Throughout life, we make a series of promises, pledges, and pacts. They manifest in different forms, whether it be on paper, as a ring, or through consistently showing up. Jim and Sam cement their commitment to one another in music. The Los Angeles-based husband-and-wife duo congregate around wistful harmonies, intimate lyrics, and unshakable melodies. After amassing millions of streams, packing shows, and co-starring, co-producing, and co-directing the award-winning documentary After So Many Days, they uphold the ultimate vow on their 2022 EP, Space For The Stranger [Nettwerk].

“This EP is a testament to each other,” affirms Sam. “It’s a contract of, ‘No matter what, we are still going to show up for each other.’ We’re here, and we’re doing this.”

They’ve been here since 2015. Between touring internationally, the group have enchanted audiences with a series of fan favorite releases, including the This Is What’s Left EP [2017] and Yeah Whatever Young Forever EP [2018]. The latter boasted “Doctor Please,” which generated over 2.2 million Spotify streams and counting. Along the way, they shot After So Many Days. It chronicled a year straight where the pair performed one show per day for 365 days. Emerging as a film festival phenomenon, it took home “Best Music Documentary” at Nashville Film Festival 2020, "Audience Award” at Hell's Half Mile Film & Music Festival 2019, "Special Jury Award" at DeadCenter FF 2020, and was an "Official Selection" at over 30 film festivals including Michael Moore's Traverse City FF 2019. Slashfilm proclaimed, “I need inspiration, you need inspiration, and there looks to be plenty to go around here.” As the world shut down due to the Global Pandemic, Jim and Sam continued writing.

Around the same time, they found out Sam was pregnant.

“The songs came from having the time to sit with our thoughts, each other, and the big life change that was about to happen to us,” muses Jim. “We’ve always been driven by playing live and connecting with people face-to-face. These songs were born out of a need to figure out a way to keep the ship sailing when there was no wind in sight.”

As they prolifically wrote, they prepared for the biggest change in their lives. The birth of their daughter even inspired the title.

“Before she was born, we could call her ‘Stranger’,” smiles Sam. “We were literally creating space for her. We were making all of this room in our life for a person we hadn’t met yet. Her room used to be our studio, but we turned it into a nursery. The boiler room became the new studio, and that’s where we recorded the EP.”

They introduce Space For The Stranger with the single “Harley Davidson.” Delicate vocals glide over faint acoustic guitar as harmonies hum like an engine.

“It was written after the second week of being home with the baby,” recalls Jim. “She wasn’t sleeping, and we weren’t either. We live a block from Ocean Park Blvd. For some reason, motorcycles and drag racers love it. Now, we’re isolated at home waking up to a baby and hearing motorcycles in the distance.”

“In a way, it was a reminder of this life on the road we couldn’t be living in the moment,” adds Sam. “We didn’t have the same freedom.”

Meanwhile, the title track pairs soft delivery with sparse chords from an old upright piano punctuated by swells of horns and strings. It captures the butterflies of the impending arrival of their daughter.

“We’d toured over 20 countries, and the fabric of our relationship was so connected to being in these crazy places,” observes Jim. “All of a sudden, we’re getting ready to share and open this space for the baby. This idea drove the song.”

Then, there’s “Rusted Sign.” Sam’s soulful delivery rings out over an upbeat groove punctuated by dusty acoustic guitar. It builds towards a confession on the chorus, “Every mile I go disappears with the road that feeling I used to know, but I’m still hoping to find beyond these dashboard lights even one rusted sign...and I’ll be fine.”

“You spend your whole life on this path, and you think you know what you want,” she says. “After a while, you’re not getting the same feeling you did when you started. These feelings were heightened during the last two years. I put it out there, ‘I need a sign to tell me to keep going on this path’.”

“House On Fire” weaves together delicate instrumentation with evocative vocals, glowing like embers of raw emotion. Sam elaborates, “After our daughter was born, we were insanely fragile and had no one but each other to lean on. Hours would turn into weeks that looked and felt the same filled with intense emotional swings. After spending so much time intertwined with people and connecting with them through music in what felt like our only purpose for so many years, it was a very jarring shift. This song is us saying to each other, ‘Your darkness is my darkness, and we will get through this together, ‘before it all burns down.’”

In the end, Jim and Sam lean on each other and encourage listeners to lean on them.

“These songs got us through a crazy transitional time,” she concludes. “I hope they speak to you when you need them.”

“We wanted to give people permission to feel whatever they’re feeling and share it with someone else hopefully,” Jim leaves off. “Each song stemmed from something Sam or I felt. Having a partner who can empathize with what I’m going through is the greatest reason to constantly turn back to music.”