Snail Mail frontwoman Lindsey Jordan is no stranger to confession. She wrote all of the songs on her 2018 debut Lush before she could vote. Jordan's pointed yet complicated tales of queer heartbreak had critics designating her as a wunderkind wise beyond her years. Now eight years, two albums, and a vocal polyps surgery later, Jordan has new priorities. She moved from a small one bedroom apartment in New York City to a big house in North Carolina, got a dog, and is in a happy long-term relationship with Momma cofounder Etta Friedman.

Her third LP, Ricochet, is out this Friday, a swirling blend of warm '90s alt-rock pastiche and the touching balladry that launched Jordan into indie stardom in the first place.

I chatted with Jordan last month to discuss the record and the goings on of the four years since we'd heard from her last.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Leah @ TND: What made you want to lean into this sort of 90s alt rock sound for this record? Who were your main inspirations?

Lindsey Jordan: Probably Pinback, specifically The Bends era Radiohead, Juliana Hatfield, Ivy, American Analog Set. Shit like that, I guess. Oh, and The Verve. I'm listening to a lot of The Verve.

Maybe it was just like, I feel like maybe I'm just sort of getting to a point in my life where my taste is getting a little bit more solid. It's been the same for a really long time. I haven't really had a new favorite anything in a really long time other than maybe movies. But, I mean, music-wise, I think a lot of that ['90s] stuff is just like my favorite music.

It's felt like for years now. I've just been inspired by the same shit as before, and it's not changing the same way it does when you're a teenager, or maybe that's just a unique experience, but, you know what I mean?

Yeah, because of how young you were when you got signed and you put out Lush, how did being put in those very adult spaces when you're still a teenager kind of affect like the way that you conducted your career afterwards and your general outlook on life?

That's a good question. I feel like that is such a topic on [Ricochet], and it's shrouded in some ways, but it's there where I'm talking about myself as a teenager and getting into the music industry because it's stupid. That's a good segue into such a big element of what the record is, because I think I came out of so many years of playing that game and doing that dance really jaded.

I think being jaded is so fucking lame. So I have to be really conscious of it and try my best to counteract it as much as I can and find new ways to be optimistic and present and not lame. There's just so many like weird... evil... I don't know.

It makes sense to me that on this record now, I know exactly what I want, because I've done these things so many times. I made it with a friend who's my same age. I made all the music videos with my friend; my girlfriend made all the art. I think being around [the music industry] for a really long time and seeing a lot of the funny business, it's really hard to not just want to be a curmudgeon all the time, I guess.

I think I just witnessed a lot of lame and was on the other side of a lot of really lame shit from older people. I'm happy that I have Snail Mail and I had so many years to make it what it is now. Because now as a 26 year old, I feel like I'm doing everything exactly how I want to.

I'm really happy with how the music turned out. I finally think I'm making it all work for myself and learning what works for me. I definitely feel pretty protective of talented new people coming out. There's not really many instances where you can intervene without like getting yourself in trouble, but I definitely have a strong drive to protect inside of me because there's just so much weird bullshit for no reason, you know?

Yeah, for sure. I'm finishing up a degree in music business, so there are a lot of people that I'm around that I feel like they're already kind of developing their own little bloodthirsty fangs.

Yeah, you have like a classmate who's like, "I'm going to be the first one to make Spotify streaming completely like revenue-less for the artist."

Yeah, or it's like, "we should collect people's data with AI so that we can better sell them concert tickets." I'm like, why are you like this?

Awesome. Yeah, no, that makes sense. That makes perfect sense to me. But I hope that you bring goodness into it. If you follow it.

Yeah, in talking to older people, I'm just like, "I don't want to make TikToks for billionaires." I can't do that. You've talked in some recent interviews about rejecting the "sad girl" label. I feel like that all comes together in sparking that conviction. Is that a frustration you've had with the industry at large or have any specific events sparked that?

