Formed by lead vocalist Pooja Prabakaran, guitarist/producer Noah Weinstein, and drummer Wallace, the trio began as a college basement collaboration that quickly evolved into the dynamic indie pop-rock band, Koyal.
The Atlanta-born and now LA-based group first came together while juggling college studies with their shared passion for music. Koyal released their debut album, Mountain City, back in 2021, laying the groundwork for their evolving sound. Now, we sat down with them ahead of the release of their latest album, breathe in. breathe out, which dropped on Friday, February 28th, 2025.
With their album release show on the horizon at The Virgil in Los Angeles on April 25th, Koyal discusses their journey from college jam sessions to tours, the inspiration behind their latest record, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. Their days of playing music in between lectures and engineering exams set the foundation for what has now become one of indie pop-rock’s most promising acts in 2025.
From Wallace’s childhood love of Sting and Noah’s appreciation for Louis Armstrong to Pooja’s deep-rooted connection to Indian film music, their influences run deep—shaping the unique sound they bring to this record.
As the band gears up for an exciting year full of performances and new experiences, read on as Koyal reflects on their evolution, the challenges of touring, and the creative risks that make this album their boldest project yet.
Read our full interview with Koyal!
THE KNOCKTURNAL: Let’s take it back to the beginning—how did the three of you first meet, what were you studying, and what were your first impressions of each other?
POOJA: I was studying computer engineering.
WALLACE: I was studying industrial engineering.
NOAH: I was doing computer science and music technology minor.
POOJA: We’re all pursuing engineering degrees at the time, but I would be sitting in my basement doing my homework and writing poetry, and one of my friends asked me to try singing one of the songs and he kind of joked that we should start a band. The next day I found a guitarist, and I ran into Wallace, and Wallace became friends with Noah, and we all meshed together.
WALLACE: I had a roommate who knew Pooja, and then I met Noah. It was a year or two later. We went on this cabin trip, and he was originally the organizer with some other guys. I was thrown in last minute and ended up hanging with Noah much more than the other guys. We were just talking way more.
NOAH: Yeah, we clicked very quickly. We had both done solo excursions. I had just biked by myself for a few hundred miles, and Wallace had just hiked this mountain by himself and camped up there alone. Between that and our shared love of music, we had a lot to talk about. So we clicked very quickly and over the course of just a few days and it was like, “okay, I want to hang with Wallace more.” That’s how I got introduced to Puja and it all went from there.
Koyal Band (Left-Right): Noah Weinstein, Pooja Prabakaran, Henry Wallace. Photo credit: Gabriel Trujillo
Photo credit: Gabriel Trujillo
THE KNOCKTURNAL: This may be more of an individual question rather than a band question — what inspired each of you to become not only musicians but music fans in general? Whether that be your first concert experience or first album you remember feeling inspired by?
WALLACE: I remember listening to a Sting record, I have it on vinyl now, but it’s Dream of the Blue Turtles when I was a kid. It still has a nostalgic element to me. My parents played it all the time. It was his first solo record, so I would say that album had a huge impact on me.
NOAH: My first musical obsession was with “What A Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong. I would beg my parents to play it every time we got in the car when I was in preschool and kindergarten or something.
POOJA: Growing up, I spent three years in India and during that time I was just immersed in Indian music, both classical music and more Indian contemporary film music. A lot of music that I was listening to then was by A.R. Rahman and other Indian composers. Just a couple weeks ago, we were at NAMM and we met A. R. Rahman. I got to ask him this way, throwback question [about] this movie he did years ago scoring. He gave me a very thoughtful response. So that’s my earliest memories are Indian film music, but I was also obsessed with Fleetwood Mac. Their lyricism and the instrumentation are pure perfection.
THE KNOCKTURNAL: You started making music together in a college basement. At what moment did you realize that Koyal was something special and worth pursuing beyond just a college project?
POOJA: When we started the band, we didn’t have professional aspirations. We went on our first tour a year and a half ago and that was a phenomenal time. It was 12 dates starting in Birmingham all the way up to Boston. We realized how fun it was to share our music in front of new crowds every night, and you were pulled to your extremes on tour, but we still had so much fun and got off of tour saying, “I want to do that again. I just need to sleep for a week and then I can do it again.” That was a step when we said, “Yeah, we want to do this full-time.” Last year we played our first festival too, and that was so exhilarating. Those stages of progression cemented in our minds that we wanted to do it full-time.
THE KNOCKTURNAL: What did you learn the most from touring? It sounds intense, playing shows every night.
WALLACE: I mean it wasn’t easy. That’s part of the reward, and then you are like, “I’m in New York playing a show for people and they love the show.” It’s really cool.
