The Backstory: PANIK FLOWER

Introduction

PANIK FLOWER‘s new ep rearview has a swirling mix of dreamy guitars and urgent rhythms that hooked me right away. I was drawn in by the NYC dreamgazers’ balance of ethereal beauty with a jagged edge, a dynamic that defines their sound, released on April 30, 2025.

The band’s Backstory dives into the ingredients and inspiration behind rearview, revealing the band’s creative catalysts and the personal moments that shaped its six tracks. From Sage Leopold’s meditative walks to Jordan Buzzell’s obsession with a guitar chord dubbed “the claw,” each member of PANIK FLOWER shares what fueled their most introspective project yet, offering a glimpse into the push-pull of identity and sound that makes this EP so captivating.

Long Walks

I find that a lot of the best lyrical ideas come to me when I’m on walks. There’s something about the rhythm of walking that becomes super meditative for me and sparks a lot of creativity. I find it easy to get distracted when I’m too hyper focused on writing and will find any excuse not to sit down with my own thoughts. While writing this EP, Marco’s original instrumental demos served as the soundtrack to countless neighborhood walks where I would listen to the songs over and over again until I found the words I was trying to say.

---

Mental breakdowns :p

In the middle of writing this EP, I went through a very intense period of emotional distress which is largely what informed the lyrical content of the project. It was the first time that I was really able to hold a mirror up to myself and my experiences to understand what has shaped me as a person and move forward in a positive way.

Grady’s cold brew

We had quite a few late-night writing sessions for this EP. I drink about three cups of cold brew on a regular day, but there were definitely some post-work practices that required a good 5pm pick-me-up (maybe that explains why the rearview outro is 4 min long). For people that drink coffee, this is the best cold brew in the game.

---

Kim Gordon’s Hungry Baby video

Sage and I are obsessed with this music video—the single shot take that starts at 1:08, the dancing, Kim Gordon casting her daughter. Musical inspiration aside, this was a major visual inspiration for us when working on the ocd and rearview music videos. Not to mention every Sonic Youth album cover ever being on our EP cover moodboard.

Listening to each other <3

PANIK FLOWER is loud – super energetic, angry, and fun. Although we love shoegaze, I think one of the major developments to our sound as a band has been reigning in our wall of sound moments. Things are still heavy, but there’s always a distinct piece that breaks through in each song for people to grab on to. It’s given so much space for our personalities to come through our individual instruments; Jordan has these sick textures he makes with his enormous pedal board, Marco has such surprising drum hits that are still so technical, which contrasts with some of Mila’s clean, lazy guitar riffs so nicely. I love timing little hits on the bass to line up with Sage’s rhythmic spoken word parts – all of it has involved us getting closer as friends and bandmates and listening to each other much closer.

---

Survivor

A formative moment that always sticks in my mind is our last night in Austin for SXSW 2024. Touring was still new for us, and it was the first time we had spent so much time in such lockstep with one another. Instead of getting sick of each other, we ended up falling asleep gathered around a TV watching Survivor because we were so sad to leave each other.

I can’t say the show had any direct influence on the creative direction of this project, but bonding in that way did coincide with a new creative closeness that really helped get this EP over the line. Thank you @jeffprobst!

Wednesday’s Rat Saw God

This album had a huge impact on us, and in my opinion influenced some creative decisions we made not only with the songwriting process but how we structured the EP.

I would characterize this album as fearless and uncompromising, with a big factor being the decision to place the eight and a half minute BANGER “Bull Believer” second in the track order. That fearlessness definitely rubbed off on us and influenced how we and our lovely producer, James Duncan, structured our EP rearview.

Beyond the album’s structure, their sonic dichotomy of fuzz and delicateness is a huge influence for our songwriting process. We similarly strive for that spectrum of dynamics! Huge shoutout to Wednesday, thank you for this masterpiece of an album!

---

THE CLAWWW

Hear me out! This is a guitar chord that I was exposed to through jamming with the band and our friends (shoutout Sean). I call it “the claw” because you stretch your hand pretty far over the guitar fretboard to make it work (at least in the messed up way I like to do it). I’m not classically trained in music theory, I just heard it and thought it sounded cool. Once I learned more about it, I found out it’s been used in many styles of music, mainly because it is neither major or minor, neither happy or sad, and allows the listener to imbue their own meaning into it given the context of the song.

It sounds particularly good in shoegaze music because when you run it through aggressive amounts of fuzz and distortion, the suspense and unresolved nature of the chord is amplified (artists like My Bloody Valentine and Deftones have been using these chords for years). I’ve been able to sneak this one into most of the tracks on the new EP, and it has unlocked a lot of creative pathways for me. I also like it because it leaves a lot of melodic room for Sage, Mila, and Max!

Joy Division – Leaders Of Men (Performance From “Control”)

Last fall I watched the movie Control about Joy Division. There’s one scene I’ll never forget in which the actor playing Stephen Morris is drumming with this incredible intensity. Stephen Morris’ drum parts are simple and direct and he plays them with the precision of a drum machine, which made me want to be a human drum machine too. I put some of that energy into the EP (especially ocd).