A Quick Chat with Trousdale
With their first ever Australian and New Zealand tour kicking off next month, LA-based indie pop trio Trousdale are ready to share their acclaimed new album Growing Pains with audiences across the Southern Hemisphere. Comprised of Quinn D’Andrea, Georgia Greene, and Lauren Jones, the group have built a devoted following for their heartfelt songwriting, harmonies and storytelling – and they couldn’t be more excited to bring it to Australia.
Before the tour begins, we caught up with the trio to talk about what this milestone means for them, how Growing Painshas evolved, and what fans can expect from their debut run of shows in Australia and New Zealand.
I want to firstly talk about this tour that you've got coming up, as this is your first time playing in Australia. How are you all feeling heading into it? Have any of you been to Australia outside of music?
Quinn: Yeah I did. I lived there for like less than a year with my family when I was six, so I was very young and it's been a long time but besides that we've not been. I'm almost positive it was north of Sydney. It's called North Narrabeen.
Amazing! That's a beautiful area. What are you most excited to experience with Trousdale in Australia?
Georgia: Obviously Quinn's been to Australia but Lauren and I haven't been and none of us have been to New Zealand. I think we're always just very grateful and excited to meet different people, see different cultures, ways of living. It's always very inspiring to leave what you know and just be around something totally different and just absorb it. We don't really know exactly what to expect in terms of the size of the shows and what the fans are gonna be like. But it's just always exciting to meet new people and feel the fact that people are listening to our music in places that are so far away from where we live.
That’s super exciting. What makes now the right time for your first Australian tour?
Quinn: We've kind of been in the midst now of just expanding our world and where we're traveling and where we're touring. I think this year and next year we're really going more international and it feels like the right time after this album. And we've been doing bigger tours in general even within the States, so this is kind of our first big leap into really going great distances with the music. We've also gotten so many requests from people online to come to Australia for years, so we've really been looking forward to it.
Let’s talk about your latest album Growing Pains. How does it feel to be bringing these songs to an audience on the other side of the world? Is there a level of excitement about seeing how it translates to another continent?
Lauren: It is really interesting seeing how songs hit better or worse in different places, like there are certain songs that certain cities or countries just absolutely love and then other ones where people still like it but it's just not maybe like their favourite song. So I'm definitely excited to see what resonates with Australia and Australian fans.
Quinn: Yeah, also it's just a beautiful thing to find that no matter where we go, humans all want to love and be loved and experience love within music – that will never change no matter where we go. So it's cool to see all of the differences in the way people are experiencing our music, and the ways they remain the same, which is really beautiful.
Since touring this new album, has there been a chance for you to connect to any particular song in a live context?
Georgia: Definitely. There’s so many of them and it always changes. I think what we connect with is based on where we're at emotionally on any night. From Growing Pains there are songs like Sleeping at the Wheel and Secondhand Smokeand Want Me Back that I feel really connected to every night.
Quinn: Those are my three too.
Georgia: I also think Any Day Now, one of our older songs as well. We were in Denmark recently and there were a lot of people that didn't even speak English, and to see the moments that those people in that song specifically were crying out. It was such a response to our arrangement of the song, which we do spend so much time on so that was really gratifying too. And now that song for me is also a fun one.
Have there been any songs that have surprised you with how they’ve translated?
Lauren: I think Save Me has been really fun to see how that's interacted with an audience and Sleeping at the Wheel for sure. With a song like Sleeping at the Wheel, it's always a risk when you do a really slow ballad acoustic kind of thing live because it can either be such a great moment or people can get a little bit bored. I've been very pleasantly surprised that people have really been attentive during that song and seem to really like it.
Georgia: Yeah, I think Over and Over too. That’s one that people are really connecting to the lyrics.
Growing Pains was recorded live together in a room. How did that shape the way that you perform these tracks on stage?
Lauren: Yeah so the instrumentals were. We had drums, bass and electric guitar all recorded live at the same time and then we did vocals separately, but yeah, the meat of the songs was all together yeah.
Quinn: Yeah, I feel like it translated to live so much faster. It's also interesting as there is slightly less room to play with because it's all laid out for you so you’re like “Well, this is how it was played and it's possible to play it that way”, like with the band that we take on the road. But it just felt more intuitive and organic that way. Even just how it sounded in the recording and then playing it live, you could just follow instinct with it afterwards and just let the song speak for itself a little easier.
So the record was co-produced with John Mark Nelson who has obviously worked with Taylor Swift and Mitski. How did that collaboration come about and how did John influence the process and the sound of the record?
Georgia: Oh my gosh, he is just such an incredible collaborator and songwriter. We had met him a few years back in a songwriting session where we wrote a song called Movie Star which is on Out of my Mind. We just fell in love with him that day. It's just so rare that you meet somebody in a writing session in LA these days that you really just vibe with so much and really respect their ideas and are excited by their ideas. So after that we worked with him on Placebo which is also on Out of my Mind and then after both of those experiences, we just knew that we had found a real collaborator.
