From the early days of their collaboration, Jeremy Zucker and Chelsea Cutler’s musical relationship was something they described as a special kind of discovery and exploration. With a catalogue of albums and EPs to both their names, the duo introduced listeners to their shared world in 2019 – their debut collaborative EP titled ‘brent.’ Through their years of collaboration, Zucker and Cutler have offered up music characterized by the pair’sunmistakable quiet intimacy, occasionally letting their songs bloom into something more grandiose. Five years after releasing ‘brent,’ Zucker and Cutler reflect on their friendship, songwriting process, and the making of their third project and first shared album, ‘brent iii.’
In the A-frame cabin in southern California where ‘brent iii’ takes its first real breaths, Zucker and Cutler shut the world out for a days-long songwriting session. The cabin houses the duo during a cold winter, but the music that comes out oftheir session holds a warmth that threads itself through each of Zucker and Cutler’s collaborations.
They tell us stories of that cabin where they brought ‘brent iii’ to life – of fires and frozen lakes, the “crazy, palpable magic” of writing on the first night, and the synchronized “aha-moments” the two shared while improvising what would become some of their favourite songs on the album.
With two EPs and an album in their shared catalogue, it’s evident that the cornerstone of Zucker and Cutler’s writing partnership is their relationship beyond the studio. “I would say it’s really, really important that at the end of the day, we’re friends first,” Cutler says. “I think that healthy friendship is really, really important in being able to collaborate well together. I think that we both have to be comfortable enough to be vulnerable with each other in our conversation and our songwriting because making art is inherently a pretty vulnerable thing to do.”
“And I just think we have each other’s boundaries pretty locked in,” Zucker adds. “We know when to give each other space. We know when to double down with each other, and we’re good at not getting upset with each other.”
Zucker describes songwriting together as “partially therapizing,” where the pair take turns bringing personal topics to the table while the other one offers support in translating it into a song. They cite the ninth ‘brent iii’ track, ‘and the government too!’ as an example of how their deep friendship is the foundation of creating music about vulnerable experiences, reflecting on the song’s origins in Zucker’s personal life at the time.
“The beauty of friendship is being able to sit there and help your friend get these things off their chest, and help support them digest and process that. […] In our writing process, we take turns. It’s just a privilege to be alongside your friend and be a part of writing or helping to write about their experience,” Cutler shares. “I think the setting that we were in had a lot to do with being able to get away and actually spend real periods of time together, as friends, not just in the studio, not just as collaborators. It gave us the opportunity to write songs like that that are so personal.”
Zucker and Cutler describe how making music together earnestly as friends helps them make music that they hope other people can find solace and comfort in. “We always sit in the studio and say we want the record to feel like a cosy, safe place for people. I really do think that’sborn from us being friends and building this world that feels like friendship for a lot of other people,” Cutler says.
“There’s been something special with mine and Chelsea’s collaboration since the beginning,” Zucker says. “I think it’salways been an exploration. We’ve always tried to dig around and see what we could create together in a really open-minded way.”
Coming from their own musical backgrounds, the pair describe their collaborations as opportunities to come together sonically while experimenting with elements they would not have otherwise. “That’s what’s exciting – being able to dip into different spaces and feelings and genres and experimenting with instruments that we wouldn’t have experimented with if we weren’t working together, and if we weren’t challenged by each other’s different musical tastes and upbringing,” Zucker says.
After spending the last six years writing together, Zucker and Cutler reflect on the lessons they’ve learned and the waysthey’ve grown in their music, as friends, and as people. “I would say the largest difference in our writing or storytelling is, hopefully, that we’re more mature and able to look at and write about more complex and nuanced emotions than we were able to when we were making the first two ‘brent’ projects,” Cutler says.
“I’ve learned a lot from jealousy – musically and perspective-wise,” Zucker shares. “I think [Chelsea’s] creativity is reallyadmirable and inspiring, and she’s very free. I have all of these walls up when I’m working on something, and all of these checks that my brain is doing in the middle to make sure that I’m on topic and on task. I’ll judge something – I’ll know if I like something or dislike something really soon, a little too soon sometimes. And Chelsea has taught me to shut down that part of my brain when I’m creating. I’ve been trying to be a little more spontaneously creative. I’ve learned a lot of thatfrom Chelsea and tried to bring it into my own practice.”
“I’ve learned everything about collaboration and teamwork from spending the last six years doing this together,” Cutler says. “I think that collaborating with your friend is particularly challenging and beautiful because you know you’re able to really push each other to get the best out of each other. Maybe you can be more honest, and you also want to be more sensitive and considerate of each other because you care so much about the relationship and about each other’s feelings. I think that it’s definitely made me a better musician, and it’s definitely made me a – hopefully – better collaborator, teammate, and friend to get to navigate all of these beautiful moments together, and challenging moments together, and difficult conversations and exciting milestones. It’s been incredible for me.”
As for the future, Zucker and Cutler don’t anticipate a career trajectory without the other person.
“We say this a lot – we’re not closing the door really,” Zucker says. “Chelsea and I are always going to be collaboratingand working together. It’s just a matter of what form that takes on, whether it’s a song for her album, for my album, for another artist, or for something that we do as something that lives in the world of ‘brent.’”
“I like to say ‘never say never,’” Cutler adds. “I think that it would be hard to envision us going the rest of our careers without working together in some capacity. I think we’ll always want to be a part of each other’s careers, whether it’s some sort of collaboration or working on each other’s individual stuff, but you never know. Like Jeremy said, who knows what it would be called or what shape it would take? But life is long, and who knows what will happen?”
Written by Bernice Santos // photography by Stefan Kohli
GEM Magazine 