Plumes is a 4-piece indie rock/folk/pop group from Boston, MA. Through 2 albums and 4 EPs, they’ve established a robust catalogue of songs driven by melodic guitar lines, vocal harmonies, introspective + sincere lyrics, and sneakily complex rhythm sections, which they bring together with gusto in their unfailingly energetic live shows. Plumes consists of John Thorsen (bass, guitar, vox), Ben Long (drums, vox), and Tim Green (guitar, vox), with Clio Fleece completing the live lineup (bass, piano, vox).

Plumes formed in early 2016 through phone calls between John and Tim, wherein they decided to release a group of 4 songs John had written and recorded in their college dorm room (The Negligent Biome – EP). John enlisted Ben for the project, his longtime friend and high school bandmate (the Rhode Island-based Roslyn), and the two played a few shows under the monicker Uncle Jerry and the Meat Sweats. In 2017, John completed writing and recording a sister EP to The Negligent Biome. The release of the Man of the Year EP was marked with the first official Plumes show, featuring John, Ben, and Tim switching between multiple instruments to perform both EPs to a friend’s (and visual art collaborator’s) packed apartment.

2018 was a very busy year for Plumes. After releasing another set of mostly acoustic home-recordings—February’s Acoustic Microwave Background I—the band got to work on their first studio album with John’s god-brother, Fred Kelly, producing and engineering in Harvard University’s student studio. At the same time, they built a following in the Boston area through dozens of live shows throughout the year. In Lieu of Essays arrived in September 2018, marking a turn towards the more rock-centric full-band arrangements that distinguished their live performances. It was also at this point that Tim asked his longtime friend and fellow School of Rock Philadelphia alumni, Clio, to join on bass, keys, and harmonies for live performances. With the addition of Clio, Plumes’ full lineup was crystalized.

In 2019, the band started work on their second LP. After recording rhythm tracks with Dan Thorn in Somerville’s Pink Noise Studios, John, Ben, and Tim recorded the rest of the lead tracks in Tim’s bedroom in their shared Allston apartment, where, with the advice of friends and collaborators, they also mixed the tracks themselves. The result was 2019’s TEA, a collection of songs that merged the electric rock forwardness of Essays with the stripped-back acoustic sounds of the band’s self-recorded EPs. This era, through album tracks and B-sides, was also the first time that Ben and Tim were featured as primary songwriters and vocalists on a handful of tracks.

We all know what happened in 2020, which disrupted the band’s plans for a spring/summer of shows celebrating their second full-length. Once vaccinated in the spring of 2021, the band gathered again to record a new EP, this time in the home studio John had set up in the basement of his family home. The comfort and creative space afforded by home recording allowed for a sonic step forward (propelled, too, by Dan Thorn’s mixing) as well as a fruitful return to their roots, and resulted in a collection of 5 songs penned by Tim. 2022’s Here’s To Then leans into the band’s trademarks of harmony, guitar-driven melodies, and rhythmic complexity, while expanding out into more use of keyboards and piano. It also thematically parallels the band’s original EPs, being a group of self-referential songs focused on the life of a single relationship, though it diverges greatly in the course it charts and the conclusion at which it arrives.