“You can’t have one without the other,” sang Frank Sinatra on “Love and Marriage.” For Mt. Joy, the group’s musical matrimony comes in the form of touring the world and playing for crowds of rapturous fans before settling down in a recording studio.
Life on the road inspires those studio recordings, and by the end of a tour, “you’re probably as close playing-wise as a band as you’ll ever be,” explained vocalist and guitarist Matt Quinn in a recent interview. “It’s sort of like the whole tour ends up being a practice session. When you do finally get these new songs, you’re feeling like the band’s playing well together, and it’s a good time to press record.”
To be honest though, “there’s really no other way for us to do it,” Quinn added.
After extensive touring last year, the road schedule is no less busy this summer — thanks in part to the release in May 2025 of their fourth LP, “Hope We Have Fun.” Accompanying Quinn are guitarist Sam Cooper, drummer Sotiris Eliopoulos, bassist Michael Byrnes and Jackie Miclau on keys and piano, and they’ll revisit some of these same stages and cities this year.
“We’ve been touring pretty consistently for the last eight years, and so we’ve kind of learned to make albums in the little spaces that we have between tours,” Quinn said. “Hope We Have Fun” was no different: “It was made mostly in two installments between two big tours where we had a little break between them. We made about half the album and then we went back on tour and made the second half [at] the beginning of (the next) year.”
Appropriately enough, the first sounds broadcast from “Hope We Have Fun” were the catchy strums of the poppy tune, “Highway Queen,” released a year before the album was even announced. At the time, Quinn didn’t even know what would come of this track.
“That one was just one of those songs in songwriting where it came together really fast. It didn’t feel like it needed a whole lot — pretty straightforward tune,” he said. “So it was like, ‘Hey, let’s record this and put it out and see if it fits on the record once we make the record,’ because we really hadn’t made the record.”
The next single was “God Loves Weirdos,” a true ode to life on the road that romanticizes 4 a.m. pit stops at gas stations selling amusing tchotchkes while also pondering the idea of “a benevolent god who actually cares for everyone. I thought that was the point of Christianity, but [it’s] certainly been turned on its head at times,” Quinn explained, “and I just like the idea of flipping it back and throwing that back at people as much as possible.”
The song shows how silliness can shine through the grind. Give into laughter when you’re exhausted rather than hold emotions in. The original intention was for “the song to be really sweet, but have this underlying darkness,” which represents “how anxiety seems to work,” Quinn said. Amongst the euphoric moments, “there’s constantly that sort of devil on your shoulder,” one that can overtake you. The dark companion to the joyful and buoyant “God Loves Weirdos” is one minute of intensity with the driving, distorted “Scared I’m Gonna F*** You Up,” which juxtaposes “something really sweet against something really frenetic.”
“You have these great moments, but in the back of your mind, there’s always this part of you that can’t be present because you’re worried more about maintaining a good thing than just enjoying it while it’s there,” Quinn elaborated.
The importance of living in the moment comes into even more clarity with the following track, “Lucy,” prompted by an encounter with an old friend after the band played a sold-out show at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. The friend had been recently diagnosed with multiple brain tumors and the prognosis was uncertain. Mt. Joy was riding high, having just played “The World’s Most Famous Arena,” but in an instant, Quinn and Co. were faced with the short, fragility of life. Inspired, he wrote “Lucy” in tribute, opening with “I wanna live like Lucy died, living my life wire to wire,” recounting her dancing, skydiving and drinking cheap champagne. (The good news is that she’s still alive today and accessing the treatments she needs.)
“Hope We Have Fun” documents it all — from “rare moments of peace” to “crazy, high-energy moments,” Quinn said. Life on the road can be stressful. It can also be funny.
“I hope every band makes as many jokes as we do on the road, and it sort of becomes that summer camp vibe,” he said. “I think there’s every emotion. And if our goal was to sort of soak up the last couple years of Mt. Joy and project it into the world, I think it has that roller coaster that I think the record has.”
Bringing the fun for both the band and the audience is something that’s reflected in the playful transitions heard on their 2024 release, “Live at The Salt Shed.” Featuring snippets of iconic songs like Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You,” the Grateful Dead’s “Casey Jones,” Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,” The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” and The Velvet Underground’s “Oh! Sweet Nuthin’,” the album shows that Mt. Joy likes to jam.
“We have great players in our band… so how do you get the best out of a Mt. Joy show?” Quinn said. “Over time, we’ve all gotten better at playing with each other and improvising,” which allows the whole band to shine.
“The spontaneity of it… keeps you fresh throughout a year of playing music every night. It really is difficult six weeks into a tour to play the same exact thing over and over and over again,” he said. “Each year as we grow, we challenge ourselves to push it in different directions, as much as makes sense, and I think it ends up being a band that jams.”
Over the course of Mt. Joy’s career, the band has certainly succeeded in connecting with music fans, while growing musically. The group made a big splash early on with “Silver Lining,” the single from the band’s 2018 self-titled debut album, which became a No. 1 hit at adult alternative radio. On the two subsequent studio albums, “Rearrange Us” and “Orange Blood,” Mt. Joy broadened its sound beyond the folk roots of “Silver Lining” that prompted many comparisons to the Lumineers, a process that continues with “Hope We Have Fun.”
“We’re so lucky to be able to do what we do, and there’s such a pull as you gain notoriety or success to add a level of seriousness to it,” Quinn said, but “the moment that you take yourself seriously, or allow yourself to be sort of self-important in any way, is the moment that the real power of art and connection with people starts to degrade.
“I still don’t think you should ever forget that music is fun and should be approached with that sort of weirdness and always trying to make sure you’re not taking yourself too seriously,” he said.
Here’s to having fun.
Mt Joy 2026: Celebrating 10 Years
Sat., Aug 29 at 7:30pm
Hayden Homes Amphitheater
344 SW Shevlin Hixon Dr., Bend
$73-$219
This article appears in the Source August 6, 2026.
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