Following their signing to Rough Trade Records in May and release of debut single ‘SWEAT’, and latest single, ‘DEATH IN THE FAMILY’. LA six-piece The Sophs return with a cover of Mac Demarco’s ‘For The First Time’ – listen + watch the video below.
WATCH/LISTEN
The Sophs – For the First Time (Cover)
Ethan of The Sophs explains their thinking behind the cover, “When I first heard “For the First Time” by Mac DeMarco, it felt fragile in the best way. My band, The Sophs, loves that kind of emotional rawness, but we usually filter it through something rougher, more chaotic. So we decided to cover it, but not delicately.
We kept the heart of the song intact, that wistful sense of love just out of reach, but pushed the tempo and dirtied the edges. It’s Mac through a surf punk lens, with sharper guitars, a driving rhythm section, and a vocal delivery that sounds closer to frustration than resignation.
It’s a love song you can scream along to. Nervous, nostalgic, and just slightly unhinged. Hopefully Mac wouldn’t hate it. Either way, it’s The Sophs doing what we do best: taking something pretty and making it loud.”
The Sophs’ brutal honesty, flamingly intrusive thoughts, and broad genre-spreading caught the attention of Rough Trade label heads Geoff Travis and Jeannette Lee immediately when they received a demo from Ramon. In the band’s demos they heard the sort of creativity and variety — and “don’t expect me to act pretty” sentiment — that could get The Sophs — including frontman Ethan Ramon, Sam Yuh (keyboards), Austin Parker Jones (electric guitar), Seth Smades (acoustic guitar), Devin Russ (drums), and Cole Bobbitt (bass) — a slot on nearly any stage. “It’s rare that a demo that arrives in the post sets your heart racing and sends you off on a quest to track down its sender. But that’s what happened when we listened to the music sent to us by Ethan Ramon,” Travis and Lee explain..
The Sophs
