Mother Mother: “Music definitely took me away in such a positive way. It was such a positive escape.”

Two decades into their career, Mother Mother are in a reflective yet restless place. Their new record, Nostalgia, arrives not as a carefully orchestrated next step, but as something stumbled upon. What began as a few extra tracks for a deluxe edition of Grief Chapter quickly spiralled into a full-blown album, one that leans into rawer production, instinctive songwriting, and a willingness to revisit the band’s earliest impulses. For frontman Ryan Guldemond, the title track unlocked a floodgate of creativity, steering the band away from overthinking and back toward something freer, more immediate, and, fittingly, more nostalgic.

Reflecting on Mother Mother’s 20-year journey, Nostalgia isn’t just a look back, it’s a reminder of what drew him to music in the first place, the spark of discovery, the naivety of breaking rules before you even know they exist, the joy of writing from instinct rather than calculation. It’s an album born from accidents, anniversaries, and accidents that feel like fate.

In our latest Cover Story, the frontman explains how the key was to stop strategising and simply follow the thrill of creation. The result of that is Nostalgia, a record that captures the essence of looking back while still charging forward.

It was quite a quick turnaround from the last album. Was there a plan to release a new album so quickly?

“No, there wasn’t. In fact, we were making songs that were meant to be on the deluxe version of Grief Chapter. That process got so inspired and opened up the gates to new songs, and then the idea to go back and do some archival work and bring out old songs developed.

Before we knew it, we were not making a deluxe package; we were making a new album. Should we release it so swiftly? Maybe it’s too quick, but let’s not worry about strategising and just go based on how excited we are about the music. That was the thinking behind that.”

What excited you so much about this music that you wanted to write a completely new record?

“The production shift. We tapped into a different aesthetic in the studio for the music. More open, less compressed, more raw, and it just felt like a new personality that didn’t quite blend with Grief Chapter. Then I just started writing songs. I wrote Nostalgia, and it felt like too good a song, too much like a title track, not to waste or get buried at the bottom of a track-listing of a deluxe album.”

On the subject of the album title Nostalgia, what inspired that? Nostalgia, as a word, it’s got so many different meanings. Did nostalgia inspire the theme of the album?

“The song did for sure. Quite often times you’re just hoping and praying that a song, a theme, an album arrives without having to look for it, without having to premeditate it or get left-brain about it. I find the music always suffers as a byproduct of premeditation. The song ‘Nostalgia’ was written from thin air without trying, and it felt like an inroad.

It so happened to be our 20th anniversary, which begs a nostalgic sentimentality to begin with. We thought we’d look back, go back in time a bit, and uncover some of that music that got stuck in time, frozen in time, and never released that we’ve always been loving and thinking about in the back of our minds.”

Was there always a plan to do something with that material, or did time move on?

“Time moves on, and there’s always so much more to do that’s current, so it can feel like not a pertinent effort to go looking back. But, because of the anniversary, because of the theme that was born through that song, it felt poetic and appropriate.”

“Quite often times you’re just hoping and praying that a song, a theme, an album arrives without having to look for it, without having to premeditate it or get left-brain about it.”

When you started writing it as a record, did you have a vision for what you wanted it to be? It feels like quite a free record in that you could go anywhere you want, especially around the theme of nostalgia.

“I think we wanted it to sound a certain way, and that being more open, less compressed, more raw, less tricky perhaps, so I think there’s a sonic cohesion for sure. But then, in terms of the material, we just wanted the songs to be inspired, to come from that instinct that is more innocent and pure and unconventional, which I think are nostalgic traits to the band. We definitely began more brazenly in terms of our songs and writing style, which you do unwittingly at the beginning.

You don’t know you’re breaking rules because you haven’t learned them yet, and that’s a really beautiful place to be, so there was, I guess, a barometer of measuring whatever that magic is when vetting the songs for this album.”

When you look back, do you see a point where that changed?

“Right away. As soon as you start getting into the business, other voices come in, and you’re quote-unquote trying to connect with an audience, and there are people who have opinions about how to do that more successfully. It just depends on how insecure you are as a person.

It depends on who you are with regard to how much of that stuff you let into your psyche and your consciousness and your process. I wouldn’t say it ever polluted our process to a highly detrimental degree, but I think there was an era where we probably cared too much about trying to structure the songs to be more palatable or less.”

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Do you think there’s an unconscious side to that where you move into it without even really realising you’re doing it?

“Yes, because you’re too distracted by thinking and fear and left-brain uselessness, so you don’t even have the ability to tune into a deeper instinct, a higher wisdom. I think there’s a lot of unconsciousness that leads people a little bit astray creatively.”

Do you think that the experience of this record will change how you approach future records? Has it changed how you approach things as a band?

“I think it’s been many, many years since we’ve swung back to only doing what feels right and inspired. That was maybe a blip where the writing was preoccupied with left-brain stuff. Now, I don’t even think about like, ‘Oh, will we follow our truth?’

