INTERVIEW: [mila]

Alternative-pop band [mila] recently made their industry debut with their single, “Thuong Qua Is Vietnamese For I Love You.” Listeners are instantly hooked by a catchy guitar riff, followed by smooth pop vocals and a jazzy saxophone solo. [mila] has proven to the world with their first release that they are master genre-benders, and we can’t wait to see what they do next!

The band consists of CJ Lawlor and Wren Mohammed, a vibrant (and amusing) duo from Boston, Massachusetts. Noisescape sat down with CJ and Wren to get to know the band better, hear details about their debut single, and more.

Can you share how you two met and how [mila] came to be?

CJ: We both grew up going to emo and alternative shows, and I would always see Wren at shows. I never talked to him, but I recognized him. So I applied to work at Vans in 2018, and I saw him walk out the back one day, and I was like, ‘What?! I know this guy!’

Wren: I wanted her to be my friend like – bad! We started working together, and I went up to her and asked if she liked pop-punk. She said yeah, so I told her to listen to my band because I was in an alternative-pop-punk band back then. She liked us, and that was all I needed to hear.

CJ: We quickly realized we had similar personalities and interests.

Wren: As for how the band started, without consulting CJ, I decided we would start a band. I showed her this demo for a song I wrote; she liked it a lot. She’s super shy, so, like, a week later, she mustered up the courage to say, “Wren, I gotta talk to you. I really liked that demo you sent, and I really want to be in your band.” I just kinda laughed because I showed it to her, knowing we were doing this, that it would be our thing. And now here we are talkin’ to you! But yeah, I love her – she loves me; we are just like siblings, and our relationship is authentic. 

CJ: We really are like family. We do everything together.

How did you each get into making music and playing instruments?

CJ: My sister really influenced the culture I grew up in. I followed in her footsteps since she was, like, a “scene kid”, so she’d always play her music for me or burn me CDs, and I just loved it all. My dad is a drummer, so I always grew up going to shows and watching live music. In middle school, I mentioned wanting to play guitar to him, and he brought home a used guitar for me a couple weeks later. Then in high school, I got into playing the drums because one of my best friends growing up loves Twenty One Pilots. So I’d listen to them with her, and listening to the beats, I felt it’d be easy to follow. So I picked up the drums by listening to them and started playing more music from bands like Fall Out Boy, Paramore, and Panic! At The Disco. I always wanted to be in a band in high school, but I was too in my shell; I was shy. I still am to an extent, but I didn’t go out and meet people because I didn’t have the confidence to put myself out there. I remember watching live music, looking at the stage, and thinking, ‘I want to do that,’ but I never knew it was an option. So that was the turning point with Wren. He helped me realize that it’s not just a dream – you can do this. 

Wren: As for me, I’ve always liked music. I found this band on MySpace called Beyond City Lights when I was younger. They were a pop-punk band, and all the members were people that went to my high school. So that opened the door to me finding different genres of bands besides what I heard on the radio. I got into bands like Slipknot, Five Finger Death Punch, and Godsmack. Then one day, I heard “Boneyards” by Parkway Drive, and nothing was the same after I heard that first breakdown. My friends and I got into metalcore and hardcore, and A Day To Remember was the band that really changed everything because that was when my two childhood friends decided to start a band. Then one day, my boy Liam Hurson turned to me and told me I was gonna play guitar. I said I didn’t know how to play, and he put the guitar in my hand and said, “Well, now ya do.” Looking back as a kid, I didn’t see too many people that looked like me playing in bands – it was all rappers. Which is cool; I like rap. When I was younger, I would listen to Lil Wayne and stuff. Tha Carter III was a crazy influential album for me. After my old band broke up, I made cringey Soundcloud rap because I needed a creative outlet. After a while, I just felt like it wasn’t me. And rappers – most of them had super tough upbringings, which was not the case for me. Not that I had it easy, though. My parents are both immigrants; I’m a first-generation American. But at the same time, if I wanted something, they provided it for me. So it just seemed like anyone who listened to it would see through the fact that it was not authentic. From there, instead of trying to put myself in a box, I started to write whatever I wanted.

Let’s talk about your new song! Congratulations to you both; it’s fantastic! Where’d the inspiration for the song’s name come from?

Wren: Thank you so much, honestly; it means a lot!

CJ: For real, thank you! 

Wren: So on the most surface of surface levels – I say the phrase “Thuong Qua” in the song like that’s the main part of the song, and I was like, no one’s gonna understand what that means because it’s Vietnamese and people don’t really speak Vietnamese unless they are Vietnamese.

