LA duo The Driver Era meet NME during a London pitstop. They’ve flown to Europe for fan screenings of Live at The Greek, their concert film that accompanies a live album of the same name. Meeting fans can be an emotional experience for brothers Rocky and Ross Lynch, who’ve been making music together for 15 years. “Sometimes you meet someone who’s really gone through something, who’s like ‘You’ve saved my life multiple times,’” Rocky says. “And when you hear that, it’s real for sure,” Ross adds.
The Driver Era have been speeding along since 2018, when Ross and Rocky parked their previous band, R5, a pop-rock combo that also featured their brother Riker, sister Rydel and friend Ellington Ratliff. There was no handover period: on March 1 of that year, R5’s Instagram and Twitter handles were changed to The Driver Era and all of R5’s previous posts were deleted. Live at The Greek feels like a full circle moment because R5 also made a concert film at the famous LA venue, 2016’s R5 – Live Sometime Last Night at the Greek Theater. “Honestly, this is a big thing for our fans as well,” Ross says. “We’ve had this amazing fan base since the beginning.”
That fanbase has stayed loyal as The Driver Era have pushed into new and ever more eclectic musical territory. Over three albums to date, the duo have pinged between soaring soul-pop (‘Preacher Man’), chugging indie (‘A Kiss’) and sun-kissed funk (‘Malibu’). Their latest single ‘Rumors’, which dropped in October, is a shimmering midtempo bop that Harry Styles fans should add to their playlists. Like Styles, Ross has been dubbed “the internet’s boyfriend”, partly because of his acting role in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (RIP), but especially since his meme-making appearance in Troye Sivan‘s ‘One Of Your Girls’ video. Well, not every musician gets a shirtless lap dance from a pop star in full drag.
Here, in a lively conversation filled with infectious sibling chemistry, Rocky and Ross outline plans for The Driver Era’s biggest year yet.
You’ve been working together for 15 years now. Why do you think your creative partnership has lasted, and how has it developed in that time?
Rocky: “Just last night at dinner, we were like, ‘We gotta keep doing this! This is the best job in the world.’ I do think that for a lot of our ways of creating – even playing a live show or just in conversation – we kind of are a good match. Like, my weaknesses [are] his strengths and vice versa, so you get this harmony thing going. And then it trails down to every person that’s been involved in the project. Say, if we’re trying to go off and create and be artists, we do have people on the squad that are able to maintain what needs to be maintained. So we can do that [creative stuff] and the band can still succeed.”
Ross: “Honestly, our working relationship has always been good. Like Rocky says, we’ve always been able to work off each other really well.”
Rocky: “Tell us the drama!”
Ross: “No, I was gonna say, like, there’s been some personal things in our lives where, like, living situations and working environments could be ironed out. And I feel like [that way] we could be more productive. But you know, that’s just life stuff.”
Rocky: “Yeah, I agree that on the personal side, some things barely – maybe – started falling off the wagon. And I think it was just enough to where we realised, ‘Alright, let’s get this together. We all do need to find a fucking house [of our own].’”
Ross: “Solitude at the end of the day is essential for a lot of things.”
So it was living together that became the problem?
Ross: “It wasn’t necessarily a problem. We just outgrew the situation. Because we can spend every day together – no problem. It’s more [about] having moments in your life to get solitude, gather your thoughts and, like, manifest.”
Rocky: “Yeah. It’s like, ‘Boom! You took care of what you needed to take care of.’ Tomorrow we’re hitting the studio, so you’re preparing [mentally] for that moment and coming into the studio with the right vibe, the right energy, because you’re in control of it. But if you’re living with a bunch of your brothers, it can be easy to just be like, ‘Let’s relax today.’ You know what I’m saying? That’s a subtle way to explain it.”
You dropped a new single, ‘Rumors’, in October. Is this the start of a new album era, or are you still feeling out what’s to come next?
Ross: “We’re still feeling out what’s to come next. We’re big experimenters when it comes to studio time. I feel like that song [‘Rumors’] is more pop-oriented. But this next song we’ve got coming out is more 2000s punk-pop in a way. And then potentially the song after that is, like, disco. That’s just how we make stuff. You know, ideally, we’ve been talking a lot about having projects that are specific to these different vibes that we go down. We’ll see how it unfolds, but we’re definitely still – and always – testing the water and experimenting.”
Rocky: “I think the goal this year is to release three albums.”
You mentioned earlier that you’ve got hundreds of songs on your hard drive. What makes a song one that you actually want to put out?
Rocky: “That’s kind of why I’m saying three albums, because I think realistically, out of all these random demos, I would say 30 should be heard for sure. If we were gonna narrow them down and be really specific, I would say 20 of those should be fucking heard for sure. But [on the other hand], if you’re going to go down the rapper route and be like ‘everything we make, we drop’, we could go and drop 60 fucking songs. I would say half of those [60 songs] will never see the light of day – just because we’re not going to focus on them and we’re going to start something new. So I would say potentially we have enough songs to fit three albums. And it’s just [a case of] how we want to spend that time.”
You played a lot of European festivals last summer, but none in the UK. Are any UK festivals on your wishlist? Glastonbury maybe?
Ross: “Oh my god, yeah. And is it Readings?”
Reading and Leeds? They’re kind of sister festivals.
Ross: “I’d love to do that for sure.”
Rocky: “We’re gonna manifest every festival actually. Our end goal is to play every festival.”
Ross: “Honestly we’d love to. Festivals are something that we’re just now getting into. We’ve always wanted to play them, but now we’re starting to get the invitations and we’re really stoked about it.”
Ross, you’ve recently had an incredible viral moment with Troye Sivan’s ‘One Of Your Girls’ video. How was it pitched to you?
Ross: “All they basically said was: ‘Troye wants you to be in a music video, he’ll be dressed in drag.’ And they were like: ‘You gotta fly to New York tonight – like, get on a red eye.”
Wow.
Ross: “You know, it just felt like a good thing to do. I was like, ‘This sounds fun. Let’s do it.’ I knew it was gonna be a moment, but it definitely exceeded my expectations. But it was fun and I’m happy I got to be a part of it.”
Had you already seen what Troye would look like in drag?
Ross: “No, I pulled up to set and he was in drag already. And to be honest with you, it took me and [my brother] Ryland – who came with me – half a second to be like, ‘Oh, that’s Troye!’ I had multiple people ask me who the girl was, and I was like, ‘That’s Troye.’”
Rocky: “I’m doing the sequel – you heard it here first.”
Live album ‘Live At The Greek’ is out now
