I’ve been a Bye Bye Blackbirds fan for a number of years, particularly their last album, 2019’s Boxer At Rest. Now they're back with a very fine new single and video, "We Got Lost."

Bradley Skaught, the leader of the band, was kind enough to answer a few questions for me.

Andrea Weiss: How did you come to write a song with Matt Piucci?

Bradley Skaught: I had been noodling around with the verse melody for a bit and was feeling like I didn't have any ideas for how to develop it. It occurred to me that I should get someone else involved and that Matt was the one! Something about that verse melody and drone-y, winding guitar stuff in D just felt like something he could work with. It felt Rain Parade-y to me in some way, whether anyone else would've thought so...

AW: How did Doug Gillard come to be involved?

BS: Doug produced our last record, and he's one of those guys who just always knows what a song needs to elevate it, even in a support role. If you've heard any of the recent Guided By Voices records, you've likely noticed a ton of great little orchestral parts and arrangement details aside from just his guitar playing. "We Got Lost" is such a simple song (structurally speaking) that I felt like it needed something to give it more dynamic shape -- he came back pretty quick with that cool keyboard string stuff.

AW: Where did you get the footage for the video?

BS: The video is entirely the creation of the director, so to get to your next question...

AW: Who directed the video?

BS: Marry Waterson made the video for us! She's a fantastic artist in a whole bunch of ways -- visual artist, video artist, fantastic singer and songwriter, etc. I'd been following her for a while because I love the music of her whole extended family, but when I started seeing all these cool video projects from her, too, I wanted to have her do some stuff for us. She did a couple things for our last record, but this one is a little more involved and fleshed out than those. I don't know exactly where all the footage comes from, but she mixes treated film/existing footage with animation and other processes in such a cool and unique way.

AW: Is there a new album in the works?

BS: There is! It's done! Hopefully early next year we'll get it out.