Greer’s Debut Album “Big Smile” is Finally Here. It Took 6 Years, a ‘Harsh’ Hiatus and 48 Hours in a Box (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• Greer’s debut album, Big Smile, is out now

• Members Corbin Jacques, Seth Thomson, Lucas Ovalle and Josiah open up to PEOPLE about making the album after a hiatus

• The foursome needed some space and, they later learned, to go “through puberty as a band,” Seth tells PEOPLE

“Seth is making a hot dog, and he’s worried about it being offensive. Do you find that offensive?”

This is the inquiry — delivered deadpan by Greer guitarist Corbin Jacques — that kicks off PEOPLE’s video chat with the California-based indie rockers, whom recently reconciled after a year-long hiatus to make their debut album, Big Smile.

As a hot dog enthusiast myself, I am not offended in the slightest, and as someone familiar with the band, I am also unsurprised. Like many of their listeners, Greer’s offbeat humor and unwavering commitment to a bit is actually what drew me into their world. The music kept me there.

After bassist Seth Thomson hops on the call — joining Corbin, drummer Lucas Ovalle and lead vocalist Josiah — Big Smile quickly replaces processed meat as the topic of conversation. Released in March, Greer’s very first LP comes a bit later than anticipated: over six years after they announced their debut single.

Two EPs followed, the most recent of which, 2021’s Happy People, was well-received, but left the band “weirded out” by their own sound, Seth tells PEOPLE. The “little baby boys” that first joined forces back in 2018 were long-gone, and Greer was experiencing some growing pains — or perhaps a full-blown identity crisis.

Regardless, the foursome needed some space and, they later learned, to go “through puberty as a band,” Seth says.

After Happy People, Josiah recalls, “It was such a confusing time, and we were in the practice space, and it felt like a void … it was like a black hole.” So, following a brief tour in 2022, Greer went on a long break. Through that time apart — described by the group as difficult but necessary — Big Smile was born.

From otherworldly opener “Omnibus” to soothing send-off “audio_77,” the record is sandwiched by old songs made new. It is a patchwork of Greer’s past and present — a bit oxymoronic for a debut LP, but it just makes sense: Much like its creators, Big Smile is cohesive, but keeps listeners permanently on their toes.

Ahead of their North American tour, Greer chatted with PEOPLE about their yearlong break, Big Smile and why they kicked off their new era by spending 48 hours locked behind glass, Severance-style.

PEOPLE: What was it like reuniting to work on Big Smile after a hiatus?

Josiah: We just ended up going back to where we were originally making music in 2018, which is Lucas’s parents’ garage.

Seth: It was slow, warming back up to each other, ’cause we had been separated for so long, literally, physically, but also emotionally. There was a period of getting to know each other more and re-meeting each other. It’s kinda what we wrote: what we were all feeling.

Josiah: It’s crazy because there were so many songs from the whole year that we were writing in the garage that are just into the abyss. Even before that, before we went on tour in ‘22, we basically wrote enough songs to fill a whole album, and they’re gone too.

PEOPLE: Was that intentional?

Josiah: Yeah, it was on purpose. After Happy People, we were, creatively, like, “What the f— is going on? Like, what the f— are we gonna do?” I think out of all of our projects, that one we felt most dissatisfied with.

Seth: I feel like we went through puberty as a band. We started out as little baby boys, and everything was really fresh and clean. Once we started really paying attention to what we were doing, it was like, “Wait, this is really weird.” I obviously don’t wanna talk bad about Happy People, but it definitely made us want to take a break at some point, ’cause we were so weirded out by it.

Corbin: It was hard. There was a lot of almost incidental no-contact. It felt like it was a time where everyone needed to cocoon and back away from each other.

