Good Neighbors have spoken to NME about the making of their viral TikTok hit 'Home' and their breakthrough year.
The indie duo – made up of songwriters Oli Fox and Scott Verrill – were today announced among the longlist for the BBC Sound Of 2025; as one of the few less-established acts who are yet to release a debut album. They're up against the likes of Chappell Roan, English Teacher, Kneecap and Ezra Collective.
Neither Fox nor Verrill are completely fresh to the music industry, however. Fox first made waves when he supported Sigrid on her 2018 UK tour. Verrill, meanwhile, worked as a solo artist under the moniker 'kwassa' and played Glastonbury some years ago. As separate entities, continued success nevertheless escaped them.
Their paths first crossed over half a decade ago when Verrill worked on one of Fox's projects (“People kept saying I'd get on really well with Scott, and they were right,” Fox told NME).
That material might not have seen the light of day, but a firm friendship was formed. “We knew we had a chemistry right away,” added Fox. “We came from similar backgrounds, had similar upbringings, and we shared a musical understanding. We both loved the same bands.”
Last August, with time on their hands, the duo workshopped ideas together. Five weeks later, they had enough material to court record labels and place the chorus to a song they coined 'Home' on TikTok. The rest is history, with the track since going viral and going platinum as well as attracting millions of streams.
Speaking to NME earlier this year before the BBC Sound Of 2025 longlist was announced, Fox and Verrill shared how 'Home' wasn't fully written when it blew up on TikTok, and how a flippant “fuck it” attitude towards the music industry resulted in unexpected success.
NME: Hello Good Neighbours. Did you realize that 'Home' had the makings of a hit while you were writing it?
Scott Verrill: “Not more than our other songs, really. We were still excited about the first batch that we'd written in August last year. Then, around Christmas time, we did some further writing and the chorus for 'Home' fell out quickly. We thought it was cool, but we didn't feel this urgent need to finish it right away. We just parked it and didn't do anything with it.”
Fox Oils: “But we also knew that it felt universal, although I hate using that word. Our other songs until that point found us testing out genres. 'Home' had a really solid chorus. We trialled it on Tiktok and it went crazy. People were commenting that it spoke to them. It confirmed to us that 'home' as a concept works in different contexts. So, we revisited it. It's very odd to work in retrospect, but we had to figure out what the verses would say.”
So, in some ways, 'Home' was reverse engineered? That's really unusual.
Fox: “Definitely. It was really odd. And hard to do too. I wouldn't want to do it again!”
Verrill: “We were scared of the verses being really bad, but we couldn't allow ourselves to overthink it.”
Fox: “I wanted the verses to talk about the small, tiny moments that we can take for granted. We finished the whole thing in, roughly, two days and released it four days later. ”
Did you look at the comments on TikTok for an idea as to the consensus people had about the song's meaning when it came to writing the verses?
Fox: “Honestly, yeah, a little bit. But I also knew what that song meant to me personally, so we stuck to that as much as we could. It was so hard, though, and we were worried that people would be disappointed once we put it out.”
Why?
Fox: “We feared they might treat it as another one of those songs where you're just waiting for the chorus. We've been so lucky that people have fallen in love with the verses too.”
Are the lyrics to 'Home' autobiographical?
Fox: “A little. The chorus came to me at a time when I'd returned home for a funeral in Essex for a few days and I was feeling awful about home as a location. When I returned to London, I hugged my then-girlfriend and my whole body just relaxed. I had this visceral sensation and there was this feeling that maybe home is not simply a place; it can be a person too. That became the sentiment of the song.”
Social media has played a huge role in your breakthrough. How do you feel about it?
Verrill: “When we started, we weren't even sure if Good Neighbors was going to be a proper project, so we certainly weren't sure we were going to do [social media]but everyone was telling us to use it. In the end, we stuck 'Home' up at the last minute to see what would happen.”
Fox: “I think we've realized that some things are meant to do really well on social media. That also means that other things don't quite work and it's not always obvious why. That's why I believe live music is undefeated. There's a fizz in the air when you're in a venue that you can't necessarily translate through two speakers at the bottom of a phone.”
Where does the name Good Neighbors come from?
Verrill: “It was originally just a joke.”
Fox: “Yeah. The name came from the fact we were next door neighbors in the studio. Because Scott and I have had projects before, we wanted to test the industry a little bit, so we sent our demos out under the name 'Good Neighbors'.”
Verrill: :And it was a really obnoxious email as well!”
Fox: “Yeah. The subject heading was 'You should listen to this' accompanied by a SoundCloud link. That was all it said. But it sparked a bit of interest that day and we quickly realized that something was happening – more than we ever imagined it would.”
Verrill: “It was a cold email as well. It wasn't through any of our industry links.”
Did that make you more nonchalant with your approach than you'd usually be?
Fox: “Definitely. Both of us have experienced this industry in the past. You become attuned to thinking, 'I've had my shot now'. Labels talk about it a lot within meetings. They say, 'You did well, but it didn't quite click'. I think we both had a 'fuck it' mentality going into Good Neighbors, thinking that if they don't know it's us we'll just see if they say anything. When they all replied, it was as though our band pseudonym worked!”
Where are you guys at with your debut album?
Verrill: “We're just finishing our album at the moment. We're set to release that in April next year.”
Fox: “We're trying to figure the album out. I don't think we're currently tied to any sort of running order. We've got a lot of songs, so it's a case of whittling it down. We want our album to establish this world we're building: one of big, blue-sky energy; something that people want to see live. We want to be that festival band.”
Good Neighbors' self-titled EP is out now.
BBC Radio 1 will reveal a countdown of the top five from BBC Sound Of 2025 longlist, kicking off on Monday January 6, 2025, before the winner is revealed on Friday January 10.