NOAH: One thing we learned is we should have all been in one car. Logistically it was hard to be in two. We had two guitarists, we had our sound engineer and photographer, so we had a lot of people on tour, and we took two cars, which we just had to make sense…
WALLACE: And just the need of communication. That was a big thing. It was a self-organized tour. We had found all the dates and everything, and a lot of times we’d have to be like, okay, the load-in time at this place was 1:00 PM, over here, it’s 4:00 PM, it’s totally different. And all these numbers kind of blend together and it’s even simple things like that made it difficult.
NOAH: Another thing that we focused on is how we tried to eat healthy. We were cooking most of our meals. We were mostly staying with friends and family, and we were cooking fresh meals. We weren’t having fast food every night, which helps with the stamina. It is so easy to go and buy a meal out, but then you feel it two days later, and if you’re two weeks into a tour, you just don’t have the energy if you’re eating processed food all the time.
THE KNOCKTURNAL: Your new album, breathe in. breathe out, is described as a meditation on breaking free from obstacles and expectations. What was the most personal or challenging song to write on this record, and why?
POOJA: Definitely “Half Alive.” The song started about six months into my first job and Wallace and Noah were in their final years of college. I was working a job that I was thankful for, but I just didn’t have energy to create anything. I’d go to sleep, wake up, work my nine to five, and then cook food and go to sleep. It was just like living on clockwork. About six months into this, I woke up one morning with “Half Alive” screaming in my head, where I realized that I wasn’t happy with how I was living and that I just didn’t feel whole. I recorded it into my phone in the dark and it’s pretty much, it’s the song. There wasn’t too much else that changed in between that voice note and the recording. Then, Noah added some amazing production.
NOAH: We wanted the song to be like a slow burn, and that’s hard today. A lot of songs right now are the catchiest chorus you’ve ever heard, followed by the shortest verse you’ve ever heard, followed by the chorus. People don’t have the attention spans, and it’s kind of challenging to think about creating art that needs your attention for that whole four minutes because the payoff of the song is so worth it. Once you have this soft opening with this guitar and this build into finally the drums come in while Puja is saying, “set me free.” A lot of it was just crafting these sonics and making sure that we felt the song stayed interesting.
THE KNOCKTURNAL: Your latest single, “Hiatus,” — could share a little bit more about why you chose this song as a single to kind of represent the album?
WALLACE: I wrote it when it was like a spring break or something. I was alone in the house, and I was on this old piano that my roommate had, I was playing some fun chords, and I thought of the word hiatus, and it felt such a perfect word for being in a house by yourself away from everybody else. Everyone is gone. It’s the break. It was a very sacred moment, and that word hiatus kind stuck out.
Hiatus BTS – Photo credit: Jeremiah Rafferty (with drawings by Pooja Prabakaran)
THE KNOCKTURNAL: What have you guys noticed has been the biggest difference between making this current project versus your first album?
POOJA: The production is just way more involved in this album. Mountain City was… a lot of the record is exactly what you hear live. No additional instrumentation. Breathe in. breathe out was a lot more creative and innovative, and involved much more production. We grew as writers in between the three years that it took to make the next record. Breathe in. breathe out talks about heavier concepts.
THE KNOCKTURNAL: Especially because you guys moved from Georgia, has that transition at all influenced your songwriting? How has your move from Georgia to LA kind of changed your dynamic of creating music?
POOJA: We moved to LA after we made the record, so you might hear more about that move than our next record, but we’ve had a really great time. LA it is just brimming with so much creative energy. Wherever you turn, someone is working on something that they believe in.
NOAH: The musicians here are phenomenally talented. When you go see a musician, it’s so exciting to be so inspired. They’re so unbelievable. It’s incredible that I get to be here in the same city as them and experience that and take that to inspire me to be better too. It’s cool being with so many phenomenal musicians in this city.
THE KNOCKTURNAL: I wanted to know if you guys have any specific touring plans or performance plans in the works, anything that you’re looking forward to for this year?
NOAH: We’re going to play our album release show at The Virgil in Silver Lake and we’re really excited for the show. It’s going to be so much fun. It’s going to be our first show in LA. So we’re planning on doing a few other shows too, thinking about San Francisco and San Diego and a few other shows around LA very soon. We have a lot of other things for 2025, we have a remix album coming. We have a music video for “gasoline” that’ll drop two weeks after the album does. So lots of exciting things for 2025.
THE KNOCKTURNAL: What music have you all been listening to lately?
WALLACE: What’s it called? It’s something with the Tiger. We listen to it all the time.
NOAH: It’s called “Love of the Tiger”, specifically the Jake and Abe remix by Dita Pelled. It’s been on repeat. I think the Half Alive album. We were listening to it a lot.
WALLACE: No affiliation with the “half alive” song.
NOAH: Correct. I’ve been listening to a lot of Simon and Garfunkel recently too. Their stuff is unreal.
POOJA: Most recently, I’ve been listening to “Sports Car” by Tate McRae.
When talking with the band, their passion and love for their craft were evident throughout our entire interview.