We learned from Out of my Mind as well that it was just so much work for the three of us to do the whole thing. Having somebody else as a bird's-eye view has been so helpful for us to just have somebody be like, “Okay. This is your thought, this is your thought, this is your thought. Let me make some more sense of it in a way that we can make a decision quicker.” So I would say he really sped up the process in a more mechanical way, but then also emotionally, he just brought such an incredible vibe to every day and he is also just a great musician and songwriter and we're just so lucky to work with him.
Lauren: And very funny. Extremely funny person, which is always a joy to have in the room.
Quinn: I think it was also really important for us to feel like we were producing this album as well. That we're not handing it over to someone else where it might seem like we're collaborating at the beginning and then they kind of just take it and run. We already knew to trust him with the music and we were all included so heavily the entire time.
Georgia: Yeah, it was a true collaboration.
You recently performed “Growing Pains” on The Kelly Clarkson Show, which is super cool! What was that experience like and did you feel like it was a turning point for the group?
Lauren: It was such an amazing pinch me moment for sure. All of us grew up listening to Kelly's music and it was just so surreal getting to play on her show and meet her. I’m wearing the shirt right now. It was our first time playing on a live TV show so it was a milestone moment in that way as well. It was at the end of a very long tour so we were trying to get through the day because we were so tired.
Quinn: But we were definitely locked in too.
Lauren: Yes, because of that. We were a well oiled machine at that point, which I'm grateful for because we were all just nervous. It was good to have the experience and the repetition of performing every night under our fingers.
Georgia: I will forever have so much respect for all the people that perform on those shows because it's such an early day. It's such an early start time to get your voice ready.
Lauren: And you have only one or two chances. The lights, the cameras they're all on and there's a lot of pressure.
Quinn: We were up at like 6 doing our makeup and getting ourselves ready so that we could be there and go but for other shows you've got to be there at 5, for a morning show.
Georgia: But we woke up even earlier than that to warm up too.
Lauren: Yeah, you know so it's not sounding like it's 8 o'clock.
How do you approach creating music as a trio? Is there a certain dynamic the three of you bring as individuals?
Lauren: I mean, we're all very close friends. And that's definitely the foundation of us working together as songwriters. There's a certain trust that we have when we bring up ideas and talk about how things work. We also really are fans of each other and our individual music and when each of us were pursuing that in school, we saw those moments of somebody individually being on stage and just shining and I think that has gone so far for us with trusting each other's opinions and trusting our taste.
Something that we tend to say a lot and remind each other in the writing room is that, if one of us has an idea that we really love, that's really great and you can fight for it but ultimately if we can find an idea that all three of us think is really great, it’s going to be that much better. So we try to follow that a lot.
Quinn: Yeah, and I think there was somewhat of a different energy with this album specifically. There were songs where it felt like it was a Trousdale song, which is separate from all three of us. But then we also threw in a ton of our individual starts into a Dropbox folder when we decided we were gonna be writing and we could kind of sift through that and be like “Oh, let's write this person's start today.”
And then there was a certain element of us entering whoever started’s world a little bit and still having it be Trousdale and have all three of us in it and have that ownership over it and ideas from each of us. But I think there's an element of that that also happens when stepping into each other's shoes whether it's like the story or the experience of it or even the songwriting style with the chord progressions or the melodic choices. I think we can kind of go with each other if somebody's feeling really strongly about it, which I think is really fun.
Georgia: Sometimes when I'm like making a start sometimes I'll know “Oh, I really can't wait to get Lauren and Quinn's thoughts on this” and sometimes that's how I'll know “Oh, this would be a great Trousdale song” versus “I just want to finish this one and see it through”. Definitely a feeling of like “Wow, wouldn't it be great to get these minds on this?”. I think that's kept us going and feeling inspired by each other.
What are some of the differences you all bring to the table as a group?
Georgia: Well, I would say Quinn brings a really melodic melancholy almost haunting sound. There's just a specific type of sound that I think of when I think of [Quinn’s] writing. It's usually very deep and nostalgic.
Lauren: Yeah I agree. I think Quinn writes such amazing melodies. Every time I know it's a Quinn melody because it goes somewhere I want to go myself, it's very pleasant to hear.
Quinn: I feel the same way about you guys. I feel like in the writing room, Georgia is really good at throwing ideas out constantly, there's like a freedom, almost like a fearlessness with the way that you can just go. Which is so helpful in the writing room especially with other people. And then Lauren's really good at finishing those things, like finding the solution to two lines. Like “Oh, this is what's gonna make it click.” I feel like you guys are really good together for that. It's a really good energy thing.
Thank you for hanging out! Any final words before we see you in Australia?
Lauren: We just released a new song, The Ick and we're really excited about that. It's a fun, groovy, kind of comedic song, which I love. We haven't really shown that part of our personalities yet and I think this was a fun way of doing that.
Georgia: And we have a limited edition vinyl celebrating the two-year anniversary of our album Out of my Mind, which is available now, and it's on purple vinyl. It's very beautiful opaque. Very gorgeous.
Trousdale (USA) – Australia Tour 2025
Presented by Destroy All Lines
Thursday 6 November – Crowbar – Brisbane
Friday 7 November – The Espy – Melbourne
Saturday 8 November – Oxford Art Factory – Sydney
Monday 10 November – Tuning Fork – Auckland
Tickets on sale now via Destroy All Lines
