The Favors
You never know where a text to an old friend might lead. It could usher you down memory lane or into the embrace of a bright future. In 2023, Ashe admittedly wasn’t sure what her next artistic move would be, but she decided to casually pose an idea to friend and frequent collaborator Finneas. Neither of them could’ve foreseen what came next, but they’re both thankful that this impromptu iChat exchange unassumingly led to the genesis of their band, The Favors, and their self-titled full-length debut album. “When I reached out, I thought I was done with music,” Ashe confesses. “I’d lost the joy in it. Selfishly, I was wondering, ‘How do I make this fun again for me? How do I fall back in love with it?’ I texted Finneas and said, ‘Hear me out. Should we start a band? We make one album, release it, and call it a day’. He responded with the cutest thing ever, ‘This solves all of my problems’. I didn’t know what problems he had, but I figured I would happily solve them,” she laughs. “Six months later, we were recording.” “Ashe and I have known each other for almost nine years,” adds Finneas. “We’ve been in one another’s creative lives for a long time. She came to the table with a conceptual view of this band as a pre-existing entity. I loved it, and I leaned into it right away.” Despite the modern nature of their first SMS discussions, The Favors take a decidedly old school approach. The union of multiplatinum artist Ashe and award-winning singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer Finneas sounds as lush as it does lived-in. Steady percussion, off-the-cuff guitar phrasing, nostalgic production, and gloriously gritty harmonies underscore era-agnostic songs that are equally appropriate for the last dance in a smoky bar circa 1977 or a sunset slot at Coachella in 2027. Their collective palette gleefully nodded to classics a la The Bends by Radiohead, What’s The Story Morning Glory? by Oasis, and Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. Simultaneously, they envisioned an entire world without comparison. “Most musicians send references of songs, but all of Ashe’s references were cool pictures of old Hollywood couples and classic Vogue editorial shoots,” says Finneas. “From day one, I saw the whole picture,” she affirms. “That’s why I was sending him photos of JFK and Jackie like, ‘This could be us’. I was really excited about what it could sound like.” The actual collaboration exceeded any and all expectations though. They recorded the majority of The Favors face-to-face in Finneas’s living room joined by his solo band members Matthew “Rat” Fildey and David Marinelli. “It was just drums, old CP80, electric piano, guitar, bass, and Ashe and myself singing at the same time,” Finneas recalls. “It’s homemade. It reminded me of the nineties albums I grew up listening to from Oasis and Keane.” “This is the way every artist dreams of making an album,” grins Ashe. “People don’t sing together anymore when they’re recording, but it was so romantic and fun.” The Favors make their introduction with the single “The Little Mess You Made.” The track’s sparse keys echo, and a steady beat holds the tempo close to a head-nodding bassline. Finneas delivers the first verse, and Ashe picks up the ball and runs with it on the second. However, they harmonize together on a heavenly refrain, “Say you will. You’ll never see me again…Just pretend she was just a friend.” Then, there’s “The Hudson.” Soft piano shudders beneath Ashe’s smoldering delivery as she sets the scene, “The trees were bare naked, and so were we—two old strangers sharing really personal things.” Her high register amplifies longing for a fading moment, “All I’ve ever known is gone. I’ve got nothing but you to lose.” “I went back to the time I got totally shut down by a dude in New York,” she recalls. “Finneas has one of my favorite lines on the whole record. He says, ‘I will catch a cold, if it keeps you warm’. It just rips your heart out in the best way.”“Part of the band identity involves these characters who are singing about an experience to each other,” Finneas observes. “It’s a musical theater design, and it rarely happens in pop. You can picture two individuals in an apartment overlooking The Hudson singing about the same thing.” On “Lake George,” strings uplift a confessional chorus, “I’d take just about anyone home tonight to stop loving you.” It crescendos towards a cinematic bridge punctuated by raw emotion as their voices entwine, “I’ve seen the place you were born, the look on your face in the morning, before you’re awake you would keep me warm.” “It has a personal backstory,” Finneas reveals. “We went on a family road trip, and we stayed at the house in Lake George where my father had spent all time as a kid. My dad scattered his mother’s ashes there. It was old, and there was no electricity, but it was