I mean, I could probably pinpoint the exact moment that started becoming a thing. I watched that become such a thing. It was frustrating because – not like I was originally actually one of the original sad girls of songwriting – but I definitely was not following a trend while I was doing it. I just made a record. And then all of a sudden it became part of a genre. And it was just like, we felt like all those artists had to speak for each other all the time. It was just annoying because we're not really a scene. It's just a bunch of women that are sad. I feel like there is like a weird qualifier in it, if that makes sense.

It's like making being a girl a genre, which is actually weirdly pretty backwards. It almost feels like the name of the genre is "pretty good for a girl." I don't know, man, it's so annoying. I don't even want to have to argue to be taken seriously. I feel like if I wrote the exact same record as a dude, the conversation would just be really, really, really different.

I've had a lot of interviews specifically with all-male shoegaze bands that in particular are like, "I don't want to be pigeonholed into this." And it's like, well, that is the music you make. And it was not interesting enough to really warrant the conversation of different label.

Yeah, you can be called nu-gaze instead of shoegaze. There you go. It is such a direct reference to something that already happened. It's like like being like, "we're a Riot Grrrl band." Like, no, you're not. Because that was one time. That already happened. What they're doing is, to me, I can only call it nu-gaze, even if it's dope, even if it's amazing. But it's so funny.

Yeah, I feel like people always have to make concessions where necessary. Because as much as labeling is annoying, it's just kind of the way things happen. Things just need to be labeled sometimes.

Totally. I honestly felt like a lot of the stuff that came out of sad girl time all had a similar sound. And I felt like my music didn't even really sound like it. It felt like it was like not helping me get new fans, and maybe not helping people who want to find folk songs, find more folk music. You know what I mean?

I don't feel like it really benefited anybody. I think it was cool that there was like a boom of bands with women in them for a second, or the media was choosing to emphasize bands with women in them for a second.

Yeah, definitely. There was good and bad to it.

Even when we'd go to the UK there were bands that were doing it that were big over there. I just felt like the music I was making was different enough that it was like, if somebody wanted to find Snail Mail, but they weren't particularly into what they were perceiving to be the "sad girl" genre, then they wouldn't ever find it.

And I feel like I was noticing that the more that we open for people. On the Dino Jr tour, there were so many people in the crowd that I definitely think were being like, "oh, this is actually sick." You know what I mean? Like, compare us to Soccer Mommy all day long. There was a bit there where we really did sound similar, our debut records were both inspired by really similar niche things and we're really close friends. I think it's like dope that we sound like Soccer Mommy, but with that at least I'm like, "yes, for sure."

You guys were also both kind of the teenage protégés because you both released those debuts like around the same age, if I remember correctly, you were both like 17, 18.

Yeah, it was funny too, we played a house show with them really early on in Nashville on a little tour that we were doing. The first time I ever saw them play, I was astonished. The guitar stuff that Sophie [Allison] was doing was in a way where I was like," whoa. We're both playing in open D with a capo, but I can't even figure out how you're doing that."

I was just mystified. And our vibe together when we first met was just like, damn, we just immediately connected as buddies. That to me feels more like I am not offended to be compared to anything ever. I just feel like even calling it "sad girl music" felt like it was belittling the quality of the lyricism by being like, "it's something you would write in your diary." But I don't disagree that qualifying things is important. It just sucks in the playlist era to feel misqualified, you know?

Yeah, definitely, I still need to read that book Mood Machine.

[Lindsey gets up]

You have it?

Not only do I have it, I have it out.

That's so funny.

That's like what I'm reading right now.

I need to read it. I'm still getting through a bunch of other books that I need to finish. But that that one is very much on my list.

I'm not shitting on anybody's music or anything. I'm just saying it's just it was such a thing. I would say me pivoting somewhat lyrically didn't have as much to do with not wanting to be one of the sad girls as much as it did being like, I have to expand or I'm going to be pigeonholed for the rest of my life/I feel like expanding because I'm bored.

How did it feel different producing this record with Aron [Kobayashi Ritch], having the pre-existing friendship with him as opposed to the people that you worked on the past records with?

It was amazing. Early on in meeting him I discovered how much I like his production work. Becoming like best friends with him over time, I had been talking to him about wanting to make a record together for a really long time. So before we even like sat down to demo anything out, we had been talking about it for so long. We had a shared playlist that we were both adding to where we were kind of like setting at least the textural tone and the production's tone and what we wanted the guitars to sound like before we even got started. So that was amazing.

We just had a vibe together already, so there's respect and I think it just felt, more than anything, like we were doing a group project. There wasn't somebody in charge. It was fully just some friends in the studio getting it done. It was really, really fun and low pressure. [Aron] is super talented and special as a producer.

The way that Momma operates is more organic than most things I've seen in a long time. It felt much less "music industry" than anything else I've ever done. I feel like that contributed to how much I feel like it sounds exactly how I wanted it to and how much I think it sounds like me, you know?

It's a gorgeous record. Like, I'm very excited for it to come out.

Thank you.

What did you what did you learn about yourself while making this record?

So with all the other stuff that I've written, my method is usually just hyper-focusing on working on one song. Sometimes I could take months and months and months. I would say 60% of the time I get to a point with it where I'm like, "this [song] actually isn't good enough to be on the record." And I never want to hear it again so I discard it. I never even want to be reminded of it because it's so devastating and it feels like I wasted so much time. I was conscious of the fact that that just makes songwriting really agonizing for me.

So I was like, "how else can I do it?" And so this time, pretty much the whole time I was touring Valentine, I was trying to write in hotel rooms and on the bus. There was a bus guitar, so I was trying constantly. But what ended up happening was that I didn't feel super emotionally inspired to go anywhere new until all that was done.

But I did write all of the instrumentals and the vocal melodies before I wrote out like a single lyric, which was crazy. So over multiple years, I was writing out these vocal melodies and guitar parts and everything other than lyrics to the point where most of it was fill in the blank. Like, "I need four syllables here."

And that actually made the lyric stuff a lot more like fun, I guess. But also by doing that, by working on all of them at once, if one thing didn't work as a guitar lead, it maybe ended up in another song as a vocal melody for a bridge or something. Being able to just shift around and not hyper-focus on any of them too much to the point where I started disliking them really saved the day. It made the whole thing a lot more enjoyable and nothing got discarded. Every single song got used. So I will definitely try to do stuff more like that in the future – just having a lot at once instead of one thing to hyper focus on because I think it's just emotionally unproductive.

That just made a world of difference for me, especially for getting inspired with lyrics. Some of the songs reference each other with imagery and it felt a lot more like world building than ever. It feels a bit more like a lyrical accomplishment to me than other records have. That was one of the main things I learned about myself.

And then, one of them is that it doesn't have to be hard in the studio. It can be really, really fun and chill. And we worked at a studio that's really close to my house. It was really low key. It was small and intimate. I did pretty much everything in a low key way.

I still think everything came out more grand and elegant than ever. One of the most important things I learned was that I kind of think there's a way that people tend to elevate. I think as you move through your career, it's like you're just kind of ever so slightly encouraged to keep working with like bigger names and huge studios where you rent out a big glass greenhouse looking penthouse. Who the fuck knows? And I just think all that is such a crazy scam.You can just make it with your friend and it will still be the best record.

There's not really exactly a right way to do things, I guess. I think it's really dope if everyone who's working on [your record] knows you really well already.

What were some instances where there were elements that were repurposed for other songs?

Oh, I'm trying to think of a specific one. The bridge of "Light On Our Feet", was a melody for a chorus for "Tractor Beam". The bridge in "Agony Freak" was a bridge in "Dead End", maybe. And then the bridge in "Dead End" was also like its own song for a second that I just was like, "OK, this is just a bridge."

So much got flip flopped around. I was trying to write music for a commercial that didn't even end up getting like chosen, so a lot of that got repurposed. I wish I had more on hand to give as examples, but I feel like the whole thing was a game of being like, "if I move this up two steps, it can be in this song." Even to the point where we're trying to arrange it live now, there's a decent amount of the songs where two of the guitars are in different tunings because I was just like, "well, I could put it on this song," you know, stuff like that.

Did you ever feel like you really had to dig to find things to write about since you were doing all of the music separate from the lyrics?

