Seattle’s funky neo-soul septet HARD MAYBE announces the release of their new album “More of the Usual Stuff” arriving on September 10th, 2025. Featuring 11 elegantly executed tracks, the album is the band’s highly anticipated full-length debut, serving as a follow up to their widely celebrated Motus EP.
Written over the last few years, “More of the Usual Stuff” explores highs and lows of falling in love and falling out of love, facing anxiety and finding joy. Lead singer and keyboardist Monica Parshotam shares that many of the songs come from a place of personal experience:
“The album covers a lot of emotions, from pain and heartache and confusion and anxiety to questioning yourself and the journey of trying to come out on the other side. A lot of it is that personal battle with yourself and wondering like, “How do I do this?” or “What is happening and what am I feeling?” The album explores a lot of the complexities of those situations.”
For Parshotam, writing music is often a way for her to process something she’s going through, something that has happened, or a way to build up confidence to make a change:
“A lot of times when I write songs, they’re almost like personal inner monologues. Like, I’m trying to tell myself, ‘You gotta do this’ and pump myself up. But it’s also in a hope of inspiring and lifting other people up to have those same conversations with themselves or with other people in their lives.”
While brainstorming names for the album, the band was drawn to the phrase “More of the Usual Stuff” and how it encompasses the inspiration behind many of the songs on the album, specifically the complexity of the mundane situations that most people experience at some point in their lives. Whether it’s breakups, the magnetic pull of self-isolation, or finding the courage to be unapologetically yourself, Parshotam says the album travels through a broad spectrum of emotions:
“I feel like the phrase ‘More of the Usual Stuff’ encompasses all of that. It’s about the human condition. It’s about the nuance of feelings and experience. It’s about relating to others. It’s about things that we’ve observed, observed in our communities, or personally in our relationships and in ourselves.”
Lead singer and bassist Troy Bohman shares that for him the phrase “More of the Usual Stuff” also is indicative of just how many different elements and emotions are at play in Hard Maybe’s sound and music:
It’s kind of satirical, you know? We’re kind of an unusual band. We’ve got a wide swath of things that we cover, musically and lyrically.”
The album opens with an intimate and sparse sound with the start of the first track “Palace,” which launches into the band’s signature neo-soul concoction featuring three-part vocal harmony punctuated by horns. The tracks that follow showcase a diverse soundscape influenced by funk, hip-hop and R&B.
Hard Maybe also brought in special guests from Seattle’s robust musical underground – Jason Cressey, a staple of the city’s funk scene performing trombone on “James Robinson” and from the local hip-hop scene, Nathan Nzanga is featured on the track “Turbulence.”
Within it all, Bohman says there’s a common thread in the lead singers’ songwriting styles that ties everything together:
“Monica and I, to a certain extent, kind of have more of a folky songwriter style. That’s sort of what’s in our bones, that’s how we started when we were younger.
That background gets a spotlight at the album’s close, with the reflective acoustic performance of “drop a coin.”
Hailing from Seattle, HARD MAYBE is a genre-bending neo soul/funk band with a sound described as a “fusion style completely their own.” Fronted by the band’s main songwriters – singer/keyboardist Monica Parshotam and singer/bassist Troy Bohman, Hard Maybe’s sound is difficult to pin down. Featuring three-part harmonies punctuated by horns, they seamlessly blend ingredients from back-beat driven funk, jazz, soul, and more to create an effortlessly cohesive and rich sound.
Hard Maybe seeks to inspire listeners with a sense of relatability in their music. The lives and identities of the band are woven throughout their songwriting, deriving from their own experiences navigating mental health struggles, harnessing neurodivergence, celebrating queerness, and embracing the awkward. By reflecting the ups and downs of life through song, Hard Maybe invites listeners on a journey to find joy, solidarity, and the courage to be unapologetically themselves.
Formed in 2017 in Bellingham, WA, the members met through various projects to eventually form their unique neo soul concoction. Hard Maybe has performed at several of the Pacific Northwest’s biggest events including Capitol Hill Block Party, Bite of Seattle, Northwest Folklife Festival, and Bellingham Exit.
HARD MAYBE are:
Monica Parshotam – piano, rhodes, organ, vocals
Troy Bohman – bass, vocals
Alex Roemmele – drums, percussion
Rebekah Way – alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, flute
Daniel Lombard – trumpet
Sam Jaeger – guitar
Jeanie Marinella – vocals
Featuring guest appearances by:
Jason Cressey – trombone on track 3
Nathan Nzanga – vocals on tracks 5, 7, 9 & 10
HARD MAYBE recorded the majority of “More of the Usual Stuff” at their home studio and rehearsal space in Kenmore, WA that they recently dubbed “The Palace.” The band experimented with recording in different locations throughout the home. Some instruments were recorded in the living room, others in bedrooms and some even were recorded in the garage. Additional recording was done at Mysterious Red X studios and Seattle Jazz Academy in Seattle, WA. The album was entirely self-produced with HARD MAYBE’s drummer Alex Roemmele as the engineer, producer, and mixing engineer for the project.
Fans will be familiar with a handful of the tracks on the album as songs that have been staples of Hard Maybe’s live sets. But some of the songs will be brand new. “I’m really excited to finally be able to give them not only these new songs but also these tunes that they’ve been hearing for years now and that we’ve been playing for so long. It feels really good to finally be able to release that out to the world,” Parshotam says.
Visit HARD MAYBE online:
Website: https://www.hardmaybe.band
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hardmaybemusic
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hardmaybemusic
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/hardmaybemusic
Bandcamp: https://hardmaybe.bandcamp.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/HardMaybeformerlyMotus
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/hard-maybe/1638834332
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5tT0eDbA9SicXktXurkBzN?si=3odtaeoESLGnW3qO3Av69w
Add Comment