Seth: We all self-isolated. It was a harsh time for sure, but it was really formative. That’s where most of the songs came from — that void and great confusion coming out of Happy People, coming out of tour. One day, you’re touring and you’re feeling great about it, the next day, everything you do feels so awkward and wrong. And then you don’t have your band anymore. That’s what inspired a lot of the first half of the record. “Omnibus” is about screaming out into a void of confusion, desperate for an answer, desperate for something. We were all kind of feeling like a void and grasping at straws, trying to find ourselves again. Once we did that individually, I feel like we came back together stronger.

PEOPLE: Was it difficult coming back together after growing and changing so much as individuals?

Corbin: It was definitely awkward at first.

Josiah: Yeah, but it was almost, like, distance makes the heart grow fonder. It was like, “Oh my God, I miss you guys. I missed this.” It kind of reignited things.

Seth: Yeah, it was a sweet reunion for sure. I think it was awkward, though. It was a really overwhelming and scary thing to do.

Corbin: The first few weeks in the garage were actually really nice, and then as things progressed, I think we hit a few dead ends, and we were banging our heads against the wall again. That was a bit scary. As our deadline got closer, we had a few moments where we were stuck on songs, like, “Should we see this through? Should we just throw it away? What are we gonna do?” Weirdly, in that last minute, I think four of the tracks on the record came to fruition. All of that was, for better or worse, part of the process of getting this thing out after not being a band for so long. In the end, it was good for us because I think if we kept going, we probably would have made something a lot more sinister. It just feels right.

Josiah: And some of those songs that we added last-minute are my favorite songs on the record. Low-key, we work well under pressure sometimes. That’s kind of how we formed, actually, is Seth signed us up for the homecoming dance. We didn’t have any songs.

Seth: We wrote “Song for Me,” “Bittersweet,” “Aeroplane” and “Paper Birds” all in that week. Oh, and “All That’s Left Behind.” It was like six songs, dude.

PEOPLE: Which tracks were the late additions to Big Smile?

All: “Mugwump” and “Franken.”

Josiah: “Had Enough” was within the last month. That one and “audio_77” were Frankensteins of older s—. “audio_77” was an old song that I randomly found in my audio recordings that Corbin wrote years and years ago. I was like, “This song is gorgeous. It’s beautiful.” So I brought it to Corbin, and I was like, “So, is there any interest in bringing this back or…?”

Corbin: I was really reluctant at first.

Josiah: He was, but I was like, “That’s my favorite f—— song.” I love that song.

PEOPLE: Do you guys have a favorite memory from working on the album?

Corbin: Wine Wednesday.

Josh: I was going to say that.

Josiah: Oh, no. Wine Wednesday was a dark day.

Corbin: Actually, please don’t. We should never talk about Wine Wednesday.

Seth: That was the worst day of our entire album-editing process.

Corbin: If anything’s gonna prove us to have a lack of media training, it would be talking about Wine Wednesday. There was a favorite moment I had in the studio, though. One of these moments that made us feel like a band again. We were all feeling really excited about “Mugwump” going in, but we genuinely had nothing in terms of arrangements. Anything we tried to demo out with that song was sort of banal. It just wasn’t working. Then, I remembered I have this cat keyboard. It’s called the Meowsic, and they’re famous for their lo-fi meow sounds. They’re really cool. I modded it out a while ago, so you can do some pitch-bending, and I think we were sort of determined to use that on the record. It changed everything. We literally put down a billion cat keyboard tracks.

Josiah: So many tracks.

Corbin: There’s a part in the bridge of the song where I was just playing the cat keyboard. It has stock songs, and I was speeding them up and slowing them down. It ended up sounding really cool on the record, like some weird, dumb, Beatles-y thing.

PEOPLE: Which song was most sentimental to each of you?

