6 Things W/she’s green

Photo Credit: Liam Armstrong

What started as a college band in the Midwest has evolved into a self-assured project garnering almost half a million monthly listeners on Spotify. Since their first public performances in 2022, indie-rock shoegaze band, she’s green, has continued to make a name for themselves. 

On July 10th, the band released their debut album swallowtail. In August, I spoke with bassist Teddy Nordvold and guitarist Raines Lucas, where they discussed the importance of nature, pop culture influences, indie-music hot takes, and more. 

1/ORIGIN 

Teddy: The band first got going as a project between Liam [Armstrong] and Zofia [Smith], who were living together at the time. [They were] roommates in the college neighborhood at the University of Minnesota. Both of them would essentially just kind of make bedroom-pop style music just on each other's laptops in their home. Eventually, with some of the songs that they were working on, they wanted to get a band together, and they’d been jamming with some friends. Kevin [Seeback] was one of them who'd been coming to their house and jammed in the basement, and that's where I entered the fold as well. I was coworkers with Kevin at the University of Minnesota's college radio station, KUOM … We started jamming with the intention of playing some shows with our friends in their backyards and basements, maybe a bar venue here and there. We just kind of steadily started playing more and more shows. 

2/NATURE

Raines: Yeah, [nature is] definitely important to us. It’s kind of funny, we don't have a super specific reason behind it. It's just something that is important to all of us in our personal lives, and so it kind of came through naturally – no pun intended – into the aesthetic of the band. It wasn't like, “let's start a nature themed band,” or anything. It was just kind of like, “when it's time to make a t-shirt, why not put some trees in there, kind of go for that whimsical old growth forest. type of aesthetic.” But that informs our music a lot. Spending a lot of time in nature is really important for everybody, and so we do get a lot of inspiration from that, with a lot of songs being tied to nature as well in their names and their lyrics and stuff … And it's not that it's not intentional or it is intentional, but it's more just kind of a subconscious thing, if that makes sense.

Teddy: I think a big reason why [nature] has manifested as such a notable thing in all of our lives as well is also a product of where we come from. Whether that be in western Wisconsin where Liam is from, or in northern Minnesota where a lot of my family is from. I know at least a lot of the imagery that is featured on some of our artwork – whether that be t-shirts or cover art or tour posters – a lot of that is directly referential to places like in western Wisconsin, where Raines grew up, like the Connecticut River and such. It's been something that's been very pervasive for all of our lives in one way or another and something that we kind of collectively bonded over. 

3/INFLUENCES

Raines: Not to be the, “we're born in the wrong generation people,” but there’s clearly a lot of stuff coming from the 80s and the 90s. We're not the only people that are inspired by that time for sure. The thing is, musically, it was a special time because there were more developments in gear and stuff and in genres, and people were experimenting a lot, but also, It wasn't really quite digital yet, and so people were also really limited. And so, I feel like it resulted in really unique experiments, which is obviously a lot of the bands that we draw on like [the] Cocteau Twins and Slow Dive or even Sonic Youth, they come from a really unique time in music … a lot [of inspiration] comes from that time period, probably more so than 2026. 

Teddy: I would say as well in regards to the different spheres of media that we draw aspiration from outside of just music, a big one –  for sure for Liam and Zofia – but by extension the rest of us, would be kind of fantasy-driven stuff like the Lord of the Rings movies, or the writings from J.R.R. Tolkien. As well as Studio Ghibli movies, that kind of thing. There's a wide variety of influences, whether it be in the film world or from the literature world. A lot of it does lead, at least thematically, pretty heavily into the realm of fantasy. 

4/PRODUCTION

Raines: To begin with, that was just kind of out of sheer necessity, the kind of self-produced aspect of it because we came from the scene of DIY music in Minnesota and the Midwest. The MO was just like, “oh, we have a song idea, let's plug in an interface and try to figure out a way to record everything.” We would do everything kind of piecemeal for the early singles and the first couple of EPs were kind of recorded entirely ourselves or recorded with our friend’s help … We wanted to make a conscious decision to try going about recording the latest project in an entirely different manner. We wanted to see what that experience of booking time in the studio and getting in the studio with a producer ..  It is still very fun to record ourselves, and it's something that we still do when we're in the process of demoing new material. But it definitely is a little less organized and a little more chaotic of a process when doing it entirely yourself. 

Teddy: Yeah, it was really fun to invite somebody in that process and we all kind of became best friends with Sonny [DiPerri] … But the one thing I will also say is, there's different levels of production, and some people go in there with songs that are kind of half-written and they work with the producer to figure everything out. The one thing that hasn't changed is that we still have a lot of creative control. Yeah, Sonny's there to push us and suggest things, but, ultimately we're still doing a lot of the production.

5/VENUES

Raines: I’ll go with the general answer. I think that we really do like the small venues because you feel like you're in kind of a conversation with the crowd versus I’m 20 feet above everyone just looking at you. Playing a big, beautiful venue is super fun for different reasons, but the energy in a small room that's packed is definitely hard to beat. That being said, it is nice when there’s really good sound and that usually kind of has an inverse relationship. But there's a few venues out there where I feel like it sounds amazing and also it's kind of a small room that gets really packed and really hot. 

Teddy: The one that I'll always drop is a point reference is a venue that is in the Twin Cities. At least in my viewpoint, [it] really meets both of those qualities, especially nowadays with their new sound system there. But the 7th St Entry, which is the small stage of the 1st Avenue venue. [It] is consistently one of the most fun stages I've gotten to play or one of the most fun stages I've gotten to see a show on. They got a new sound system there now too, and it sounds even better. The energy in there is oftentimes unmatched, some of my favorite ever shows I’ve played or been to there. But to Raines' credit, obviously with five members, there's only so much we can tolerate being crammed up against each other … There was this converted chapel slash nunnery in Tucson. I think the venue is called La Rosa. It's only been open for a little over a year or maybe not even quite a year at this time, but that room was jaw droppingly stunning. It sounded amazing from the crowd and on stage it sounded just impeccable and I was like, “wow, this might be a new bar set for me.”

6/INDIE MUSIC HOT TAKES

Teddy: Nonchalance is not cool.

Raines: It's not really a hot take, but one thing that we believe in is the natural and slow growth of a band. It doesn't get as many headlines as somebody that blew up … but it's really awesome to see a band and then every six months, you're like, “oh, look at them steadily growing and growing.” That's a pretty vanilla hot take, but you don't see that talked about that much. 

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Listen to swallowtail here now. Follow she’s green on Instagram.

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