Since they hit the scene, the brotherly talents of The Garden have shown an unhinged and fearless tact for writing music. For their latest record, Mirror Might Steal Your Charm , the brothers explore hip and electronic in new and experimental ways with even greater finesse than before. We caught up with both Fletcher and Wyatt Shears after their Toronto show on April 14th to discuss their new record, their thrift enterprise and how they write for all their different projects.

Northern Transmissions: What led you to self-produce Mirror Might Steal Your Charm and what freedom do you feel that offers you?

Fletcher Shears: We’ve always self produced our music. During the Haha album we worked with a producer / friend of ours (in the studio only). We like to try new things if we feel the may have beneficial aspects to them. We self produced MMSYC for a lot of reasons. It just felt right. We also had a a lot of really great engineering help from Sean Campos.

Wyatt Shears: Well said .

NT: How has your Vada Vada philosophy helped you with this record, and do you fine yourselves redefining that philosophy?

FS: I don’t think we really look to any sort of philosophy’s when we create. We just live our lives day by day and record demos. Then When we have demos we are excited about, we properly record them. Everything we write, especially on MMSYC is based on happenings in our lives separately and together.

NT: How did you want to bring your bass and drums back into the mix on this record while also including your electronic elements?

FS: it wasn’t really a conscious decision, I think we were just feeling that a bit more on this album. It wasn’t something we really talked about much. It felt right to us at the end of it all.

WS: the bass and drums have always been in the mix. But I suppose that we were more heavy handed in using them this time around.

NT: Speaking of this what’s your writing process like these days, and has it changed all that much since you started back in high school?

FS: Hmm, we started writing music together long before high school. And we were in high school 6 or 7 years ago.. so it’s hard to say. I don’t really think about my writing process, I just write impulsively based on what’s going on in my life. It’s changed a lot, it’s always changing. I think all you have to do is listen to all the music we’ve put out as the garden, puzzle & enjoy up until now.

NT: How did Sketchy Hut come about and do you plan on making your own clothing for it?

WS: I’ve been doing sketchy hut since 2016 and have came out with shirts, pins, stickers and armbands. And have sold vintage as well. I just want to make cool things.

NT: Mirror Might Steal Your Charm is full of so many different ideas that some songs seem to morph genres in the span of 30 seconds, how has this made playing the material live?

FS: To us, they are doable. I haven’t came across any issues in these past 2 months on the road.

NT: How do you find separating the creative ideas between Puzzle, Enjoy and The Garden, and do you ever find each project informing your next release with the other?

FS: Speaking for only myself here… I have pretty different mindsets when writing for the garden and for puzzle. When writing for puzzle, I’m solely thinking about that, in the moment I’m in and considering nothing else. Same goes for the garden. I just write based off of feeling most of the time. It’s therapeutic and impulsive at times.

WS: it’s a pretty natural process. I like doing both at different times of my life.

Words by Owen Maxwell