ย After a whirlwind year releasing their debut album and touring alongside The Driver Era, this bandโs shared creative vision continues to take shape.
The past year for Huntington Beach-based alt-rock band Your Favorite Color has been undeniably formative, a series of successes built off the work of the last seven. The release of their debut album, For You, in September 2024 pulls from songs written both weeks and years apart, made cohesive by years of experimentation. The band subsequently opened for The Driver Era in 26 shows across Europe, with the adrenaline of performing to sold-out crowds and exploring unfamiliar city streets driving the themes behind recent single “Forever.” These experiences have been a means for the band to further consider and cement their creative vision, and it’s a process that’s both ongoing and unstoppable.
The group doubles down on this notion in releasing their newest single, โLess in Love.โ The song presents sprawling, cinematic instrumentals at an upbeat tempo, while the band reminisces lightheartedly on past personal relationships that grew disconnected and lost tractionโ a contrast to their own evergreen musical aspirations. It conveys Your Favorite Colorโs steadfast resolve to continue chasing that sense of unlimited potential in spite of pressure and expectations, even those dispensed by people once considered close.
Just as the band’s name implies, Your Favorite Color aspires to make music with a wide appeal but made uniquely relatable on an individual level, seen in different shades by any one listener. Lead vocalist Matt Warren and keyboardist Nicky Neighbors spoke to The Knockturnal about touring abroad and pursuing that goal through music rooted in their own experiences.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Knockturnal: 2025 has seen Your Favorite Color continue releasing music in the wake of your debut album, โFor You,โ which came out in the fall. What has been the most exciting change youโve seen or felt in your performance or artistry since that milestone?
Nicky: We were playing together for years before, we were pretty patient about putting out an album. We wanted it to feel right. And I think last year was just a year where it came together, and we had songs collected that were our favorites from the years prior. There’s even a couple songs on there that are like five years old, but we kind of redid them in a new way. It felt like a big moment to have everything in one package. I think it’s definitely given us confidence now โ it’s like the first one is done and sealed, and we’re proud of it, and it’s kind of like a stamp on a moment of time.ย
The Knockturnal: Was it having that archive of your past music that incentivized you to go forward on that first album, or was there a specific moment where it began feeling like it was time for that to come out?
Nicky: I think we were working with a new label, and a lot of things came together at once. It felt like we were ready, and we felt like our music was ready to do that. We were definitely on the patient side with putting out an album, recording music, but I think it’s that balance ofโฆ You can’t keep something on your computer forever. I think there’s just a lot of different elements, and probably the mood of all the boys โ we felt like it was a good time.
Matt: It had also been important to us for our first album to have sonic cohesion. For a long time, we were recording music at my house and my home studio, or kind of working off with one-off producers, mixers, and engineers. And when we signed with Prajin Parlay and Double P Records, it was the first time we had the opportunity to just do an album with one producer and one mixer. So it seemed like the perfect opportunity to grab from all of those songs we’d written years ago, songs we’d written a few weeks ago, and kind of blend it into kind of our first statement as a band. So we just tried to take advantage of that opportunity and put out all those old songs we’ve been working on for so long, instead of keeping them on the computer.
The Knockturnal: One of these big shifts includes having returned from touring internationally alongside The Driver Era. What are your biggest takeaways from that experience, whether touring with Ross and Rocky specifically or performing your work live in such a consistent and large capacity?