Seth: I think “Omnibus” was probably the most sentimental song to me because it was the first song I had written outside of our hiatus and outside of Greer. I put everything I had into that song. I held it so, so precious to me. It was like my favorite little secret. I would show it to like really close friends every now and then, but it was so different from anything I’d ever made. I never thought it could be a Greer song. I never thought it could be a song in general. When we first got back together, I really tried to think about putting “Omnibus” on the roster and it didn’t click as much at the time. But it really grew, and it grew on us. I remember the first time we played it in the practice space, my mind was absolutely blown. That was probably my favorite day in the album-making process. I was also kind of a bitch in the studio about it. I was pretty insane about making it really particular. So I feel really bad about it, but I’m really happy with it. That was like my son.

Josiah: Mine is “audio_77.” I didn’t even write that song, but it has brought me to tears. I love that song. I’m obsessed with that song. Getting to sing it is like…

Seth: That song made me believe in love again.

Josh: I would say “She Knows.” I really like that song. It’s a cheesy song, but I really like that song. It was cool to see Corbin and Josie in there together. Weren’t you guys both in there recording it at the same time?

Josiah: No. We tried. We tried a lot. It was too hard to sing in full, ’cause once you get to that bridge … that’s a hard f—— bridge to sing.

Josh: But it was really cool seeing Josie do those takes, seeing him belt and get it right, especially on the bridge. That melody is really, really pretty.

PEOPLE: You all have funny online presences outside of Greer. (See: the Billie & Jean podcast, Josiah’s first-of-its-kind colonoscopy fan meet-up, etc.) How do you balance your comedic personas with the more serious aspects of what you do as a band?

Josiah: I don’t know. When it’s just the four of us or when we’re recording the album, it’s difficult to reel it in, to stop f—— around and making jokes. Any time that we’re not actually playing is just f—— around. So that’s how we balance it in private, but as far as how we present, I don’t know. We can never decide on, like, “Should we actually do this interview or thing seriously, or just f—— joke about it?” It depends on the day.

PEOPLE: To kick off Big Smile, you guys locked yourself in a glass storefront for 48 hours straight. How did that come to be?

Josiah: Once we wrapped the record, we were just trying to think of ways to promote it, and I was like, “We should really do a free show, but we need to be enclosed in something.” So initially, a big fish bowl, but I was looking into getting one made, and I was like, “It’s not possible.” So I was like, “Okay, a Plexiglas box.” I brought it to the boys. Corbin was pretty supportive, but it wasn’t a hit. Then [musician] Lexa Gates did it.

Seth: Then Severance did it. Everyone’s stealing our cool ideas.

Josiah: Then we were about to put the record out and … light bulb. I remember it was like 2:00 a.m. and I was like, “We do it in a storefront, a store display.” I was like, “Why not?” Then the week after that, we were stuck in the f—— box [for 48 hours]. And we played like three or four songs once the album was out.

Seth: We couldn’t hear ourselves. It was really bad.

Josiah: We couldn’t hear the audience either.

Seth: We would play a song and then… just silence.

Josiah: It was so small, and the drums were piercing in that small space. We knew initially, we were like, “If we play in there, it’s probably gonna sound like s—.” But it was a cool way to usher in our album. And also torture ourselves for almost 48 hours.

Seth: It was like weird mental torture, and coming out of it was crazy. The night after the box, I literally woke up taped to the wall. It was also stinky. We like to tell people we had buckets in the box. Everybody would say, “How do you go to the bathroom?” And we’d tell them that we had three buckets.

PEOPLE: Was that the truth?

Corbin: It’s what you want to believe, really.

PEOPLE: Is there anything you want fans to know as you head out on tour?

Josiah: We want them to wear leather and come as you are…

Seth: What is that? Like, why did you say that?

Corbin: Why “wear leather?”

Josiah: …wear a cape, wear glitter pants.

Seth: Ooh, wear capes! Wear capes, please. And jumpsuits. Look like you’re from The Mighty Boosh.

Josiah: This is a really scary time where people feel like they can’t be themselves. Come to our shows and we will accept you — as long as you don’t smell.

Corbin: We’ll still accept you.

Big Smile is out now, and Greer is currently on a North American tour.

Read the original article on People