'Winging it has served us well': How one band pushed through wildfire loss to unveil its debut album

In the opening of 2025, Taylor Olin had decided she’d seen capable of Echo Park and decided to relocate to a cozy ranch up successful Altadena. There, she’d begun to works her roots successful an creator community, spending astir of the past twelvemonth and immoderate alteration nestled successful with her caller flock of bohemian neighbors.

It would beryllium the cleanable sanctuary for the Something Specials frontwoman, that doubled arsenic a originative space.

By the archetypal week of January, she moved her belongings into a rented stationary camper situated connected a ranch owner’s sprawling land, that they’d lived connected for much than 25 years. In the shadiness of the San Gabriel Mountains, her L.A. chronicle would continue, arsenic dreamed.

But wrong a week of settling down, she’d person a sound connected her door, measurement retired of her home, and spot flames burning a adjacent hillside. When she saw the occurrence she knew to leave, packing arsenic overmuch arsenic she could earlier making a tally for it.

“Every successive update we would get from her was conscionable unbelievably surreal,” said Josh Augustin, who plays drums and keys and does accumulation for the band.

She didn’t cognize it yet, but each that was near of her camper was its frame; it’s burned, twisted metallic was different casualty of the L.A. wildfires. For the adjacent mates of weeks, she’d sofa surf until yet sleeping successful her van, waking up aboriginal to hold tables astatine an oyster barroom connected Sunset Boulevard.

The remains of Olin’s rented camper.

(Taylor Olin)

“From there, I went backmost to Florida, and I enactment connected a payment amusement for immoderate circumstantial radical successful Altadena that I wanted to springiness immoderate funds to,” Olin said.

She’d past relocate to Europe and commencement caller with assistance from a GoFundMe created by a friend. Roughly a twelvemonth and a fractional later, she’s inactive determination and has had clip to bespeak connected the experience.

“As overmuch arsenic I was straight affected, I truly person held the abstraction successful my bosom for those who person been determination for their full lives,” she said.

“My committedness to the assemblage had lone been a twelvemonth … whereas they had invested truthful overmuch and mislaid truthful much.”

But thing fascinating was happening down the scenes, coinciding with the catastrophe that had sent Olin overseas and near her bandmates, Augustin and Nathan Slone — located successful New York City — shocked.

One twelvemonth earlier, the set had released “Love,” a pleasantly sweet, folky, country-adjacent tune that melts easy into eardrums. Though it hadn’t received overmuch attraction astatine the time, it began to summation immoderate traction connected societal media close aft Olin settled down successful Europe, often appearing successful short-form videos crossed Instagram.

“We had nary thought wherever we were getting it from,” she said of the caller listeners. “It was picked algorithmically and enactment astatine the apical of recommended songs connected stories and reels, and truthful we started seeing thousands of reels being utilized with its intro.”

They set unwittingly stumbled into virality.

“We would get possibly a fewer 100 listeners successful a time crossed our full discography,” Slone, guitarist and bassist, said. “It’s … travel to life, die, travel backmost to life, and died. Now our full discography seems to beryllium successful a ‘high tide lifts each ships’ moment.”

At that time, “Love” was floating astir 1 cardinal listeners connected Spotify. Today, it sits astatine astir 20 million, with the band’s mean monthly listeners astatine 1.2 million. Small highlights see being featured successful a Reese Witherspoon carousel and Ashley Tisdale French gardening video connected Instagram, the second containing their different hit, “Aces.”

Now, the trio is gearing up to merchandise its debut album, “Somewhere Up There,” connected Friday. At conscionable shy of an hour, the task is divided astir evenly betwixt caller euphony and antecedently released tunes.

Album creation for “Somewhere Up There.”

(Taylor Olin / The Something Specials)

Impressively, the set has met successful idiosyncratic lone 3 times, 1 of which was erstwhile they archetypal agreed to enactment together. Better yet, erstwhile Olin and Slone archetypal met, it was shaking hands connected signifier astatine the Echoplex earlier the band’s archetypal show.

They’re each skilled musicians, having done their owed diligence successful antithetic euphony groups, but thing has clicked similar the parasocial occurrence that is the Something Specials.

“We request each different each the mode done — we each bring a antithetic happening to the project,” Slone said.

“I’ll spell and constitute the bass of the song, and a riff if there’s a riff. Josh helps with keyboards and drums. We refine it a small spot together. We nonstop it to Taylor. Taylor records implicit it. We get it back. We mightiness adhd a portion oregon two. We premix it. All accidental yes. Send it for mastering and upload it.”

In a modern world, it’s not antithetic to perceive of euphony accumulation being done successful specified a way, but it’s the group’s constricted idiosyncratic narration that makes it shine.

The program is to support being nonchalant astir the full thing, and hopefully their instrumentality basal volition proceed to grow. On Oct. 28, they’ll play the Sultan Room successful New York City, their 3rd clip unneurotic arsenic a band.

“It’s bizarrely easy,” Slone adds.

“With precise fewer exceptions, if things are flowing well, we tin wrapper thing up successful a week oregon two,” Augustin adds astir the outfit’s distant signaling process.

They’re inactive winging it astatine this point, unsigned and with nary representation, but “winging it has served america well,” Olin said.

“We’ve been approached galore times [by labels],” Slone continues. “But we bash beauteous darn good connected our own, and grounds labels don’t truly person overmuch to connection us, frankly.”

Olin says that successful a clip wherever the usage of artificial quality is truthful prevalent, and peculiarly successful originative spaces, doing things “DIY” is the champion approach. They’re starting with an archetypal tally of astir 500 vinyl records, with plans to merchandise the medium connected CD and cassette aboriginal down the line.

“With this benignant of set — with our sound, with our aesthetic— I deliberation that arsenic old-school arsenic imaginable feels best,” she said.