Softcult on the journey from pop-punk to shoegaze rage and 'When a Flower Doesn't Grow'

Not many bands have quite the trajectory of going from cheerful pop-punk songs about comic books to cathartic grunge and shoegaze that rails against the patriarchy, gender disparity, and personal upheaval, but that is the story of Canadian twin siblings Softcult. The Ontario-based Mercedes and Phoenix Arn-Horn penned a record deal at a young age as the poppier Courage My Love, but a decade later, they yearned for a fresh, DIY start and a more mature sound in Softcult. Early singles such as Uzumaki built strong hype and garnered radio coverage from the likes of 6 Music, with North America and Europe touring following. Mercedes Arn-Horn speaks with Headliner about the road to their new debut album, When a Flower Doesn't Grow, reinventing their sound, and the decision to go from the radio-friendly lyrics of the first band to raging against the machine.

Perhaps the twins’ parents felt careers in entertainment were inevitable when naming their children Mercedes and Phoenix, who found early success and a record deal in the trio Courage My Love. Active as early as 2010, the group released a number of EPs and two studio albums throughout the 2010s. However, they encountered creative roadblocks on the record deal they signed at a young age, and were desperate to be freed from that contract and start fresh.

During the Summer of 2020, Softcult was born. Their break from the lyrics of their previous manifestation, and strong social commentary was established early in songs such as B.W.B.B., which was written as a response to the murder of Sarah Everard at the hands of a policeman in the UK. The 2022 EP Year of the Snake also spawned huge singles, Spit it Out and Uzumaki, two firm favourites which are exemplary of Softcult’s gritty sound, while retaining the big, heavy riffs of their past.

“We've been doing it, honestly, ever since I can remember,” Mercedes Arn-Horn says, who is in Seattle for the North American leg of their current tour. “Even when we were just little kids, Phoenix and I were always writing songs together. We started our first band when we were 14 years old, and started touring when we were 16. It's what our lives have revolved around for more than half of our lives at this point.”

Regarding the decade or so in Courage My Love, she says, “We were into pop-punk and more of an adolescent sound, which is natural considering that we were adolescents at the time,” she laughs. “We got signed pretty young; we were only 16, so Phoenix and I couldn’t even sign the contract. They had to get our parents to sign it. Honestly, those years were really interesting – they were fun because we were learning the ropes and touring a lot.

“We were grinding with Courage My Love for 10 years. We ended up in a situation where we were starting to butt heads with our label and not getting along on a creative level. They wanted something very different, and we ended up writing so many songs that never came out. Somewhere along the way, we felt like we lost our creative voice and identity. We ended up asking the label to drop us and let us go so that we could start something new and find greener pastures. When the pandemic hit, I think we had so much pent-up creativity that had no place to go, and that’s where Softcult started.”

Headliner enquires if it was a conscious decision for Softcult to go from the more radio-friendly lyrics of CML to their contemporary writings, some of which are like a gut punch. The second verse of Spit It Out, for example, reads: “Such a pretty girl / But pretty things should be seen and not heard / Ornament on a shelf / You make me wanna erase myself.” Unsurprisingly, Arn-Horn affirms that this was the case.

“We got a lot of pushback on that! Anytime we wanted to write anything that wasn’t accessible to the majority of people, it was always a hard no. In a lot of ways, we felt silenced. We wanted to use our platform more responsibly — when we started Softcult, it was Trump’s first administration. Then George Floyd was murdered, Sarah Everard was murdered, and the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements were at the forefront of everyone’s mind. I think we were writing the songs at a very turbulent time, where it felt almost impossible to write about anything else.”

Six years into this new chapter for the Arn-Horn twins, and after four EPs, we have the much-anticipated Softcult debut album, When A Flower Doesn’t Grow. It’s a record that powerfully delivers on all the hype and promise the group have been steadily building over the years. While the title alludes to the fact that if a flower won’t bloom, it’s the fault of the environment, not the flower itself, it also serves as a fantastic metaphor for their goth-adjacent transformation.

The album’s first single was 16/25, a track with a driving shoegaze riff, the bed for the trademark Arn-Horn hypnotic vocal harmonies. This verse then opens up into one of the band’s biggest choruses yet, as the siblings sing “She’s sixteen, you’re twenty-five.”

On that powerful album title, which also serves as the album’s closing title track, Arn-Horn says, “I was looking for some guidance and self-help that might comfort me. I was going through a huge change in my life where I was embracing my sexuality and identity as a queer person. That was an exciting and joyous thing, but also a scary thing — it meant that I had to end my relationship that I was in for nine years with my partner, and basically go into this unknown. That quote helped me through it. Then I wrote a song called When a Flower Doesn’t Grow at four in the morning, and I sent the voice note over to Phoenix. Phoenix wrote me back the next day and was like, ‘Oh, we have to make that the album title, and this should be the final track on the album.’

“Phoenix had this whole idea that we were going to make this a concept album. All the songs would be about how individuals get to this point where they feel empowered, not oppressed. We realised that the quote was bigger than our own personal experience, and we have to be the ones who change the environments around us so that everyone has the opportunity to thrive, grow and live authentically. It became a call to action.”

The latest single from the album is its penultimate track, Not Sorry, accompanied by its Handmaid’s Tale-esque music video, directed by Arn-Horn herself. Besides directing the music videos, another way the duo have ensured their creative freedom and DIY ethos that wasn’t previously possible is with Phoenix engineering and producing the music, as well as all of Sotcult’s cover art. Not Sorry is another great example of the siblings setting their soft, angelic vocals and harmonies against biting, distorted guitars and drums. While it sometimes feels like the world is completely ablaze every time the news flashes up, Arn-Horn is feeling optimistic about how the music industry is becoming a safer and more inclusive space.

“I feel the conversation around gender equality, especially in the music industry, has just opened way up compared to when we were teenagers and just starting,” she shares. “We did experience our fair share of misogyny in those early years, and I think it was normalised for us at that point. When you’re young and don’t have a ton of experience in the world, it feels like that’s just how it is. Then, as we got older and started to put the pieces together, we got really angry and asked, why is it this way? Why are we accepting it as the status quo? But I’m happy to say that now, even in the last 15 years, music and alternative music has diversified a lot. You see a lot more women on stage, a lot more queer artists, and different races and cultures. It’s still a work in progress, but I am so happy to see it going in this direction. A lot of the guys in bands, too; we have two guys in our band, and they’re great. I think there is this broader awareness now and solidarity that was not always there.”

Following their March tour of the US and Canada, Softcult will head to Japan in June, as East Asian fans are able to experience the new album live. When A Flower Doesn’t Grow is out now, and Arn-Horn is very glad to be out performing it in person instead of obsessing over the social media side. “We went straight out on tour when it was released, so I’m losing the plot a bit,” Arn-Horn laughs. “It’s really fun to have the chance to tell a story with a full-length album, and find out which songs are connecting with people — it’s almost never the ones that you anticipate.”