Yes. That was like maybe the only true downside, especially doing it all at the same time. I've never thought of an album and been like, "this is going to be the one about this and this is going to be the one about this." But I was also trying to make them all connected in ways where I was trying to make it less like these are each songs about specific events and more trying to be like these all belong in the same project and universe.

The lyrics were really its own journey, especially because I was dealing with this OCD afterlife fear for years and I really wanted to write about it. But with writing about stuff, I feel like there's not really anything unique about my perspective on it. I'm not a wise sage that knows more about religion than anybody else. I feel like I was doing a lot of referencing of other people's writing – non-music like poems... mostly poems and certain books. It was a lot of reframing what I think is like moving that isn't about getting broken up with or heartbreak or yearning.

What books were you reading while you were writing these songs?

A big one for me was Scott Heim's Mysterious Skin. I also read The Shards by Brett Easton Ellis like four times. But I was specifically sitting with four poetry books when I was really putting stuff together with lyrics: A Sand Book by Ariana Reines, Actual Air by David Berman, Lunch Poems by Frank O'Hara, and A Change of World by Adrienne Rich. But poetry is not always my go to. Honestly, I find a lot of it really, really hard to understand and connect with.

But I already had all of those books and I'd already had moments with all of them where I was like, "this is really like moving to me." And so I was literally with pen and paper going through them and being like, "what's moving about this part?"Not directly taking anything but being like, "why do I find it so beautiful that they're referencing the lighting of a carnival?"

Did a lot of these poems and books – is that what got your head into the divinity/morality themes that are on the record?

No, honestly during Valentine times, I saw that Charlie Kaufman movie Synecdoche, New York. Have you ever seen it?

I have not, no.

It's pretty gnarly. I did a rewatch just to prepare for talking about the record for the first time, and I really enjoyed it this time. But for whatever reason, it just triggered an insane OCD reaction in me and and the whole movie is just so much of that. You've got this all-seeing narrator that's saying all your friends are gonna die before you. Charlie Kaufman is like, "here, take my dread you can have it." And it really, really, really affected me. I had some thoughts that were just looping constantly, whenever for years when I would just be having a really good time with my friend or something. All I could think about was how I could maybe have to live life without them.

When I got a dog, first thing I could think of was like, "Oh my god, I'm gonna have to like be with her to get euthanized one day," shit like that. It basically was just taking me out of my life in a really crazy way. And my therapist was completely useless at the time about it. She was like, well, "everybody is [like this]" and I could not figure out how to get out of it. It turned into this loop of being like, "Oh my god, I'm wasting my life being scared of dying, and then I'm gonna die." Now I've come to terms with it a little better. It doesn't ruin my life anymore, but it's still weirdly in the front of my brain. So I knew I wanted to speak on it.

I just didn't really know what position I was taking. My biggest goal was to not sound like I know everything. And then my second biggest goal was I didn't want to seem like I knew nothing at all. I didn't want to seem like a nihilist. It was a weird thing to try to prime myself to do but I kind of felt like I needed to turn [my OCD] into something productive and expressive and positive and and I think that's part of why there's some positivity in some of the message. There's something really liberating about realizing that everything is out of your hands and that we're so small.

Was there anything you had to relearn while recording the vocals for this record after your surgery?

When I got the surgery and did physical therapy shit for like months and months and months it was like I got an entire falsetto range that I just never had before. The vocal coach said that you could hear polyps on Habit. So I literally never as a singer had that high range. And then once I got it, I was addicted to [using] it.

I can't stop singing like that. So the record definitely has like a lot of that high singing in it. But I had to relearn how to talk and sing in order to get my voice back. And that was really terrifying, but I'm really happy that it happened. I really like my new voice a lot better. But it just didn't really even feel possible for a long time.

The first time we came back and played a show, we had already been gone forever from COVID, and I had a brand new voice. It took like, physically like breaking in [my voice] in kind of a gory way. That was really gross. I had to learn how to sing and talk in a completely different way. So I definitely am showing it off a lot on the record.

It's like just having like a new like pair of shoes, basically.

