The Off Beat: Queen Serene Unleashes a Heavier, More Collaborative Album No. 2
Sarah Ronan and Matt Galceran on songwriting and intra-band dating
By Carys Anderson, Fri., Nov. 22, 2024
Before Queen Serene was a band, it was Sarah Ronan’s Instagram handle.
The former Naked Tungs guitarist began releasing music under the moniker during “classic COVID times,” when she worked on solo material in one room while her then-roommate/bandmate worked on his own in another.
“I had a little 24-track and I was able to experiment with building songs on my own instead of working off of someone else,” the Florida transplant recalls. “It was very liberating.”
Still, Ronan calls her solo songwriting phase a “filler place” for lockdown, which prevented live performances, and a reaction to the Naked Tungs breaking up. “I don’t like having supreme control over all creative decision-making,” she says. “It was fun for a little bit when I couldn’t play shows or anything – like, I’ll just make these songs for me. But it’s always been more fun to collaborate with people.”
Eventually, Ronan tapped guitarist Matt Galceran, bassist Dale Pohly, and Naked Tungs drummer Riley Corcoran – coincidentally all Floridians, though she met the artists in Austin – to round out Queen Serene, who dropped their self-titled debut in October 2023. Follow-up 2 arrived Nov. 15, and though the band recorded its six tracks around the same time (before Charlie Cassells replaced Corcoran, who relocated to New York City), principal songwriters/romantic partners Ronan and Galceran confirm a strong sonic shift between the projects.
While Queen Serene rollicked with upbeat, polished psych rock, 2 stretches out, more interested in vibey shoegaze than concise studio productions. Galceran says the heavier sound partially draws from the band’s live performances, but he and Ronan agree it mostly derives from heightened collaboration.
“All the songs are pretty split,” Ronan says. Whereas she and Galceran brought forth their own near-finished demos for the first record, the two primarily wrote the tracks on 2 together.
Album highlight “In a Rut (I’m Stuck)” breaks that rule, however. Galceran wrote the near-six-minute number, which repeats the titular phrase atop one consistent guitar and bass line (with some noise interludes thrown in for good measure), during his own pandemic solitude. Ronan contributed by convincing him to include it on the record.
“I was a little self-conscious about it,” Galceran says of the song. “I felt like all of the songs I’ve brought to the table have been pretty repetitive lyrically. I was just like, 'Do I want to do another repetitive one?’”
“And I was like, 'Yes,’” Ronan adds. “People really resonate with that one. Very relatable lyrics, even though it’s one line.”
Being in a relationship helps ease the duo’s teamwork. “We can get into the nitty-gritty of songs a little bit more than someone that I don’t live with,” Galceran says. “It makes it a lot easier to be like, 'Hey, let’s work this part out. I don’t know if I like it very much.’”
Though the partners acknowledge that intra-band dating has long been deemed the “number one no-no” of keeping a project alive (“There’s a reason we’ll never see Sonic Youth,” Galceran laughs), Ronan confirms, “It’s worked out.”
Plus, “Bands like Slowdive, they’re still together,” Galceran says. “Rachel [Goswell] and Neil [Halstead] dated. They got over it. Kevin Shields, Bilinda Butcher [of My Bloody Valentine], they dated.”
At least they have a playbook.