beautiful. The owner eventually sold it. So, I’m superimposing this into a romantic story of a couple going on a trip. Maybe they’re not together anymore, and they might have to sell this house where the parents’ ashes are. There’s a theme of love-and-death.” “Times Square Jesus” revolves around delicately strummed guitar and airy strings as they sing, “Everybody knows that you’re my weakness. You’re an open secret I’m afraid.” “In Times Square and Hollywood, you have Jesus, the Naked Cowboy, Elmo, or whoever else you walk by and pay your respects to,” Finneas goes on. “Even if you don’t live a religious life, you’re still confronted by religion. When you are, you can’t help but think about your own life, regrets, desires, or baggage. If the ‘Times Square Jesus’ told you to confess, you might think of the person you’re secretly in love with.” Their voices practically melt into one another over a momentous build-up during the finale “Home Sweet Home.” Turning on a dime, strings sway in the flames of fiery funk guitar, seismic strings, and disco drums. Ashe exhales, “I tried to warn ya…I’d have a hard time letting you go. I still adore you. I didn’t call just to say hello.” “It nods to a bar on the Lower East Side called Home Sweet Home,” Finneas reveals. “There’s a loose thread of going to L.A. to pursue your dream. You might fail or succeed, but New York is where your past is, your old flame is, and your history is. At the end of the album, you’re going back to everything you tried to run away from.” Ashe and Finneas initially met back in 2016. They co-wrote Ashe’s “Moral of the Story,” which notched her first Billboard Hot 100 entry and appeared in NETFLIX’s To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You a year later. They joined forces again on the duet “Till Forever Falls Apart.” It earned a Gold certification, while their chemistry shined during a performance on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel LIVE! They had always kept in touch until that fateful text… Now, The Favors beckon everyone to the party. “Hopefully, you can have friends over, cook a meal, and play this on vinyl front-to-back,” Finneas leaves off. “I love any album that makes a night better. To me, this is special. It’s a true ‘long-play album’ in its real intended meaning.” “I want you to feel simultaneously warm, fuzzy, and heartbroken by this record,” concludes Ashe. “I hope you got the full contrast.”
About
The Favors
You never know where a text to an old friend might lead. It could usher you down memory lane or into the embrace of a bright future. In 2023, Ashe admittedly wasn’t sure what her next artistic move would be, but she decided to casually pose an idea to friend and frequent collaborator Finneas. Neither of them could’ve foreseen what came next, but they’re both thankful that this impromptu iChat exchange unassumingly led to the genesis of their band, The Favors, and their self-titled full-length debut album. “When I reached out, I thought I was done with music,” Ashe confesses. “I’d lost the joy in it. Selfishly, I was wondering, ‘How do I make this fun again for me? How do I fall back in love with it?’ I texted Finneas and said, ‘Hear me out. Should we start a band? We make one album, release it, and call it a day’. He responded with the cutest thing ever, ‘This solves all of my problems’. I didn’t know what problems he had, but I figured I would happily solve them,” she laughs. “Six months later, we were recording.” “Ashe and I have known each other for almost nine years,” adds Finneas. “We’ve been in one another’s creative lives for a long time. She came to the table with a conceptual view of this band as a pre-existing entity. I loved it, and I leaned into it right away.” Despite the modern nature of their first SMS discussions, The Favors take a decidedly old school approach. The union of multiplatinum artist Ashe and award-winning singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer Finneas sounds as lush as it does lived-in. Steady percussion, off-the-cuff guitar phrasing, nostalgic production, and gloriously gritty harmonies underscore era-agnostic songs that are equally appropriate for the last dance in a smoky bar circa 1977 or a sunset slot at Coachella in 2027. Their collective palette gleefully nodded to classics a la The Bends by Radiohead, What’s The Story Morning Glory? by Oasis, and Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. Simultaneously, they envisioned an entire world without comparison. “Most musicians send references of songs, but all of Ashe’s references were cool pictures of old Hollywood couples and classic Vogue editorial shoots,” says Finneas. “From day one, I saw the whole picture,” she affirms. “That’s why I was sending him photos of JFK and Jackie like, ‘This could be us’. I was really excited about what it could sound like.” The actual