“There’s so much pressure to constantly better yourself,” Lydia Night, lead singer and songwriter of The Regrettes, says. “That phrase, ‘further joy,’ summarized what it meant to be on the hamster wheel of constantly chasing happiness, but in turn, that’s what makes you unhappy,” she adds.

As the pandemic set in and Los Angeles shut down, The Regrettes were having a full-blown identity crisis. Lydia had been touring since she was 12-years-old and the band spent the past two years headlining sold-out shows and performing at festivals like Coachella. As NME said of their sophomore album, The Regrettes were “truly unstoppable” until they weren’t.

In January of 2021, after more than a year apart, The Regrettes reconvened for a 10-day writing retreat in Joshua Tree. They left the desert with a vision for the record and demos in hand. Although the subject matter is anything but light, she still calls it the “poppiest, and danciest” album they’ve ever made.

“What Further Joy means, that chase for happiness, that quote sums it up,” Lydia says. It’s the lesson that allowed The Regrettes to pause, go inward separately, and still land in the same place together, becoming a tighter unit than they’ve ever been. It’s also the lesson Lydia hopes listeners walk away with. “We all deserve happiness and to be present, and we’ll never get there if we feel so much shame and guilt for not being there already,” she adds. “Don’t get caught in the hamster wheel of chasing joy.”