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If you’ve been under an analogue rock the past few weeks, you’ve missed all the full predictions of a folk resurgence, a revival of music at its most pure, rebelliously emotive, and unfiltered. Exemplary of that sound is the current standout Stanley Simmons, who took their single "Body Down" and paired it with a throwback visualizer directed by Shey and Kuya Allen that magnanimously haunts with revere and intrigue. Pairing a naturalistic backdrop with very trippy visuals, the band is set for a collision with mainstream success via a genre that has rebuked it for decades. Counter culture has never been all sweet, and when Stanley Simmons contextualizes this genre for the present day, we wonder if there will be more bodies downed by its primal excellence.

OnesToWatch: Who are you? 

Stanley Simmons: We are Stanley Simmons. 

Evan: I'm Evan Stanley. 

Nick: And I'm Nick Simmons, and we're a band of two. 


What is it like being a band of two in an era where everyone's an individual? 

Nick: It's good, but it's an interesting thing, because in this particular era, too, the word partner can mean so many things. We're a band, but bands kind of need three or more people, but we're two… but then you say this is my partner. It's like, well, what are you, writing partners? Are you life partners? 
Are you musical partners? Are we all the above? It's one of the most common questions we get on social media, which is not what I expected. I always just say yes, because I want to scare away anyone who's scared of that answer. It’s a good filter. So, yeah, we're a band. 


What was the genesis of this project? 

Evan: We grew up together. We were really like family, so I don't have a time with any memories not knowing Nick. We were like cousins growing up, basically. 

Did you play music together from the onset as well? 

Nick: No, never. 

Evan: We did one thing where I played guitar, and Nick sang one time.

Nick: On a goof. 

Evan: But we never actually really did anything. And then at the end of last year in December, we thought it'd be fun to do a video together just for socials. 

Nick: We both had individual bands, and we were like, why don't we both scratch the back and this will promote both individual projects and it'll be a one-off, one-time thing and we'll never do it again. 

Evan: Both of our projects were not at all what we're doing now. Mine was a lot more rock. Nick's was weird indie atmospheric shit. But we both grew up loving root stuff and Americana and folk. 

Nick: So we thought we never get to do that, so let's do a cover.

Evan: And then the video got millions of views in one day. 

Nick: People were saying shit like, “Hey, you know that stuff you're doing? You should do this instead.” 
And I was like, oh, that's nice. Thanks, mom and dad. 

Evan: I had musician friends who we had opened for, hit me up and go, “I love your band, and I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but you should do what you were doing in that video.” And when we listened back, there was this moment where our voices perfectly blended. On the production side, we layer harmonies all the time, but there's no real magic in that. It's just a bunch of harmonies. But every once in a while, you get a certain blend, and each blend is kind of its own voice. It becomes its own thing. You know, the Birds are their own thing that's very individual compared to Jean Clark or Roger McGuinn or David Crosby, and then Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young has a very different blend and ID than the Birds. The Beatles had their thing, and then the Eagles had their thing. There’s a third voice that comes from combining two voices. 

Nick: And our voices are very different. Singing voices and speaking. We had no expectation of being able to blend well. 

Evan: It seemed to have this thing that just came alive. 

I want to dive into that.
So, you have this social media zeitgeist moment, and then how does the band truly begin? 

Evan: Nick sent me a text, and I was in New York, and when you read a text, you can't really tell the tone. 

Nick: I was being sarcastic. 

Evan: Yeah, and knowing him, I figured he was. He said, “I guess we're going to have a folk side project.”
I laughed at first, but then I was like, actually, you know what? We really did sound good together. There was a thing. Let's try writing. At that point, it was a side project, right? We'll do one or two songs. 

Nick: We had songs of our own that we wanted the other to sing on, things from the vault, but we wanted to try something more in the style of the cover we did, which was “Sound of Silence.” 

Evan: We ended up just texting voice memos back and forth, building a song out over text. By the end of a night, we pretty much had the song done. 

Nick: Much to our surprise. And that song’s coming out possibly as the third single. 

Evan: All of the tracks that are on there are original to that night. I literally used my laptop mic, and I think Nick only did two vocal takes. No edits, no tuning.
I don't think there's comping. I just remember listening back thinking it's certainly my favorite song I've ever been a part of. 

Nick: Yeah, it still is for me. That's a special one. 

Evan: The next morning, I sent it just to a couple people I trusted and immediately they said to drop everything and put it out. 

Nick: I was like, the MacBook microphone song? I try so hard to get the right mic and everyone's like, we love this voice memo. 

Evan: But some things just align and you can spend a long time chasing stuff, but in a way, that chase is really preparing for something else entirely that you didn't know at the time. We've spent so much time honing our crafts, doing different things, that this has been pretty effortless. 

You guys are obviously like family, but you had a lot of experience writing together. You described it a little bit, but was there any adjustment of learning about each other once deciding to start a band? 

Nick: Definitely.
I mean, we were cousins at first. Now we're more like siblings. I think we spend more time together doing this project than we ever did as kids. We would see each other at family functions and he's younger than me, so I drove him around when I was a teenager. 