collaboration exceeded any and all expectations though. They recorded the majority of The Favors face-to-face in Finneas’s living room joined by his solo band members Matthew “Rat” Fildey and David Marinelli. “It was just drums, old CP80, electric piano, guitar, bass, and Ashe and myself singing at the same time,” Finneas recalls. “It’s homemade. It reminded me of the nineties albums I grew up listening to from Oasis and Keane.” “This is the way every artist dreams of making an album,” grins Ashe. “People don’t sing together anymore when they’re recording, but it was so romantic and fun.” The Favors make their introduction with the single “The Little Mess You Made.” The track’s sparse keys echo, and a steady beat holds the tempo close to a head-nodding bassline. Finneas delivers the first verse, and Ashe picks up the ball and runs with it on the second. However, they harmonize together on a heavenly refrain, “Say you will. You’ll never see me again…Just pretend she was just a friend.” Then, there’s “The Hudson.” Soft piano shudders beneath Ashe’s smoldering delivery as she sets the scene, “The trees were bare naked, and so were we—two old strangers sharing really personal things.” Her high register amplifies longing for a fading moment, “All I’ve ever known is gone. I’ve got nothing but you to lose.” “I went back to the time I got totally shut down by a dude in New York,” she recalls. “Finneas has one of my favorite lines on the whole record. He says, ‘I will catch a cold, if it keeps you warm’. It just rips your heart out in the best way.”“Part of the band identity involves these characters who are singing about an experience to each other,” Finneas observes. “It’s a musical theater design, and it rarely happens in pop. You can picture two individuals in an apartment overlooking The Hudson singing about the same thing.” On “Lake George,” strings uplift a confessional chorus, “I’d take just about anyone home tonight to stop loving you.” It crescendos towards a cinematic bridge punctuated by raw emotion as their voices entwine, “I’ve seen the place you were born, the look on your face in the morning, before you’re awake you would keep me warm.” “It has a personal backstory,” Finneas reveals. “We went on a family road trip, and we stayed at the house in Lake George where my father had spent all time as a kid. My dad scattered his mother’s ashes there. It was old, and there was no electricity, but it was beautiful. The owner eventually sold it. So, I’m superimposing this into a romantic story of a couple going on a trip. Maybe they’re not together anymore, and they might have to sell this house where the parents’ ashes are. There’s a theme of love-and-death.” “Times Square Jesus” revolves around delicately strummed guitar and airy strings as they sing, “Everybody knows that you’re my weakness. You’re an open secret I’m afraid.” “In Times Square and Hollywood, you have Jesus, the Naked Cowboy, Elmo, or whoever else you walk by and pay your respects to,” Finneas goes on. “Even if you don’t live a religious life, you’re still confronted by religion. When you are, you can’t help but think about your own life, regrets, desires, or baggage. If the ‘Times Square Jesus’ told you to confess, you might think of the person you’re secretly in love with.” Their voices practically melt into one another over a momentous build-up during the finale “Home Sweet Home.” Turning on a dime, strings sway in the flames of fiery funk guitar, seismic strings, and disco drums. Ashe exhales, “I tried to warn ya…I’d have a hard time letting you go. I still adore you. I didn’t call just to say hello.” “It nods to a bar on the Lower East Side called Home Sweet Home,” Finneas reveals. “There’s a loose thread of going to L.A. to pursue your dream. You might fail or succeed, but New York is where your past is, your old flame is, and your history is. At the end of the album, you’re going back to everything you tried to run away from.” Ashe and Finneas initially met back in 2016. They co-wrote Ashe’s “Moral of the Story,” which notched her first Billboard Hot 100 entry and appeared in NETFLIX’s To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You a year later. They joined forces again on the duet “Till Forever Falls Apart.” It earned a Gold certification, while their chemistry shined during a performance on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel LIVE! They had always kept in touch until that fateful text… Now, The Favors beckon everyone to the party. “Hopefully, you can have friends over, cook a meal, and play this on vinyl front-to-back,” Finneas leaves off. “I love any album that makes a night better. To me, this is special. It’s a true ‘long-play album’ in its real intended meaning.” “I want you to feel simultaneously warm, fuzzy, and heartbroken by this record,” concludes Ashe. “I hope you got the full contrast.”
