Two AFS juniors, Katie Brady-Gold ’22 and Clay Lewis ’22, spent the past few months recording a four song EP, titled Morpho, with their band Mice on Mercury. The band used music as a creative outlet to express themselves during insolation in the pandemic and realized that they wanted to share what they created with the world. On September 30, the album was released on all streaming platforms.

The theatre department at AFS has partnered with their band to create a music video for one of the singles—”Connection.” Upper School students will do the the majority of the dancing for the video, which has been filmed all over campus with students and faculty members in all the divisions . The team is working with talented choreographer Jenn Rose, who has done tremendous work on the video.

A wide range of talents from the AFS student body have gone into this project including Paige West ’22, who created the original watercolor painting for the Morpho album cover shown here. The album is now streaming on all platforms.

Clay created a website to launch the EP, on which you can stream previews of some songs and also find links to platforms with the full album available.

A Q&A with Clay Lewis ’22 on Morpho:

What gave you two the idea to do this and how did it come together?

I have been making music as a hobby for years, but until quarantine started I hadn’t had much time to fully indulge myself in it. When summer began, I was making some music while Facetiming Katie, and she told me she wanted to make something with me. We started collaborating, and although at the beginning it was mostly for ourselves, before we knew it we had released “Stranger” and decided to do a full EP!

What was it like recording this during quarantine?

It was a little difficult and tedious, but not because of quarantine. At the time the band was in a “pod” together, so we were able to meet with each other to work on music. The part that was difficult was that we had no recording equipment or studio. We had to record all the vocals through our iPhones and I had to write, mix, and master all the music on my home PC!

How did AFS Director of Choral Music, Justin Solonynka get involved (he contributed piano to one of the tracks)?

We both have a pretty close relationship with Justin because we’ve worked with him on a ton of projects before. I had already been sending Justin some music before to see what he thought of it, and when we started the EP, I began sending him music more frequently. He was definitely a great help, because he has released many albums and EPs before. We then asked if he had any advice for promotion, because we had pretty much no clue what we were doing!

Describe the album and what inspired your music?

The album was mostly inspired by feeling we were having at the time we were writing each song. We would Facetime, and just talk through how we were feeling, and then someone would write down notes. That’s how the first two songs were written. The last two songs were almost entirely written by our third member, Via Dell’Angelo. She is an incredible lyricist, and the lyrics she sent us perfectly fit with the vibe of the EP. In terms of how our lyrics should be interpreted, I would say it is completely up to the listener what they take from it, but I will say that it is an EP about transformation – hence the title “Morpho.”

Can you tell us a little bit about each of your backgrounds in music?

Katie has been acting in musical theater for a large part of her life, and through that has had a ton of singing lessons from various vocal coaches, and I think anyone can tell that it has paid off, because her singing is so amazing. As for me, I have mostly been self-taught in producing and creating music. For about 5 years I would play around with music, watch videos and tutorials, and include some of the things I learned as school to try to put together the best music I could.