I mean, and I also have like a pretty low range. So I feel like a lot of having to go really high was out of necessity for the song. On "Tractor Beam", I knew that vocal melody was going to be super low before I knew that the verse was gonna have to be super high. I feel like the low range is my specialty, and to stay in the same key, I can now go really high, which is really cool. It's just nice to have. It's nice to have the option.

There was there was one interview of yours that I read doing prep for this, and you said, "I've had long hard talks with people about how I present myself on social media." Can you like elaborate on that at all?

What was I talking about?

I think you followed up talking about going on Instagram live and stuff.

I hate having like a time capsule of my online vibe. So I feel really hesitant to do stuff on Instagram and TikTok and stuff. But there's like a certain amount of algorithm shit that has to happen now. So there's just like been a lot of posting. But yeah, there was a bit there where I was having people help me run it. I hate having [social media] on my phone. I hate it so much.

But I don't know what else to do. And I don't want to do anything to have even less people see the tour dates or whatever. The algorithm will decide if people see the ticket link. But yeah, I fucking hate having to even try to be like a content creator just to exist in the in 2026.

I feel like you're a good shit-poster. I feel like you do it the correct amount.

Thank you. I have to be like, really in the mood because otherwise, I get so nervous. I feel like I really do quite a bit of shit-posting and then deleting.

I had this one screenshot from like a month ago. This was funny as fuck.

That healed me when I saw that.

She's my favorite, just like, conceptually. And I like that she's just gone now. I feel like she got kind of like excommunicated a little bit for being like a bad person.

Yeah, Ellen stuff. She definitely willingly chose to like, flee the country. She's not in America. She's on an island somewhere or something. She's, like, fully gone.

I mean, I guess if I were her in that situation, that's probably the way to go.

Yeah, for sure.

Just go off grid. She has plenty of money.

That seemingly works for like, kind of a lot of canceled people. And then they just go off the grid. And then they get just embraced by a different country.

I was gonna say they should have an island for canceled people, but bad timing. Anyways, my last question: What does the line "summoning something from out of the goo" mean? What is the goo?

I think it's like referring to becoming a grotesque version of yourself. I'm using this mutant creature to be like, "here's this disgusting part of myself." The goo, I guess, is like the ether to me. But yeah, have you ever seen Poltergeist?

I mean, I know what it is.

I don't know if I've seen the whole thing. There's some like pretty insane ghost goo in that movie when they enter like a ghost realm. They get in this pink slime. And I guess that was kind of what I was picturing. But yeah, the goo to me, I guess is the ether. I think that's the first time I've had to explain any of the lyrics from that song. I'm happy that anything even came to me. Like it means a lot to me, but sometimes when I have to put stuff into words, it really feels like nonsense. You know?

Ricochet is out March 27th via Matador Records.

Snail Mail's tour kicks off April 10th in Milwaukee and wraps up with a Kilby Block Party afterparty show on May 16th. See the full list of dates and grab tickets below.

04/10 Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall *
04/11 Chicago, IL @ The Riviera Theatre *^
04/12 Detroit, MI @ Majestic Theatre *^
04/13 Toronto, ON @ The Concert Hall *^
04/15 Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount *~
04/16 Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore *+
04/17 Boston, MA @ Big Night Live *+
04/18 Baltimore, MD @ Union Collective Parking Lot *+
04/20 Saxapahaw, NC @ Haw River Ballroom *
04/21 Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel *
04/22 Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse *
04/24 Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall (Downstairs) *
04/25 Dallas, TX @ Granada Theater *
04/26 Austin, TX @ Stubb’s *
04/28 Oklahoma City, OK @ The Tower Theatre *
04/30 Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren *&
05/01 Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern *%
05/02 San Diego, CA @ Observatory North Park *&
05/04 San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield *%
05/05 Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades *&
05/07 Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom *&
05/08 Seattle, WA @ Moore Theatre *&
05/09 Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre *&
05/11 Boise, ID @ Treefort Music Hall *&
05/13 Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre *&
05/15 Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Block Party
06/26 London, UK @ Electric Ballroom

with:
* Sharp Pins
^ Avalon Emerson and The Charm
~ @
+ Swirlies
& Armlock
% Rocket

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