Evan: Well, I remember, I think it was my birthday or something and I really wanted to go to this music store that's gone, it was called West LA Music Store. Nick offered to take me, and that was the best. 

Nick: To me, it was like babysitting. But now, as adults, that age gap doesn’t feel so significant. But at the time, there's an old photo of us where it's like, oh, that's a little kid and that's a teenager. 

Evan: The interesting thing for me is with the songwriting. At one time, songwriting is so unbelievably personal, but at the same time, it's a craft. You develop it like anything else. So you sit down, you do it every day. Writing with other people can be the greatest thing ever or it could be like chewing on glass. I mean, it could be so horrible.
So for the most part, I don’t like writing with other people. 

Nick: Neither do I. You have to chameleon your personality to whoever you're working with to make it work. I'm not a session writer. I'm an artist. I can't be everything to everybody. 


Evan: Exactly. But it was so nice for us when we started because I've never had the experience where it truly was effortless. It was easy.

Nick: Whatever speed bumps we hit, the other had an answer for. So the album came really fast. 

Let's get into the project. So, how many songs did you guys have that didn’t make the album? 

Nick: Oh, I mean, there's a whole other album's worth of stuff that may still come after this one. 

So it's good material, it just didn’t fit? 

Evan: There's like one or two worth abandoning, but not much. Our stance on albums is that even if it isn't a through-line concept start to finish, it should be something that takes you on a trip, something that's cohesive. I feel like music is slipping back into an era of real albums, but there was a long time where records weren’t really records. It was just a bunch of random songs that someone tossed together. 

Nick: We like our records to at least be from the same universe. We tracklist with Rob Cavallo, our producer, and we’re old heads in that way, where we like to think about people listening to the album top to bottom rather than shuffled. 

Evan: We want to make no-skip records. And for there to be no skips, it's not just about great songs. You want to have dynamics. So, for the most part the songs that didn't make the record were more because of dynamics. Granted, look, we've written some shitty stuff, too. Everyone does. 

Nick: Yes. But, I can only speak for my own taste, but the batting average has been a little higher for this project than any project I've been involved with previously. 

I have an interesting question, given you guys have known each other for so long. As a band, who has the best ideas? 

Evan: I don't think there's a best. As a group. 
Like, who do you think delivers the best ideas? In here in between us? Between you two.. 
You're just coming out and it's like, who's your favorite person in the room? Well, you? 

Nick: Well, I'm not really a guitar player.
So if we're talking about guitar ideas, it's not even a question. It's clearly Evan. 

Evan: Well, thank you, man. But no, in terms of who has “better” ideas, the beauty of a partnership, the sum of the parts is great, but the total's a lot greater than that sum. We both worked a really long time to get good at our crafts, but there's certain intangibles when we work together. We balance each other's flaws out pretty well. 

Nick: It works out great. But, if we’re being specific, Evan is the better guitar player. There’s no universe where I could catch up. 

Evan: That’s a ridiculous compliment, thank you, man. 

Nick: I mean, for those not in the music business, they might not know that artists are not usually as good as session players. People think their favorite pop star is really good at guitar. They're not. Even the ones that are known for it are not as good as a very unknown session player that just happens to be the guy you call. So it's very rare for an artist to be session-level. When we’re in a session, we don’t need to call a guy, Evan’s that guy. In comparison, I’m more of just an artist. I can play my own stuff pretty well, and I can get the flavor that I want. But no one's calling me to be the piano guy on the new Jonas Brothers record. There's different categories of musicians. 

Evan: But I will say, when it comes to technical skills, it can be a disadvantage. We'll have players come in sometimes and they'll do their thing,
and then Nick has to go in and adjust things. Taste and technique are different categories. To me, taste is what makes greatness. Technique is kind of not worth it. Our favorite example is The Stones. People get mad when you say this because they don't really understand the distinction. Keith is not a technically great guitarist, but he's the greatest guitarist because he wrote that stuff. And the guy who can play circles around him could not have written his riffs that way because it's a taste. Or like, put Mick on The Voice.
It would not work. He would get voted out immediately because there's a specific technical style they're aiming for there, and Mick is totally unique in the way he pronounces words. It’s not “technically good singing.” 
However, I'd rather listen to him. 

Nick: I think there's bands that are making the rounds now that are truly bizarre sounding and would never last on a show like America, like Geese, for example. However, I'd rather listen to them than a lot of those artists because it's unique. That's what generally artists offer: perspective. And that's the same thing that AI can never replace. 

How do you guys mediate? Do you ever disagree on anything? It sounds pretty harmonious based on what you're sharing. 

Nick: What’s working is both having veto authority. I'm not going to put something on the record that bugs him. And vice versa. I think that's the easiest way to do it. We'll make something new. 

Evan: We're not super precious and both have the same goals, and, you know, we've grown up together so we have a very similar and unique set of experiences. We’re very comfortable voicing our opinions. 

Nick: Also, if something isn’t his favorite thing, it might be important to keep as my “flavor” on a track where he’s the dominant voice. Like John and Paul trading off on vocals but having a bit of a spotlight in the background. And it's like, Paul's songs aren't John's cup of tea, right? He's on them harmonizing. So we try to play it that way. 

Tell me about the “Body Down” music video! 

Nick: We flew to our friends around this company called Downhouse in Salt Lake City, and they have this amazing production/photography studio that two people run all by themselves. We caused a little bit of a stir in Salt Lake City among the Mormon community. I won't give away what we were doing, but they thought we were Satanists in the park. It was very funny. We were in what seemed like a remote area, but around sundown, there were hundreds of wedding and family portraits being taken. And the next morning, we woke up to millions of hits on this girl who posted a video of a few Mormon families taking photos of the trees, and it pans to us, and we're doing some Pagan, weird shit. And they're like, what the hell is that? It looks a little bit like the movie Midsommar. It's a wild fucking ride. Literally, if you type in Stanley Simmons, I'm not kidding, there are thousands of individual threads of people going off saying we're either lovers or Illuminati or both. They're dead serious. I think it's hilarious.

I'm going to ask some more fun questions. To relax, to find your place of zen, what do you do? 

Nick: I'm a coffee addict. But I have this thing that I love called a Brick. Brick is a physical little square. You put it on your desk, and it locks you out of all of your social media. And in order to get back in, you have to walk over to it and scan it, like a credit card scanner. So when I lock myself out and walk away, I'm happier. It prevents me from scrolling in bed. I have an addictive personality and I've found myself starting to become one of these zombies that we all are with these evil tech oligarchs who have lost their humanity and their inner child and their moral compass. So anyway, I locked myself out of that. My happy place is also when I read that Australia banned all social media for anyone under 18, that made me really happy. I had a really good morning that morning.

Evan: My happy places are a lot simpler. I like being awake when other people are asleep. So whether it means staying up super late or getting up really early, I just like having a little bit of time where I can play guitar or read a book and subconsciously know nobody's going to be texting me. I feel like this is getting a little hippie dippy, but you feel an energy when more people are asleep. There's just less noise out there. I also love going on long walks when people don't know where I'm walking. The Venn diagram between us is that we miss the old human connection of the analog world. 

If you were to take the other person out to celebrate for a meal, where would you go and what would you guys get? 

Evan: It depends how fancy we're going…

Nick: We'd go to Giata’s. Giata's one of the best sandwich shops ever. There's one in Weho and there's one in the Valley. It's the only place in LA I know that does rainbow cake like New York. Proper rainbow cake. Actually, the first time we ever worked together, that night where we made that first video, we went to Giata’s. So it's been a part of the Stanley Simmons story since day one. We go there all the time. 

Evan: Daughter's Deli's also up there, but Giata's is ingrained in us. 

Nick: Yeah, it's fantastic. It's incredible. 

Do you have a dream venue, an imaginary lineup you'd love to be part of? 


Nick: A possible one? Or dead people? 


Let's avoid the line of actual possibility. Use your imagination. 

Nick: I love the intimate setting of a smaller venue, but at the end of the day, the bigger the venue you play, the more people want to spend their time and money to come see you, which means you've connected with that many people. So to me, that's big. I want to play the Hollywood Forever Cemetery because I'm a recovering Goth Kid. And also, there's this place in Sweden called Dalhalla that I went to, it's in an abandoned rock quarry. I mean, there are actual coliseums you can play in Europe, so that would be also cool. Red Rocks, too. 

Evan: I just want to sell my hometown or something. I want to play one of those weird ones where you create a venue where it doesn't exist. Like those EDM guys that film at the top of the mesa plateau in the middle of Death Valley. I want to do something very, very odd.

Nick: Oh, you know what? Here's my big one. Nebworth. Zeppelin played there and it's a castle. That ticks all the boxes. 


Last couple of questions.
I would love a non-music recommendation. 

Nick: Leave your phone in a different room for a few hours a day. Honestly, it's so weird at first. I got up the other day to get more food from the kitchen and I grabbed my phone. Like, it's like nine feet away, what am I doing? Put your phone in a different room and just go about your life and it's going to be super weird for a few minutes or hours or days, but it's so nice. 


Evan: Be in your body once in a while. With friends. 

Lastly, I’d like a music recommendation. What are you listening to that we should be listening to? 

Nick: I'll give you two that are foundational for me that I recently came back to, which is the record Songs for Beginners by Graham Nash. It's his first solo record. It's unbelievably beautiful and sad and great, and I just love it. And Tom Petty, Full Moon Fever. There's also so much cool stuff coming out now. I love Zach Bryan, Willow Avalon, Red Clay Strays, Marcus King. 

Evan: The Sacred Souls is a huge obsession of mine… And have you heard of this singer named Jalen Ngonda? I evangelize this guy whenever possible, it's like someone transported Marvin Gaye here and raised him an octave. He's got this high, crazy voice. Duran Jones, too. I think modern country is killing it, but also the new Hillary Duff single is awesome. It's been stuck in my head. Also, Hudson Freeman. He's this kid from Brooklyn and he did this recording in a field where you can hear locusts behind him. That recording has over a million streams. He's so good. So shout out to Hudson Freeman, I think. Yeah, he's awesome.
He goes by HUD Dog. Socials. 

This has been amazing, thank you both.