The Indigo Elephant Newsletter

Despite the year’s successes, I see 2025 much more as a year of evolution. We began last January worn out from recording The Art of Erosion. While studio time was exciting, the months of preparation beforehand took us to exhaustion. Furthermore, one of our core members left the band while we were mastering the album. We were in a do-or-die situation: was the band going to adapt, or did The Art of Erosion grind us down beyond saving? I can’t count how much hair I lost throughout the first half of 2025, but in hindsight, we knew what was needed to continue as a band.

And I’m so glad we evolved! To spoil a few of our wins, we released our first studio album, gained a real following around the world, and completed our first tour ever! None of this would have happened if we had quit before we even began, and none of it would exist without your support. To everyone reading this right now: you’re our favorite supporters just by caring enough to read these words.

So what did we accomplish this year? Here are the heaviest hitters:

1.  The Art of Erosion became our most well-received project to date

I remember walking around the neighborhood with Alice, blasting the initial mixes for the record through our AirPods. Alice turned to me and said, “You know this is going to blow up, right?” I laughed and told her that maybe our Spotify monthly listeners would go from 200 to 250. I thought she only said that because she’s a fan of our music, but in hindsight, she said it because she was a prophet.

This is a blog where I talk about us, but the self-glaze is too much for me to type. Instead, I’ll just post some of the end-of-year statistics as proof that we found an audience:

On the songwriting side, our guiding lights for the record were lyricism, arrangement, collaboration, and a strong sense of intentionality. I want to maintain some baseline level of artistic inscrutability, so I won’t say more on the creative front, but it’s satisfying when people pick out those qualities as strengths of the record. As a band, we’re beyond proud of what we’ve accomplished with The Art of Erosion.

2. We planned and executed a successful album rollout

Finishing the album tested us creatively, but the rollout tested the band as an organization. After mixing and mastering, we had about six months of runway to properly release The Art of Erosion, and we all fell into roles that suited us. I am the most managerial of the band, so I built a timeline for when each single should be announced, released, and promoted, as well as coordinated booking shows for each single drop. Cliff had to scope what art assets were needed and finish them in a timely manner - and repeat the process for each single release. He also had to develop the visual identity of the album and how we presented ourselves in this era of the band. Brenden had to figure out the best way to structure our setlist for each single release show and took the lead in planning out rehearsals.

In my experience, the biggest lesson I took from this year is that self-promotion doesn’t have to burn you out. It’s an inevitable truth that self-promo is how you build your own luck. Social media can be a black box where the effort you put in doesn’t correlate with your return, and that can be really frustrating for anyone who wants to grow. This year, I feel like I better understood how DIY and independent bands like us can be ourselves on social media while also getting ears on our songs. I don’t want us to follow TikTok trends because that won’t get people invested in our art - I want to promote our music because that’s what people should connect with. I’m happy that I can promote us in a way where we won’t be mistaken for influencers, but instead as musicians.

3. We planned and completed our first tour!

While a one-state tour may not sound impressive, California has so many music scenes that it’s like four states in one. I mentioned this in a previous post, but we wanted to keep the tour small-scale to prove that:

1. We had the organizational skills to embark on a DIY tour, and

2. When you stick us in a van for days at a time, we don’t end up wanting to kill each other.

With the help of friends and fellow musicians, we spent the month of November playing in cities we’ve never performed in before. We made new friends along the way, and we were able to connect with fans who don’t live in the Bay Area! We were tired from driving all day to SoCal, but the fact that some of you drove hours for our half-hour set made it all worth it. Some lessons are only learned by being on the road, and it’s better to learn them now so we can make a future tour even better.

4. We added a new member to the band and they’re great!

Originally, we thought we needed to find a new guitar player this year. We asked all our friends, posted on Instagram, and auditioned a bunch of talented people, but nobody was quite the right fit. Out of nowhere, this guy DMs us on the musician equivalent of Tinder, and a month later we have a totally different band setup. Cliff moved to guitar (which is actually his main instrument), and our new member Levi stepped into the role of our new bassist! I’ve said it to his face and I’ll say it again: very grateful that Levi joined the band! He is a cracked bassist, he enabled the band to accomplish everything I’ve mentioned above, and he’s also a great hang.

This post is getting long so here’s a bunch of quick-fire milestones:

• We did a photoshoot that made us look cool (s/o to our photographer GP)

• We opened for a large touring band (Thank you Naked Giants, I saw you in 2019 opening for Car Seat Headrest in Des Moines, Iowa)

• We upped the production quality of our live show by adding synced visuals and using wireless IEMs

• We introduced a bunch of merch like new T-shirts and stickers, that got shipped all over the US and even Greece!

• We did multiple live radio interviews, and had our music played on a bunch of airwaves around the US

• We did a few podcasts talking about our music, like this KQED song breakdown

• We’re part of a documentary interviewing musicians around the Bay Area

• We got our first clickbait reaction thumbnail courtesy of Youtuber Calvin Squire

So overall, a positive, humbling, and transformative 2025. Special thanks to Beau, Maryam, Amar, all our album art models, and of course Nick for creating The Art of Erosion with us. Thanks to Alice for spending so much time with the band and helping out with visuals and merch. Thanks to bands such as Friendship Games and Mare for inspiring us to be better. Thanks to all the great bands we played with this year, and finally, thanks to all the new friends and fans we gained! A lot changed for us, but a lot stayed the same. We’re still Indigo Elephant, and we’ll take these hard-earned lessons into 2026 🙂

Until next time,