation. How people read into different songs—I've heard people say different things. Some of the songs, I don't even know what Alec is alluding to directly.
Slipfast: Do you purposefully keep your writing open-ended for audiences?
Alec: Overall, the lyrics are a mishmash of little stories from different people I know and experiences that I've had. It's not all coming straight from me. In terms of one that I'm most proud of, it would be “Pane” because lyrically it makes sense, and the story that I'm trying to tell comes across.
The biggest thing for all of these songs is that the vocal melody and lyrics match the song itself.
Slipfast: Do you tend to write music before lyrics?
Jack: I'd say it's like 50/50. I'll write something, send it to Alec. Alec will send something back to me. “Pane” does exemplify that, where I've got this song, send it over to Alec, and he's like, “Oh shit, I know exactly what I'm gonna do on this.”
“In Case You Were Wondering” is a good example of Alec coming up with the vocal melody and the chords. I had a riff that I had wanted to use for forever, and then that guitar part fit with the chords. The process can be all over the place, but what it boils down to is that whichever music or words come first, the other half needs to amplify that.
Since Alec and I are brothers, we're both able to say, “That song sucks. Let's never bring that up.” We have a very open line of communication.
Slipfast: How do you guys take inspiration from some of your favorite bands while forming your own sound?
Jack: I listen to LCD Soundsystem, hear all of this rhythmic stuff, and I'm like, how do I do that on a guitar? It's more vibey than instrument influence.
Alec: Yeah, it's definitely more bits and pieces of songs. How can we incorporate this feeling into this other song that we're working on?
Jack: It'd be really funny if we put together a playlist of the influences specific to this EP because it is all over the place. We've been trying to make sure that whatever we're doing is uniquely us. If anybody at practice hears something and they're like, “That sounds like Flipturn.” We're like, “Fuck it, take it out. Let's try something new.”
We all love Flipturn, but we want to make sure that we're doing something unique to us.
Slipfast: How did performing live shows play into writing this EP?
Alec: There are a lot of outdoor shows in DC that we get to play. They allow us to try new songs in a low-pressure environment that we haven't played at a paid gig. We can see the audience reaction and feel if a part is working well.
Or, I'm not loving how this sounds outside of the room that we've been in. What if I change my tone to be more impactful? For "Same Faces,” I wasn't sure about the lyrics. Across the first three or four shows, I tried slightly different versions of the lyrics. In Orlando, it just clicked, and I was like, “That's it. Those are the lyrics.”
Slipfast: How do your live shows reflect your band’s artistry?
Alec: Our song "We Don't Fight,” the whole bridge of the recorded version I sing on- but we do a slightly different version for live, where I'm just playing a guitar riff over Jack's lead line. We've figured out a way to incorporate audience engagement, where they're all standing up, moving together. We're gonna move left and right here. It's great because the audience wants to be just as engaged as you want them to be, but sometimes you gotta make that happen.
Jack: Music is really communal. You don't have to speak the same language. You just have to vibe with each other. Like Alec was saying, that Webster Hall show was awesome. The audience and the band were on the same page.
Slipfast: Is this crowd engagement something you learned from touring with Lovejoy?
Alec: Because we were in such large crowds with the tour, that was where it became very evident. But you can scale that back even if you're playing in front of like 10 people. That was eye-opening for us.
Jack: As a fan going to concerts, there's a level of maybe self-applied intimidation of not wanting to look silly around the artist that I respect. But if you’re at a concert, have a good time. Nobody's recording you for the internet.
I try to carry that over when I'm playing. Like, yeah, I'm gonna move around on stage and be an idiot sometimes. I fell over at a gig recently. As an artist, you just want everybody there to know that we're here to have fun together.
Slipfast: Any advice for aspiring musicians just starting?
Jack: My philosophy on both music and life is that the only person holding you back is you. Just put yourself out there and do it. If you want to play guitar, just schedule 30 minutes a day to play.
I’ve played plenty of terrible shows. Alec can attest to that. I also subscribe to the idea that you're only as good as your last show. If I play the last show terribly, I just got to work on it much harder. Don't limit yourself.
This interview was minimally edited for clarity and length
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