Matt: Those guys are great. It was a absolute pleasure being able to go on the road with them. They have such a beautiful and amazing fan base, and it was really cool to be a part of that melting pot of fans in Europe and in the UK. We went into that tour having never toured before in our lives, and a lot of us also had never been to Europe before, so there was a lot of unknowns and question marks going into that tour with how successful it was going to be for us. Of course, we believe in the music and we believe in ourselves, but there’s just a lot that goes into touring. There’s such a massive technical side to itโฆ Luckily, we were able to prepare really well. Our producer was also our sound engineer for the tour, and he was able to really play a big role in making sure we didn’t have any technical issues.ย
But one of the biggest takeaways, and a positive takeaway for us, was that our music works really well live. We put a lot of thought and effort into our songs in the sense of what tempo are they being played at, how fast are the changes, and what might be an amazing experience for someone in the audience. Playing all those songs off our first album for the first time in front of thousands of people in Europe was such an amazing experience, to feel that our music translated better than we could have imagined. There’s the excitement and the tempo of the songs that allowed people to jump and dance, and lots of moments to get them even singing along to the songs. And by like halfway through the tour, those fans that were starting to sing some of the songs and know the lyrics, and that was so amazing. It just gave us so much confidence in ourselves. I mean, we’ve always believed in ourselves, but to be able to play for such a positive audience and have them reciprocate that energy back to us ten times let us know that we’re doing something right, and to keep going and to keep exploring this type of music and style of writing when we get back home.
The Knockturnal: Youโve shared that one of your recent releases, โForever,โ was written during a soundcheck while on tour with The Driver Era. Could you tell us the story behind creating that song?
Matt: It was funny how that song came about. Whenever you sit down to write a song, you never really know what’s gonna happen. You know, itโs just entering a state of flow and kind of letting the universe speak through you musically. It was the last show of the tour in Norway, and I think everyone in the band was just being flooded with emotion. We all just couldn’t believe the journey we had been on, and we didn’t want it to end. And I think that there was just this universal feeling amongst everyone on their crew and in the band, and we were just playing. We were doing our sound check at that last show, and David, Nicky, [Matthew], and Cameron just started playing this super electric instrumentation and jam. It just lit a fuse in me, and I immediately got my phone, got my voice memo out. It just felt like this magic that I was so confident and excited about, and that’s kind of when โForeverโ was born. I think it really encapsulated that positive feeling and energy that we were experiencing through the whole tour.ย
The Knockturnal: The feeling that the song conveys of wanting a moment to last forever is pretty universally relatable. Whatโs your favorite aspect of where youโre at as a band right now, at this point in your career, that makes you especially excited or proud, that you hope to preserve?
Matt: ย I think the most exciting thing for us right now is that the sky’s the limit. Weโre definitely still in the phase of nurturing our true fan base and finding those people out there who connect with us. Weโre also exploring so many different miniature avenues of sounds and expressions that it’s not quite yet defined. I think that itโs super exciting for us to look into the future and imagine those types of supporting fans, and those future songs that we’re gonna write. There’s so much life to be experienced, and there’s so many songs to be found and connections to be found with people. So I think we just have so much to look forward to in that sense, for sure.
Nicky: Yeah, I’d say something similar. I almost think of Your Favorite Color as its own entity, beyond us, and we get together and feed it. But other people feed it too, in their own way. I think it’s really cool to be in the same room with all the guys. Randomly, somebody can play one thing, and that lines up with another thing that someone else is playing. And then eventually, that rolls into a song, that rolls into a show. But people are maybe taking that song and having their own interpretation. So it becomes this channeling thing that doesn’t end. I think that’s the best feeling of it. It’s almost like watching a child grow or something.
The Knockturnal: What can listeners expect from your newest release?
Matt: โLess In Love,โ in a sarcastic tone, talks about resisting to change into someone that another person wants you to be. The feeling for the song came from a night when the band was running around London on our first UK tour, and how freeing that feeling was. The opinions and voices of anybody in our past suddenly felt so smallโฆlike it never mattered, and we were unapologetically ourselves.
The Knockturnal: The story within “Less in Love” is told in part through an excerpt of a voicemail. Who did you enlist to record this portion, and what’s the story behind writing and including it?
Matt: The voicemail in the song was put there to be the voice of those significant or others that we once held dear. The voicemail in the song was recorded by Mattโs girlfriend Sophia. She is always up for contributing to YFC, especially when it’s on one of her favorite songs. She nailed the part, haha.ย
Image Credits: MUSES PR
