Axis: Sova Interview: “I don’t want to make the same record over and over”

During any year in new music, a band or album will come out of left field. It’s a guarantee, and it’s not always a new band. Sometimes it can be one that has chipped away at your subconscious over the years. Or even one you’ve never really been that enamoured with.

Whichever the case may be, in 2026 it’s Axis: Sova. The Brett Sova-led odyssey that, over the years, has shifted and morphed into different manifestations. The latest – and most potent – sees Sova (guitars, vocals, programming) flanked by Jeremy Freeze (bass, vocals, guitar) and Josh Johannpeter (drums, programming) who this decade have continued the Axis: Sova mantra of moving forward at all costs.

Axis: Sova illuminate the realities of not only rock music, but also art as a whole. What I mean by that is that their art comes from a place of purity. In a world of metrics and being pinned against the observational glass to almost comical levels, bands like Axis: Sova keep what’s left of the rock ’n’ roll spirit alive.

It’s this spirit that Axis: Sova continues to harness on Flowerage. Straddling the orbits of rock music at large, Flowerage is the band’s most expansive and also its finest. It’s an album that really has it all. Opening cut, Blow Up – a channelling British proto-punk to the greatest effect. The politically-fuelled Fictional Autonomy – a sharp indictment of the systematic wrongs of their homeland.

Elsewhere, the shimmering blur of Fever Days is like a sound bath of post-punk washing all your worries away. (The chiming, slow motion jangle of Slow Dissolve matches its spirit, too.) But like all of Flowerage, every moment is fleeting. Axis: Sova, refusing to remain grounded for too long. The scuzzed up garage-rock of the title track, all melody and light. The excellent One Looks Nice – peak proto-rock that nudges you closer to a Mission of Burma binge.

Reconvening with Cooper Crain, the Bitchin Bajas’ leader adds his own weight from behind the soundboards. Led by A Shadow is Not A Home – a cosmic echo with Johannpeter’s drums providing vigorous drive. It’s here where Axis: Sova reach places they’ve never been before.

Perhaps the defining moment on Flowerage is Window. A song that pulls from so many places and sound worlds, it underlines the Axis: Sova remit. One where a band is always pushing forward to be the best possible version of themselves. To be that is to expose reality, which is at the core of these songs, and, by extension, this band.

Ahead of the band’s U.S. tour in support of Flowerage, last week, Brett Sova answered a series of questions about all things Axis: Sova.

Sun 13: In this current manifestation of Axis: Sova, do you remember the first band that you all had a collective admiration for?

Brett Sova: “I don’t know if there is any one band. We can definitely all agree on Wire, their ideas and creativity have definitely been a reference point at times since we began playing together. Their classic trio of albums all sound really different from each other yet have this through line that’s very recognisably Wire.”

S13: The one thing I’ve always respected about the band is that each of your records are so different from one to the next. Is that the ultimate aim… to never make the same record twice and always move the project forward?

BS: “Movement, motion, and evolution are definitely important to me, creatively, which is funny because I’m more routine-oriented in other parts of my life. I don’t want to make the same record over and over, and every time we go to record. I feel like I’m striving to surpass what we’ve done previously. Perhaps that’s why we’ve been hard to categorise at times.

“Line-up and methodology (recording location and technology) influence the style and sound of the record each time, too. Like, there’s different intentionality when recording to 4-track cassette with headphones than there is recording in a studio like Electrical Audio with a great engineer.

“The experience of taking our music out to L.A. to record Blinded By Oblivion was a means to put our music into a brighter West Coast setting, at Harmonizer Studios with mountains and ocean nearby, with Ty Segall’s production voice. By comparison, I knew that Flowerage was going to be a Chicago record, and Electrical Audio is the epitome of Chicago. We also wanted to work with Cooper Crain again, as it had been a while, and like us as a band, he continues to grow as an engineer and producer. His home studio, Sweat Loge, where we mixed, is tiny but it’s so totally dialed in. It rules.”

S13: I would say that Flowerage is your most accomplished work yet. What was the key most important aspect you wanted to capture with it?

BS: “Thank you for saying that. Certainly capturing a version of our live energy was key, as we played a lot of shows since the release of Blinded By Oblivion and really discovered who we are as band by doing so. We even toured most of these songs right before entering the studio for that very reason. Tracking at Electrical was new to us, and we felt it would provide a very honest and direct document of the live dynamics we’ve developed over the last couple years. It was important to me that we make an energetic, powerful and dynamic record. One that utilises electronic drums but isn’t tethered to them in any way. The drum machine was such a central theme to older iterations of the band, it’s nice to move beyond that.

“As the themes of the record are about growth and change through life experience, I also wanted to express the feelings of the songs in a way that is clear and relatable, with the vocals a little more exposed or natural than before.”

S13: From your earlier records to now, I love the subtleties, which feels like natural growth. For instance, from the start, would you have ever envisaged writing a song like A Shadow is Not a Home?

BS: “I get why you might ask that – even though the loop was made with guitar, it’s less guitar-y and it sounds almost industrial, maybe? That said, it’s built on repetition, which has been a core component of Axis: Sova from the very beginning, what with the static drum machine beats and unchanging riffs stretching out on earlier records. It all makes sense to me as natural growth, like you say, which is kind of a theme of the record, too.

“A Shadow Is Not A Home definitely foregrounds Josh’s drumming, which is unique for us. It also utilises the natural sound of the B room at Electrical Audio, which has these thirty-foot-high ceilings. What’s almost comical to me is that I didn’t try throwing a big guitar solo in there, but there’s so much happening with the drums and the meditative nature of the loop, it felt like a nice spot to leave alone for more of a zone out. Natural growth… and maturity.”

S13: With a song like Fictional Autonomy, there feels like a real political node. How much has politics played a role in your work over the years?

BS: “It’s become more prominent recently, for sure, much more than it used to be. Fictional Autonomy is about the publicised infiltration of ICE into our Chicago communities, which they called ‘Operation Midway Blitz’, and alludes to this decline into authoritarianism here in the USA. Chicago really shows up for protesting and community organisation, which is inspiring. I think of the song as an anthem for protest, and man, I would have never been that forward about what I was writing in the early days of Axis: Sova. That’s just where we’re at now.

“Writing songs has always been a tool for me to process experiences and information. While I normally write stream-of-conscience to get to the feelings first, and figure out meaning later, I’ve noticed I’m writing more in reaction to politics than ever before because what’s happened in recent years is so confounding and it’s just everywhere, all the time. Blow Up is actually about resisting the media induced panic that serves those agendas, and the toll it takes on mental health. Plastic Pageant Show, from Blinded By Oblivion, is also aimed at politicians. I also love writing songs like these but contextualising them within these big choruses filled with vocal harmonies.”

S13: Fever Days really encompasses the Axis: Sova experience. What can you tell us about this song?

BS: “That’s cool, I’m curious why you think that! The song is about perseverance… in any shape or form. I think it’s more about personal perseverance, but it could be political, it’s really open to interpretation to serve anyone’s experience. When I think of it visually, I see Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder) at the end of the film, Heathers, covered in dirt with a cigarette dangling from her lips.

“Musically, Fever Days is rooted in a classic Roland Rhythm Arranger beat, Rock 2, which Josh busts wide open with live drums. It’s built off a guitar loop, and one repeating chord progression with a lot of room for that circus guitar riff and Jeremy’s big fuzz bass, which all fit together a bit like a jigsaw puzzle. Fever Days is a great example of our shared love of repetition and finding the dynamics within it. This is the only song on Flowerage with acoustic guitar, which was actually a Cooper idea. I think he found a pop element to the song that distinguishes this version from the original home recording, which Jeremy and I made during pandemic times.”

S13: With regards to your writing methods, do you thrash it out together in the room, or is or more a case of bringing in separate ideas and working from there?

BS: “More recently it’s been about jamming together as a generator for song ideas. We play off of each other really well and we’re vibrating in a similar zone at the moment. Otherwise, usually I’ll bring in a riff that we work on, which evolves and takes shape according to how Jeremy and Josh interpret it. The spontaneous writing we do together produced many of the songs on Flowerage, like Blow Up, Monterey, A Shadow Is Not A Home, and the title track. I write the lyrics on my own time, handwritten at first in notebooks, followed by lots of revisions these days. I try to make sure the words are something I can imagine singing years down the line… Or something that I can reasonably imagine Lemmy, or maybe Pete Shelley singing, like a believability test.”

S13: With so much new music out there these days, do you pay attention to the new releases, or are you more rooted to the past?

BS: “We might be kind of old heads but we listen to lots of everything, new stuff, especially from friends, just everything. We’re big consumers of music. I love that Station Model Violence record that came out this year.”

S13: You’re on the road next week. How important is playing live in the band’s DNA, and do you enjoy it more than recording in the studio?

BS: “I enjoy the shared experience of playing live with the band more than almost anything. It’s its own language, a unique way of communication that includes not just us but everyone in the room. Recording is hugely rewarding creatively, and also very fun – I’d do it every day if I could. But playing live is a physical thing which has an amazing effect on the nervous system.

“I remember experiencing that kind of physical catharsis at some of the first few gigs I went to as a kid, like seeing Fugazi. I first saw them when I was 14. They were touring Red Medicine, The Make Up opened, and it was just a monumental event where all of my pent up emotions were released at that moment. The impact of that show has really carried on with me through the years, I was thinking about it while we were recording Flowerage. It’s great energy to channel.”

S13: Drag City and, by extension GOD? Records have been such a big part of the band’s story over the years. How vital has it been to be a part of label’s history and their community?#

BS: “It’s really nice being a small part of something so historically significant, something that’s really important to so many people. Ty (Segall, who runs GOD?) has been really supportive of our music, and the Drag City community has been huge – it’s how I met Jeremy, it’s how I met people like Ty, Purling Hiss, Prison, many bands and artists with whom we’ve played and now have this deep connection. It’s kind of its own ecosystem.”

S13: Do you see Axis: Sova as a central part to your lives?

BS: “Absolutely, it’s central in mine… The band name origin is based around the idea that Axis: Sova can be or mean whatever I want or need it to be, like I’m the axis point for the music we make. It’s become such a WE thing musically, between Jeremy, Josh and I, but the application is still the same – we can use it to make whatever kind of music we want. It’s very freeing.”

Flowerage is out now via GOD? Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.