CJ: Or people who learn Vietnamese.

Wren: Or yes, people that learn Vietnamese, like me. So yeah, I thought, I have to explain what this means – what’s the fastest way to get this information to the public? So I named the song “Thuong Qua is Vietnamese For I love You”. If we’re going below the tip of the iceberg, I’m huge on old-school pop-punk bands. So Panic! At The Disco’s first and Fall Out Boy’s second record had these ridiculously long song titles, and I thought that aesthetic was so cool. Most pop bands now stick with 1-word titles. So I thought if we wanted to stand out, let’s throw it back. Especially with pop music, most of the fan base are zoomers, so the idea of long song titles is a foreign concept. We want to show that to them, and hopefully, they’ll like it. But this song title is definitely not as long as some of the ones we’re sitting on.

Speaking on their debut single, the band shares, "Thuong Qua is a song about being face to face with things you know are toxic, and wanting to have the strength to choose things that are more wholesome and healthy for you. On a macro level, it’s about vaping. On a micro level, it’s about love." So what made you choose this song as the band’s debut?

Wren: I write almost all the lyrics, and I’m super big on depressing stories, so my lyrics tend to be pretty sad. CJ and I thought our songs were really good when we wrote with all the instrumentals, but none were the perfect debut. So CJ told me I had to go back to the drawing board, and I stopped myself from being depressing and unpleasant [laughs]. Thematically this song is sad about being trapped in a cage of your own design, and that’s a hard thing to get out of, you know? But then it’s about finding inspiration within yourself to start making the right choices in its simplest terms. So to make it more lighthearted and relatable to people now, I decided to personify it as vaping for the negative stuff. That’s why in the chorus, I’m saying, “I’m craving clear between my fingers”. So when people ask what the song is about, I’m like, [whispers] vaping.

CJ: Vaping and the power of love.

What do you want your listeners to take away from the song?

Wren: I want – more than anything – people that look like both of us, marginalized groups, to realize that this is for them too. So I’m half black and half Indian. And not to make a pity party, but when I did a full US tour with my last band, at a quarter of those shows – at least – someone would come up to me after my set and say something like, “Hey man, when I saw you get on stage I thought you were gonna start rapping, but you’re actually a really good singer.” I get that they were trying to be nice, but that’s a really backhanded compliment. So if you’re a person of color, if you’re queer, if you’re a woman – you can do this too. Start a band. Be a solo artist. Make music. Make art. Just do you. Get out there and meet people. I don’t care if you think they’re much better than you. Because even if they don’t wanna work with you, they can recommend you to someone else. We’re wildly blessed to know the people that we do, like our co-writer, Liam. And then we have our super talented, helpful, and open producer, Chris Piquette of No Boundaries Studios. Without him – this band would be nothing. So yeah, if you’re feeling inspired? Send it. CJ, do you want to add? Don’t say what I just said. 

CJ: [laughing] I wasn’t gonna! I just want people to hear the song! I genuinely just want people to give us a chance.

Wren: We don’t suck; we’re good. 

CJ: I think we don’t suck; I think we’re good. 

Wren: Nah, we rock.

[mila] definitely rocks! I loved the music video; it’s incredible! Can you talk about the video and its inspiration?

Wren: Okay, so I love movies. The director and the director of photography for our video did videos for other bands around here, like Crush++ – stream them and go watch their videos; they have fire videos.

CJ: Literally, that’s our favorite band.

Wren: Not my favorite band, [mila] is my favorite band, but Crush++ I stream them just as much. 

CJ: Tom, the singer of that band, is actually the evil guy in our video. 

Wren: So yeah, Caleb and Robin did videos for Crush++, and I thought they rocked. And then I saw an independent film they made, Blood Moon, at a movie theater in town. After that, I could tell these guys were visionaries, and I wanted to work with them. So I wrote a script for our video that was so different from the video you saw. Initially, it was supposed to be this sinister, evil, unsettling vibe. The character Tom plays in the video is called “The Boss”. He would use this dark magic to control us, the band, to create this perfect piece of art. So I sent that idea to Caleb, and he thought the idea was cool, but he asked if we could let him do his thing and trust him to create something better. 

CJ: We read the script he sent back, and it was a little hard to visualize at first because it was something so turned on its head. But we decided to take the chance and trust him. And we’re happy we did because we love the video. 

