INTERVIEW: On its new EP, Plush finds the ‘Beautiful’ in life
Photo: Plush features, from left, lead guitarist Bella Perron, lead singer Moriah Formica, drummer Faith Powell and bassist Ashley Suppa. Photo courtesy of the band / Provided by Pavement Entertainment with permission.
Plush, one of the best up-and-coming rock bands on the scene, are preparing for a memorable 2024. They are currently touring with Disturbed and Falling in Reverse on an expansive outing that takes them around the United States, and later this spring they have lined up some headlining gigs, including one at the Debonair Music Hall in Teaneck, New Jersey.
The band is fronted by singer, songwriter and guitarist Moriah Formica, who is joined by lead guitarist Bella Perron, bassist Ashley Suppa and drummer Faith Powell, according to press notes. To celebrate their time on the road with Disturbed and Falling in Reverse, they recently released a new EP called Find the Beautiful, via Pavement Entertainment, which features six tunes, including the title track and a killer cover of Heart’s “Barracuda.”
“Find the Beautiful is our most recent EP,” Formica said in a recent phone interview. “Honestly, what people can expect I guess is a good mix of songs. For one thing, we did a cover of ‘Barracuda,’ which was really fun to do in a studio version. It was one of the first songs we learned as a band together. We had such a fun time playing it. It’s obviously an amazing song, and so we thought it would be cool to [have] a studio version on that EP. But also there are some new originals, which I’m very, very excited about. They are a little different from other Plush stuff, but nonetheless definitely rocking, definitely the driving guitars and stuff. And then there’s a couple newer-sounding stuff, like our latest single ‘Left Behind.'”
The members of Plush wanted to put something new out before this mega-tour, so that’s why fans are receiving an EP vs. an LP, but it seems like Formica is always writing. So new music is ready to go.
“I grew up listening to Disturbed, for sure,” Formica said about this opportunity. “It’s funny, I have memories of my older brother when he played football, probably when he was 12, and his team would run out to ‘Down With the Sickness.’ That was one of my first memories ever as a little, little kid, so it’s a pretty good moment I think to go out with them. They’re legendary.”
When opening for a group like Disturbed, Formica and her bandmates have a few goals in mind. They have limited time on stage, but their desire is to give the audience a taste of who they are. Hopefully some people in the audience will then look them up online and consider purchasing Find the Beautiful; perhaps some will purchase tickets for their headline shows. Other than that, Formica just wants the concertgoers to have a blast.
“We just want to give people a good time and hopefully get the energy up, but, of course, we want to show people a little bit about who we are as a band,” she said. “[But for our headline shows], we play much longer sets. We get to play things that we normally wouldn’t play in a lot of the opener sets where we only get maybe a half hour, which is a lot of fun, but I think it’s also a lot of fun to have the headlining sets where we’ll get more in-depth about things. Definitely people get to know us more. I can talk more to the crowd. There’s not too many time constraints to worry about. I definitely think the headlining stuff is definitely how you would experience Plush in its full form.”
Check out Hollywood Soapbox’s 2022 interview with Moriah Formica.
Inclusivity in the rock and metal scene are important to Formica and the band. They look to their predecessors — Heart, Evanescence, Halestorm, among others — as guiding lights on how to build a career in the industry. For Formica, it’s important that their message is received by their fans: Anyone can be a rockstar.
“It’s definitely something that’s incredibly important to us,” she said. “It’s so much better because of all the women in rock who’ve paved the way for us. I would say, for the most part, I feel pretty comfortable now. It definitely is a thing that I think is important to show young women and little girls and stuff. They certainly can do this, and it might look one way, but that doesn’t mean that it has to be that way. No one thing has to be just men, or no one thing has to be just women. … It really does mean a lot to us when we see young girls who just love rock, and they’re having so much fun at our shows. It really does mean a lot to us, and we hope that we’re that for young ladies, for sure. But I think also just the younger generation in general, I hope that we inspire them as well.”
In fact, Lzzy Hale, who fronts Halestorm, has been an influential and instrumental presence in Formica’s life. When Plush was first forming as a band, they put out a PSA for a guitar player, and because Hale reposted the announcement on social media, they were able to find Perron.
“The rest was history,” Formica said. “The chemistry was instant, and we just wanted to be a band and see where it went. It felt great.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Plush, fronted by Moriah Formica, is currently touring with Disturbed and Falling in Reverse. Their new EP is called Find the Beautiful, released via Pavement Entertainment. Click here for more information.
