Changing is an L.A. love letter to riot grrrl and classic ‘70s-’80s glam rock. Greg and I started working on these songs in our practice space in Echo Park while we were between projects in 2016. TÜLIPS was about to play our final show at The Regent and I hadn’t gone solo yet, and LA Font was taking a break before Greg ever started Cheekface. Since Greg had produced most of the TÜLIPS catalog we had worked diligently in that practice space together for years, so we decided to see what would happen if we tried our hand at a co-write. We started meeting up and sketching out some song ideas. It felt like a period of great transition, so we decided to call the project Changing.

It was a jaded time – L.A. was changing so much and it didn't feel like the city I grew up in anymore. Pehrspace had shut down, and we didn’t have a spot to play regular shows. Most of these songs are about emotional exile and reclaiming a sense of power, contending with impossible truths. So many school shootings and police brutality was happening that year too, and a lot of harm in our DIY community. I was thinking a lot about what happens in communities when there is harm but no proper support or accountability. How capitalistic and patriarchal structures trickle down even into DIY microcosms. I remember I was reading "Citizen" by Claudia Rankine the afternoon before we went in to write "Not a Citizen." I was thinking a lot about otherness and belonging and citizenship and exile and wanting to learn how to affect change, not having yet learned about transformative justice. "Damage Prone" is inspired by stories of my own, and stories from my friends: very strong women. We've all dated "that guy" who seemed pretty neutral at first and drawn to a strong woman who he's ended up trying to compete with or control, and then at the end, can't. That attitude of possession, entitlement, toxic masculinity, harms everyone involved – and I think the term "damage prone" encapsulated a clapback, and the whole song ended up being built around that lyric.

We made demos of "Damage Prone" and "Not A Citizen" at our practice space and sadly, Greg’s laptop got stolen and they were lost. So we decided to start them from scratch during quarantine and see what would happen. We recorded everything separately in our own homes and sent the files back and forth through the airwaves.

–Taleen