Wren: I couldn’t be happier with how it came out. I want people to tune in and think, “Oh, [mila] has a new music video coming out? This is about to be something good; I gotta watch this.” I think if our debut was an evil, sinister, satanic video, it might not have gone over well [both laugh].

Well, I will definitely be tuning in for your next music video! Do you have any fun facts or memorable moments from filming?

Wren: So funny story about the iPod the janitor has. Caleb bought it on eBay, and it only had one song – Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”. So that guy who sold us that iPod? He Rickrolled us. 

CJ: Yeah, we got Rickrolled. 

Wren: He hit us with that classic. 

CJ: And the janitor is the director of photography, Robin’s dad. He did such a great job.

Wren: Everyone in the video did such an incredible job. I couldn’t be more grateful to Caleb and Robin. And to Tom and all the other actors that were in the video. Especially the bodybuilder John Reissfelder. Shoutout to him because CJ and I are very into lifting and bodybuilding, and he just let us pick his brain. I even got a couple of pictures with him. 

CJ: We didn’t get to meet Isabelle, the woman in the video, or go on set because there were a limited amount of people allowed in the office building, but she did a really good job, too. 

Wren: Since we’re shouting out everyone in the video, I want to shout out my boy Matt Henderson and South Coast Industries. The first band I mentioned earlier, Beyond City Lights, that’s his band; that dude has taken me under his wing for years. He let us shoot in his car shop, and garage like all the band performance shots are in his business. He shut it down for the day so we could use it for our music video. 

CJ: And he was actually in the video too. He’s the one who’s playing guitar. 

Wren: And the guy on bass is our friend Drue, the drummer of Crush++. We like to keep it in the family, you know?

CJ: One hundred percent. We are lucky for all the people we know and all our connections.

CJ, this next question is for you. It’s so unique that you do drums and vocals. Tell us how you do it; it can’t be easy!

CJ: So drumming is multi-tasking in it itself. And I’m really good at multi-tasking, but it’s still so challenging because it’s a lot of breath control. I practice drumming and singing separately, so doing them together is a different beast I’m still trying to conquer. It’s hard, but I’m pushing myself to do it.

Wren: She doesn’t have a choice. She’s a huge talent and needs to show it off.

CJ: [laughing] I honestly don’t have a choice now. But all of these things I’ve had to teach myself. Drumming was self-taught, I did end up doing a year of lessons, but for the most part, I was self-taught. And I’ve been singing my whole life, but I never thought I was good enough. So as for pursuing that part of music, Wren is really someone that pushed me to do that. 

Wren: I heard her sing once, and the next time we hit the studio, I made her get in the booth! I say this all the time, and a lot of our friends do as well; she doesn’t sing on enough of our songs, quite frankly. But don’t worry – just wait ‘til the full-length comes out. 

CJ: It really is something I enjoy doing, but it’s like everything else in my life; it didn’t come naturally. I had to sit down and teach myself how to do this. I’ve always loved it, but I want to be the best I can be, so it’s just something I have to continue putting a lot of work into doing. 

Wren: I told you – you’re the GOAT! You’re the star! Everyone will be your biggest fan.

So finally, what can we expect from [mila] for the rest of 2023? Are there any plans for live shows or performances?

Wren: The only concrete thing we have right now is trying to put out the 7 or 8 songs we’re sitting on. We want to do one a month for the rest of the year. As for the full-length? Honestly, I have no idea when that’s coming out. We’ve got about 5 demos that aren’t fully realized yet, but we’ve never written an album. So this is the first time for both her and me. I’ve done EPs, but a cohesive project is a whole new beast.

CJ: We’ve been brainstorming since the summer about the full-length because we have so many ideas. We like watching characters and their stories and want to incorporate that into our record. We’re also super impatient and want our finished songs to be out of our hair. But we want people to actually hear them, so we’re trying to do it strategically to get as many people to listen to the songs as possible. Because we love them and I think other people will like them too. 

Wren: I want them out. And as easy as it would be to shadow-drop them all tomorrow, it would be a waste because of all the effort we put in. But yeah, I mean, this interview – this is fantastic; this is great. This is precisely the kind of thing that we want to do for each song. I’ve played out to nobody until people go to your shows before. So it’s definitely a tried and true method, but we want to do this differently. So just to put it simply – no live shows for a little bit, just new music coming out. So keep an eye out for us and follow us on social media ‘cause we have big plans.

WHERE TO FIND [mila]
TikTok | Twitter | Instagram | Spotify | Apple Music