It’s not even a question. What that sounds like, I don’t know. It doesn’t even matter. It’s like you discovered that when you drop into that creative current.”

Now you’ve been through that creative change and gone full circle back to the start. Do you get the same feelings as you got when you started the band?

“Not in terms of reality and what might lie ahead, it’s all been demystified. What it means to go out into the world and play shows and tour and market your music and try to appeal to an audience, and with a world that is so different from how we looked out upon it 20 years ago. It’s all just come down to earth. There are no high and mighty, fanciful ideas about any of that. It’s been humbling in a good way.

But, in terms of the creative spark, I think we still feel that anything is possible. This could change the world when we tap into like a musical idea that really lights us up, but the difference is we know too much as well. It’s like there’s a naivety at the beginning. Then, as you get older, you have to will naivety consciously and then trick your mind into not knowing that you’re doing that, it’s very different.”

The artwork on the album, the unicorn on the cover. How does that connect with the theme of the album, and where did the idea for the artwork come from?

“Well, the unicorn is in the lyrics of the song ‘Make Believe.’ Again, you hope something arrives without having to go muscling one into being. You write a song, and accidentally, the word unicorn fits. There it is. There’s our cover. If it goes well, everything’s an accident.”

“I think we still feel that anything is possible. This could change the world when we tap into like a musical idea that really lights us up…”

Was fantasy something that was a big part of your childhood?

“Music was a big part. Discovering the electric guitar. Being in my room, playing for hours. Skateboarding with my friends. Getting into trouble… normal stuff. My first high school band was magic. In the shed with your friends playing the same song for hours and being in a constant flow state of passion, interest, and engagement. That magic, that flow, becomes few and far between as you get older.”

When you first discovered music, were there artists that kind of took you into that fantasy world?

“Probably The Beatles. They were maybe one of the first bands to provide that portal. I was really into classic rock… Eric Clapton, Cream, Led Zeppelin, The Yardbirds. Old blues stuff too, like Robert Johnson, Lead Belly. Then I got into the Pixies, and that was totally mind-blowing, and then it was a heavy metal phase in high school. Music definitely took me away in such a positive way. It was such a positive escape.”

There’s a song on the record called ‘Finger’. Could you talk a bit about the theme of that song and what inspired it?

“That song was one of those songs that we dredged up from the past. It’s one of the oldest Mother Mother songs to date, out of any song. 20 years old. I don’t think we wrote anything back then for any particular reason other than it just kind of blew outta the guitar. It was a byproduct of being young and cocky and sardonic and cynical and brash. All these things you get drunk on as a young person, as you’re discovering your personality. Or at least I did, and that really reflected in the writing.

‘Fingers’ is this crazy song about societal double standards positioned in a way that’s just really crude and doesn’t leave a lot between the lines. We’d play it like back in the day at little coffee houses, and it would all stir up a big reaction, but we never thought it was appropriate to produce. Then, as we were at the boardroom table for this new album, we thought maybe we should bring that song to life. Maybe that is the perfect song for this album and this theme. Celebrating those instincts from back in the day.”

Do you think it’s a song that fits in now, especially with the way society is? Do you think it can be a now song as well?

“The stuff that plagues the human condition in society will always be pretty similar, from epoch to epoch. It takes a long time for us to change.”

What trait or attribute from now would you wipe off the face of the earth?

“Loveless judgment, which then breeds division and separateness. I’ve been in airports a lot on this tour. There are so many different people in airports, and often times people are not at their best in airports. They’re really grumpy. They’re tired. Everyone’s freaking out. Social graces are flying out of the window, so I’ve just been trying to look at people and just love them.

Just celebrate their being here. Their worthiness to occupy the space that they take up and to connect to the soft animal in each of us that just wants to be loved, that wants to be connected. It’s really been on my mind. Accepting people at face value and resisting the urge to loveless judge them because we’re really good at that.”

Are you a people watcher?

“Absolutely. Who isn’t? It’s a very common, enjoyable pastime checking people out. I think the trick is not to judge them when you watch them, but to love them and to celebrate them.”

“‘Fingers’ is this crazy song about societal double standards positioned in a way that’s just really crude and doesn’t leave a lot between the lines.”

If you were to look back and bring one thing back that isn’t around these days, what would you bring back?

“You’d have to obliterate something to bring this back, but I would bring back this cable television, where you had to wait for a week to watch one episode. I’d bring that back… but then you would have to like wipe out the internet.”

Would that be a good or a bad thing, though?

“I think neither exists as good or bad in terms of evolution. We’re probably all exactly where we’re supposed to be.

Two decades as a band, when you look back at that, what gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling when you look back?

“Honestly, probably before it all even got rolling just in this house in Vancouver, living with my sister as a 21-year-old writing songs, staying up all night, drinking wine, falling in love with this music and feeling like it had the potential to do something special, but we hadn’t had the opportunity yet to put that to the test. It was all a dream. You’re just all riding on optimism and dreams because you haven’t even been given the chance to share yet. I wish I could bottle that.”