Pillow Fite is a folk-pop duo from Halifax, NS. Pairing tender, heart-on-your-sleeve lyrics with catchy alt-rock instrumentals and folky ballads, their genre lines get blurred in a way that keeps the project dynamic and binge-worthy while giving listeners all of the feels. Art Ross (they/them) and Aaron Green (he/him) come from disparate backgrounds and musical forms, meeting in the middle to comprise a band that’s tender and fierce, exuberant and gentle. Green—a veteran of the Halifax rock scene, the guitar anchor of Floodland and Hello Delaware—and Ross—a trans songwriter with an acoustic guitar—started writing songs together over text, by accident. Drawing on the influence and emotional heft of songwriters such as Sharon Van Etten, Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Tegan and Sara, their debut EP, Flutter, solidifies a fusion of a diverse array of experiences, genres, and ideas.
“‘1968’ was written in the midst of the first COVID-19 lockdown. We watched an intense amount of television in that time and dreamt of the day we could leave the house and live in some kind of normalcy. This song represents the escapist fantasies I had after watching Alison Ellwood’s documentary Laurel Canyon (2020). Joni Mitchell is always a prominent influence in our writing and after learning of this seemingly dream-like era she was part of, we wanted to encapsulate the imagery of 1968 California. One of the lyrics in the song—’Joni talked about the sand, couldn’t breathe in his hands’—is an homage to the restrictive nature of Joni’s relationship with Graham Nash and the telegram she sent him to end things. This metaphor represented the desperate need to be free—similarly to how we were feeling in lockdown. Every time I sing ‘1968,’ I can feel the California breeze on my skin and can smell the joint being passed around in a circle of musicians. We added some Beach Boy style bells and mellotron and tried to get that tight CSNY vibe with the backing vocals to emulate that late 60s West Coast feel.” —Art Ross
