Finneas and Ashe would like to reintroduce themselves.
Earlier this week, the duo announced the formation of their new band, the Favors, and their forthcoming debut album, titled The Dream, set to release Sept. 19. The record’s first single and video for “The Little Mess You Made” dropped on Friday, giving listeners the first sonic offering of the newly formed group. The video imagines Finneas and Ashe as Seventies Hollywood stars feuding while cameras capture the duo as the sing, “The little mess you made is all over the news/The littlest mistake can leave the darkest bruise.” Footage of the pair happily posing for pictures, echoing the LP’s cover art, are spliced in.
When asked why they chose “The Little Mess You Made” as an introduction to the Favors’ debut album, Ashe tells Rolling Stone: “The last time the world heard us together, it was on such a sweet, tender song and we loved the idea that out the gate you get to hear us fighting for our lives, fighting with each other.” Ashe and Finneas previously worked together on the epic duet “Till Forever Falls Apart,” a track from her 2021 studio album Ashlyn.
“I think a first single has to go out into the world as your representative in a kind of a funny way — there are a couple jazzy tunes I love on this album, there’s a couple ballads I love, but if they had been the first single, you might be lead to believe that we made a jazz album,” Finneas adds. “This song felt like it encompassed the project in a nice way. An introduction to the favors if you will.”
From the upcoming album’s title to its cover art, Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 Rumours is evoked. Ashe says they were drawn to the era’s “non-trendy, timeless nature of that sound,” while Finneas calls Fleetwood Mac “one of the goats.”
“I’ve loved their music my whole life and when we set out to make this album, I did wonder if we’d end up making songs that felt right out of Rumours,” he says. “To my surprise, the songs we wrote actually ended up feeling very different than theirs.”
When looking back at the moment they decided to come together as the Favors, Ashe says she was in Nashville in her living room and on a musical hiatus. “I texted Finneas and asked if we should try it out and he responded, ‘This solves all my problems,” she says. “Which is the cutest possible thing he could’ve said.”
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Finneas says he was on a walk in Los Angeles when he got the text from Ashe that read, “Hear me out what if we started a band….” He adds: “Never said yes faster in my life.”
While the duo collaborated on Ashe’s two EPs, Moral of the Story: Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 in 2019, The Dream will be their first record as the Favors.
