SNAIL MA SLOWING
Snail Mail’s Lindsey Jordan talks New M by Nicole Willis
If
you’re into indie-rock, you’ve likely heard the name Snail Mail. Snail Mail is the solo project of guitarist and singer-songwriter, Lindsey Jordan. Known for her unique guitar work and raw lyrics, 23-year-old Jordan has found her place in the indie-rock scene. Despite the name’s connotation, Snail Mail’s rise to fame has been anything but slow. The Maryland-native rose to fame at a young age, releasing her debut album, Lush, a few days before her nineteenth birthday. Lush went on to become critically acclaimed, ultimately catapulting Snail Mail into indie-rock stardom. Jordan is currently touring across the US on her second album, Valentine, released in fall of 2021, where she will make a stop in Pensacola at the newlyrevived Handlebar. We had a chance to catch up with Jordan before her stop in Pensacola to chat about Snail Mail’s origins, the inspiration behind her music, her creative process, musical growth, new music and her current tour.
Whether you’ve been listening to Snail Mail since her early days as an artist, or have just heard some of her music for the first time, you won’t want to miss her upcoming show at The Handlebar in downtown Pensacola on October 15. For tickets and show details, visit thehandlebar850.com. You can follow Jordan on Instagram @snailmail or check out snailmail.band for updates, tour announcements, merch and more. DTC: I’m going to start off with probably your most asked question, why the name Snail Mail?
little names that you would see on a flier. Alex, the bassist, and I were high school best friends, and we had these little joke songs on Bandcamp. And LJ: I knew that was gonna be the ques- that was what it [the band] was called, tion! We were playing house shows in but Snail Male, M-A-L-E. Then I started Baltimore and DC, sort of just mess- playing shows solo at first, and I was ing around. I wasn’t doing the band to just like, “Hey, Alex, can I steal this pop off. I was in high school and was [name]? I feel like it’s catchy.” And then just wanting to come up with some- he joined and it was all good. thing that sounded fun and kind of sounded like what all the other bands DTC: Your most recent album, Valenin the scene sounded like– just catchy tine, has a different sound from your 12 | DOWNTOWNCROWD.COM
first album. They both have distinct vocals and great songwriting, but the production is slightly different. Can you tell me about the production process for both albums? LJ: Yeah, so Lush was a full live band thing where we were recording it live in a room. Most of the tracks are just us actually playing. I had all these songs that I was writing as we were sort of starting to get shows and go on tours. We were playing them, because
nobody knew who we were— we were just always the opener— so we could play Pristine and all of this stuff when Habit was out. So, [with Lush] we had a really tight situation. It was already sick by the time we got into the studio. With Valentine, we weren’t touring and we weren’t together as much getting to try things out. The band was in Maryland and I was in New York stuck there during the pandemic. I was doing single tracks and tracking each individ-