The Coming-of-Age of Not The Main Characters
Anyone who is on Tiktok, or any form of social media, knows that the idea of being the, “main characters” was a huge phenomenon for Gen Z. Everyone was making playlists filled to the brim with the same two songs (aka Ribs by Lorde and Tongue Tied by Grouplove), to feed the individuality complex that is within each and every one of us.
So if that’s the case, then why is this group aiming for the opposite? Not The Main Characters is an up and coming indie-pop group featuring Tammy Gonzalez, Gabi Gotts, and Perrin Xthona along with their producer Nathaniel Clay. Even through a screen, they translated as such free-spirited and creative people, and speaking with them about their band, advice for their sophomore interviewer, and dreams for the future was an interview to remember.
How did Not The Main Characters come to be?
Gotts, with her ethereal aura and really cool accent, takes the lead with this question saying, “Usually we write for other people, but when the three of us would write together, the songs that we were making didn’t feel like something we could pitch to anybody else. They just felt a little different in a lot of different ways, different lyrically, they just felt… different,” then proceeding to light up the conversation with a jab at her overuse of the word different.
“Perrin got Nathaniel on board to produce some of these songs and we were all just like screw it, the world is ending, the apocalypse has come, let’s just release them on Spotify and they won’t get any streams, and that’s fine for us.”
That, however, was not the case whatsoever. Their single, bev hills, got playlists onto a couple Spotify editorial playlists and that song now has over 430,000 streams. They were also the face of Spotify’s “Fresh Finds” playlist recently, which added to the increasing traction that NTMC’s music was already pulling in.
Tell me about you single, murder party!
“I met Tammy for the first time like a month ago,” mentions Nathaniel, “up until that point, everything was over zoom. I think we wrote [murder party] when we were all in different states, like I was in Maine, Gabi was in Nashville, Perrin was in Oregon, and Tammy was in New York.”
Ironically enough, Gonzalez comments on the fact that they wrote murder party right before Halloween while Clay created the beat on Halloween night. “I remember looking at it a couple weeks ago and being like, oh! October 31st, that’s fitting”.
What is the overall goal you want to achieve with your music?
They all truly have a soft spot for their fans, wanting to make more music for them to enjoy, and “reaching as many ears as possible” according to Gotts. “Our goal is to put out a lot of music so that people hear it and not just like it, but love it and be really into it. You know, we want to have a close relationship with our fans where we get to interact with them”.
Xthona adds, “I feel like the way we wrote together and started being a band was because we were writing things that were really relatable to us and maybe it wasn’t really mainstream, but we all did. We wrote down all of the lines that would be rejected in all our other writing sessions, so that’s what we want, for people in our generation to relate to our music as well”.
What are your hopes for Not The Main Character’s future in the realm of music?
Gotts pitches in by sharing, “You know, as much as playing big shows scares us, it’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful thing to be able to do”, and there’s no doubt that their shows will be absolutely amazing, so look out for that.
Many tangents were explored throughout this interview, but the most memorable one that truly showed the genuine authenticity within these women in music was when talking about the risk of going down the path of music, and the possibility of choosing a different, sturdier route as a career. They all chime in with their enthusiastic objections, “Never, never, never,” affirms Xthona.
“I think about that all the time, like what if I had just done like another job. It wouldn’t have been easy because I wouldn’t have been passionate about it. I think doing what you really want to do is really hard, but it ends up being easier emotionally. You’re not sleeping at college regardless, so I’d rather be losing sleep over something that I love”.
Profound, I know.
If you’ve read thus far and still need more motivation to listen to Not The Main Characters and their entire discography, it is important to note that their very own Tammy Gonzalez is a Harry Styles loving, Swiftie, fashion enthusiast. This should definitely be taken into consideration.
Not The Main Characters are straying away from the crowd and conforming to their own unique sound, finding their people, and are ready to take the world by storm. They are forces to be reckoned with, and you can listen to their music and the all that they listened to throughout their own coming-of-ages here:
