Soccer Mommy on the release of ‘Evergreen’ and heading to Australia this month

Soccer Mommy. Photo credit: Anna Pollack (@annamalize)

Jordan Royal (Sonic Alien 4ZZZ) caught up with Soccer Mommy aka Sophie Allison to chat about her most recent and fourth album, ‘Evergreen,’ her stripped back approach to the album and what she’s most excited about for her upcoming Australian tour, kicking off in mid June.

Interview aired on Sonic Alien 4ZZZ 28 May 2025.

Jordan: I'm joined by Sophie Allison, a.k.a. Soccer Mommy, having a chat about Evergreen, your album, which released last October, and your Australian tour in June. Thanks so much for joining me. It's a pleasure, pleasure chatting with you.

Sophie: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Jordan: I want to talk about Evergreen for a second because it's truly a beautiful record. You've always loved playing with production and sound and texture, which I love, but Evergreen leans more into a grounded palette. There's flutes and strings, acoustic guitars with air and space. Did it feel like a challenge at times to hold back from going down an experimental production rabbit hole and letting it breathe a little bit?

Sophie: Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, that was something that I was very much wanting to focus on, having it feel really cohesive and sticking to these kind of sonic ideas that we had, but it's just so in my nature to want to mess around with stuff. So that was definitely popping up here and there, but Ben, the producer, was really great about keeping it kind of all on track and focused on the end goal.

Jordan: Yeah, absolutely. I love how in your previous two records you have such production, amazing talent and skills, so I was like, I recognise that it would probably be hard at times to lean back a little bit, but even though it's more stripped back, there are some amazing little production moments like the microcosm pedal creating bird-like whistles.That's so cool. Are there any other little sonic details that you're particularly proud of that might fly under the radar?

Soccer Mommy. Photo credit: Anna Pollack (@annamalize)

Sophie: I mean, I loved the microcosm stuff. I also, we got really into using this lo-fi junkie pedal on a lot of the guitars that I think made stuff really cool and have kind of like a tapey, warped feeling, so that was really fun. I mean, obviously the flutes and the strings I am like in awe of, even though I didn't play any of that stuff, obviously. And yeah, also, I think one really cool moment on the record is in Thinking of You, in the, I guess it's like the third verse, basically, slows down tempo-wise, and we kind of like played that live, the slowdown, and like back into the original tempo, and it makes it feel really like kind of dreamy and like you're moving through like syrup or something. And that I was always really, really excited about.

Jordan: Oh, that's awesome. I love that visual of like moving through syrup. That definitely like sticks really true to that as well. And the flutes and the, like the strings are amazing in the record. They fit so beautifully. This album, though, is, you've said more of a collection of like little emotional snapshots rather than a linear story. Did writing that way allow you to sort of explore new territorial, like, does a particular track feel like a little world of its own to you?

Sophie: Yeah, I mean, I think they feel like a very, you know, every song feels like a very specific picture - a type of feeling that you can be in. And some of them are contradicting at times. But I think that's just kind of what it's like when your life is changing and you're experiencing loss and things like that. It makes it feel different at different moments. And I wanted it to be like, just very expansive through the actual, like, feeling of listening to the album. But like song to song, I wanted it to, you know, be something that was more present in the moment in like specific feelings rather than trying to do this, you know, big picture storytelling, I guess.

Jordan:Yeah, absolutely. And it sort of takes me on to my next question is that grief and memories sit really at the heart of this album, but you've captured them with such nuance, like the ebb and flow of how tracks go from something like darker, slower to more uplifting beats. Was it important for you, for the album to reflect that sort of emotional back and forth rather than stick to like the one sort of tone?

Sophie: Yeah, just because I mean, I just think that's real for me for my personal experience, you know, and writing an album for me is usually over the time period of like a year or so. So it's really, you go through a lot of different things and feel a lot of different things. And I like having, you know, kind of earnest moments throughout a time period rather than trying to adjust things as time goes on to fit one specific thing. So I think I've always kind of played with that a little bit and let there, you know, just just be contradicting things and different feelings and emotions that are, I mean, were literally written through a wide period of time.

Soccer Mommy. Photo credit: Anna Pollack (@annamalize)

Jordan: Yeah, of course. It feels like a very honest, as you said, like snapshot of a huge chunk of like your life and period. And it's so beautiful to listen to. Abigail is one of my favourite songs on the record, and it's based around a fictional character, which is really cool. What does like writing from a fictional or it was game inspired as well. So a game inspired space that you tap into that maybe autobiographical songwriting doesn't?

Sophie: I mean, I think you can kind of, you know, tell a story with it and go anywhere with it. You don't have to be tied to real events, obviously. But that song in particular, when I wrote it, it was kind of more just like a writing exercise, really. They had this chord idea and like kind of melody idea, but I just wasn't feeling very inspired by anything in my life to write about. So I kind of used that as, you know, like a template that I could pull from.

Jordan: That's amazing. The video for that as well, like when it released, I got obsessed with that video. It's so cool.

Sophie: Yeah, it's cute.

Jordan: It's such a cute little video. But you're going on tour. You're coming to Australia in June and you're going to be in Brisbane on the 18th for open season, which I'm very, very excited for. But you've been playing a lot of stripped back versions of the songs. You just released the stripped back version of Driver, which actually like made me cry. And I'm really excited to see some of these songs live. But what's it been like bringing these delicate, layered tracks into such intimate live settings and stripping them back a little bit and playing solo?

Sophie: Well, I haven't been playing any of the solo versions. I've been playing more of the full album versions of the song. But obviously there are some that are more stripped back just in general. And it's been really cool. I think, you know, it's something that can be kind of intimidating when you're trying to figure it out, just because it's, you know, it's not usually what I'm going for in a live show. I'm usually kind of going for a bigger sound. But it's, yeah, it's been really nice. And I think there's some really beautiful, like intimate moments in the set, as well as obviously still a lot of old songs and more upbeat songs that are mixed in there too. But I think it's really cool to have more of that intimacy in the set.

Jordan: Yeah, of course, it would create such a nice, like, I guess, contrast from some of your other more like rockier songs to strip it back a little bit. But yeah, you're going to be here on the 18th. I'm very, very excited. But how does it feel to bring such a, I guess, personal, emotionally layered album like across the world? Is there anything that you're looking forward to about revisiting Australia?

Sophie: Yeah, I mean, honestly, I really like coming to Australia, I always have a really good time. So I'm very excited. And it is nice because for, you know, we've been playing these songs for a couple months now, like every single night. To us, it can it can feel a bit like we've been beating them to death really a little bit. But we've kind of going to have like a little break before and then coming out and playing it for people who've never heard the music before, I think it's always really exciting and like inspiring and kind of breathes new life into it.

Jordan: Yeah, absolutely. I'm so, so excited to see you and particularly some of Evergreen a bit stripped back as well. So thank you so much for your time and helping on the call. It was amazing having a chat with you. So thank you so much for taking the time.

Sophie: Yeah, of course. Thank you.

Listen to ‘Evergreen’ below.