Neptune's Core on 'Evolving,' Sisterhood and the Strength of Being Badasses
Editor Caitlin Andrews had the pleasure of interviewing Neptune’s Core ahead of their biggest year yet.
Cactus Club. City Winery. X-Ray Arcade.
What do these three things have in common? Other than sounding like the tagline of a very advantageous craft store, I mean. It’s simple - they’ve all had the evidently good taste of booking Chicago’s freshest up-and-coming indie rock band, Neptune’s Core, to play loudly and incredibly proudly at their venues. Neptune’s Core was originally founded in 2019 by two pairs of respective sisters (the Cywinskis’ and the Richters’), who found passion in Chicago’s reputation as one of the forefronts of youth-positive music scenes. The girls took it in turns collaborating on a variety of new sound-bending tracks of the indie-rock persuasion, including the release of their 2020 debut album, ‘Can’t Have It All,’ which drew comparisons to the likes of Frankie Cosmos and Soccer Mommy. Following the release of their latest album, ‘Evolving,’ (2021) Neptune’s Core has garnered widespread success, including being selected as a ‘Buried Treasure’ by Jim DeRogatis of the music podcast Sound Opinions, and being invited to open for Hana Vu at the Tomorrow Never Knows music festival.
While almost struggling to fit into the frame of a tightly knit Zoom call, the band sit perched in front of an expansive black and cream woven tapestry, the background littered with exotic paintings and impressive amounts of happy-looking houseplants. I begin by asking the girls to reel off their names and musical contributions - from left to right, the formation sits Jacqueline ‘Jackie’ Cywinski and Sofia ‘Sofie’ Richter, the joint lead singers and guitarists of Neptune’s Core, while Hannah Richter and Kaitlin Cywinski, who sit on the right, play bass and drums, respectively. The next question seems to arrive naturally…
Caitlin Andrews: Where did the name ‘Neptune’s Core’ come from?
Sofia Richter: “Honestly, we were fascinated by space. Late one night, Kaitlin, Jacqueline and I were talking about it, and we said, ‘This sounds badass. Let’s go for it.’ After that, it just kind of stuck.”
CA: From my perspective, you have an amalgamation of a sound somewhere between Indigo De Souza and Frankie Cosmos. Who would you consider your musical inspirations, and what motivated you to start producing indie music specifically?
Jacqueline Cywinski: “Our parents have been playing indie music for us since we were little, so we grew up listening to anything by The Beatles (who are obviously very famous) but they have such a variety of music. That was really inspiring for us, becaused we also try and make our music as diverse as possible. My mum has a more folk-centric side, so we listened to artists like The Velvet Underground as well and got a bit of everything. That helped us find the music we liked to play.”
CA: You recently released a full-length album entitled, “Evolving” in October of 2021. How did you find this release, and how did it differ from the release of your debut album ‘Can’t Have it All’ in 2020? Is the title a reference to personal growth and escape from the pandemic?
Sofia Richter: “We called it ‘Evolving,’ because, predictably, our sound has evolved. When I listen to ‘Evolving’ in comparison to ‘Can’t Have It All,’ I honestly like it more. I’m happy with the direction we’re taking. We’ve learned cooler chords, I’ve experienced more, I’ve gotten to write cooler songs about those experiences. As we grow, we gain more experiences, and our music grows with us.”
CA: If you had to pick one song from the “Evolving” album that demonstrated your musical advancement from earlier records, what song would that be?
Kaitlin Cywinski: “I think the song for all of us would be ‘Drowning.’ It’s the first song on ‘Evolving’, and it starts with a really strong bass that builds. Sofie wrote that one a little while ago, and it has so many parts to it, which we all really worked to make as distinct as possible. At the end, she had us all play as loud and as crazy as we could, and that was really me experimenting with, “How fast can I go? What cool rhythms can I fit within this song?” It’s the most fun to play live, and I get to play such cool drum fills.”
Sofia Richter: “It took quite a while to orchestrate it to achieve the sound we wanted, but we achieved it, and it’s honestly my favourite song to play too. You’re jamming out at the end with this A minor sixth chord to this E major, and it’s the coolest sound ever. By the end of it, my heart is racing, I’m panting, I’m almost crying. It’s incredible.”
CA: What does your creative process look like? Do you usually develop the lyrics, the rhythm, or the melody first?
Jacqueline Cywinski: “For me and Sofie, it switches between which comes first, the lyrics or the melody. Sofie and I usually write a song and then we bring it to the band, and together everybody throws in their own ideas. Kaitlin’s been getting into more jazz drumming, which you’ll see a little bit of added into our newer songs, so everybody puts in their style and what they’ve been working on.”
CA: What’s it like recording, writing and developing music within a familial dynamic, especially at such a young age?
Kaitlin Cywinski: “I think it’s great. It’s brought Jackie and I closer together, and I know Sofie and Hannah have said the same thing about their sibling relationship. It’s also a lot easier to coordinate our schedules, since we only have two families to organise. The band gives us all something to connect over.”
CA: Within the past three years, you’ve amassed 1500 followers on Instagram and nearly 1000 monthly listeners on Spotify. Have you ever met a fan in real life outside of a gig, and if so, what has been your most memorable encounter?
Jacqueline Cywinski: “Before Covid, we played a couple of school events where younger girls came up to us and said, “Oh, I’ve never seen a girl drummer before,” or, “You guys are so good, it inspired me to play.” Even parents have come up to us and said, “Your band has inspired my kid to want to start playing music.” Just knowing that we’ve made an impact on people who are even younger than us seems crazy. I’m so happy that we’ve been able to make that impact.”
Kaitlin Cywinski: “I recently saw the dad of one of the daughters around the neighbourhood, and he said, “My daughter’s still playing the drums because of Neptune’s Core.” It’s so cool that people find a connection over music like that.”
CA: It’s well-known that female-led bands, especially female-led bands involving adolescent girls, remain disproportionately under-represented within the music industry. Do you feel you’ve ever been marginalised as exclusively part of the ‘girl band’ niche?
Sofia Richter: “Sometimes people are surprised by the talent we have, and it’s because they view us as young girls who are incapable of being badasses. One of the best parts of it is playing our music, having a blast, getting off the stage and having people say, “You’re actually good.” We know, we are good. We don’t have to be men to be good. We can be who we are and still sound amazing.”
Kaitlin Cywinski: “It’s great to be an all-female band. I think it brings us closer together because we realise we’re going to have to be strong together. We’ve met female musicians, and we have all these great female idols to look up to from the past, like Moe Tucker of The Velvet Underground - one of the best bands of all time has this amazing female drummer. And we have all these new female artists in Chicago, like Macie Stewart or Sima from the band OHMME, to look up to.”
CA: How do you think being surrounded by a predominantly adult music business has affected your personal development? Are there any downsides to achieving success so young?
Sofia Richter: “I feel like we have a lot of inspiration, because we see all these adult figures and think, “We can do that too.” We look up to them and see how they achieve their success. On the other side, we are all under eighteen which prevents us from playing at some spaces.”
Jacqueline Cywinski: “In Chicago, we know a ton of younger fans and the music scene is so supportive - always lifting up new up-and-coming musicians. We’re really grateful to be accepted as part of that scene.”
CA: What, to you, is the most rewarding element involved in creating and producing music?
Hannah Richter: “Honestly, I think just seeing people’s reactions, like having fans DM us, or come up after gigs and say, “That sounded amazing, I could never have expected that.” Seeing peoples’ faces when we play live and having them go, “Holy shit, they’re really good.”
Sofia Richter: “Sometimes after shows, people will come up to me and be really specific - they’ll say, “Hey, this one lyric really struck me, and it made me cry,” and I’ll think, ‘Damn… Sorry I made you cry, but wow, I made you cry… That’s a lot, to invoke emotion through your music. I think that’s the most important part, seeing reactions and thinking that what we do matters, it affects people, we should keep on doing it.”
CA: If you could invite three people, living or dead, to feature on an album with you, who would you invite?
Jacqueline Cywinski: “This is an obvious one, but Paul McCartney. He’s a living legend, he’s insane, so it would be really cool to meet him, but working on an album with him would be even better. We also played a festival called Postock that Sima from the local Chicago band OHMME puts together, and they are two super cool people. We’d love to work with them on something.”
CA: What’s next on the agenda for Neptune’s Core’s bucket list? Do you have any interesting gigs arranged, and is there any new music coming up in the works for 2022?
Kaitlin Cywinski: “With Evolving, that album was a dump of all of the songs that we had written and were working on. Now that that album has been released, Sofie and Jacqueline have been bringing these really fresh songs they’ve been working on with a new style. Hannah and I are also a lot more musically advanced than we were before, so we have a lot of new songs that are coming together really well. In December we had a gig at the reopened Double Door, which was really exciting because it is one of the most legendary venues in Chicago. The Rolling Stones and Veruca Salt both played there. It’s really amazing that we were given the opportunity to showcase some of our new songs at that place.”
Sofia Richter: “In terms of music, over the pandemic lots of people have been asking, “Oh, didn’t you write so many songs because you had so much time?” but the reason I didn’t write a lot of songs over the pandemic was because I didn’t find the inspiration. Nothing was really happening. But now, with lockdown releasing, I’ve been able to create new songs with my experiences. We’ll see what happens in 2022.”
Periphery Magazine thanks Neptune’s Core for their contribution, and wishes them luck on their future releases! You can find them on social media and streaming platforms here: