The Fort Wayne, Indiana-based rock trio The Namby Pamby are stepping into their own on their sophomore album “The Birds Aren’t Migrating Like They’re Supposed To,” released Feb. 28. The record is a tender and carefully crafted exploration of loneliness, longing, the nature of change and pleading to be understood. This casual yet heartfelt vulnerability is carried aloft by dreamy vocals and a rich, timeless soundscape.
It’s a softer entry and an evolution from their indie rock beginnings toward a more folk-grounded, jazz-infused sound that feels distinct and innovative. Now two years from their first release in 2023, “Marketplace,” the band is grateful for the community that embraced their debut, but feel that this album represents who they are now.
“We were young, and we were excited and we just pushed work out that was really great, but we’ve changed a lot since then,” Payton Knerr, the band’s drummer, said.
The band grew from sisters McKenna and Emily Parks and their close friend Knerr. The intimacy and connection the three women share informs the record’s personal and introspective look into experiences of love, loss and womanhood.
They had been playing as a band for over a year when they first started recording “Birds,” and had also been living together.
“We really were able to get to know each other as people, but also really dial in the sound and what The Namby Pamby wanted to portray in the music,” McKenna said. “It definitely felt like an album that needed to be written.”
The band said they were nervous to step away from the indie-rock sound that their fans initially fell in love with, but that the response to their new sound had been overwhelmingly positive. Having put out “Marketplace” and established an audience, they were able to spend more time on “Birds,” which McKenna said, “defines who we are today as women and as a band.”
“With ‘Marketplace,’ we were just so naive and wanted to do it with such eagerness, and there was something beautiful about that,” Emily said. “I think that’s why people appreciated it and helped us in those first few moments of being a band.”
The album’s sound is heavily influenced by classic folk music, with rich lyrical imagery and western sounds of nylon strings and steel guitar as well as jazz elements. Mckenna said she especially wanted to implement fingerpicking in the album’s dreamy western-inspired soundscape.
McKenna is the band’s chief songwriter and said that the songwriting process was often a mysterious one, tapping into a place that even she sometimes doesn’t quite understand.
“When I sit down and play the guitar, I'm not even planning on writing a song per se,” she said. “I don’t even realize that my body is trying to say something until I’m mumbling and it’s coming out my mouth. If you ask me what this was about, I couldn’t tell you. It takes listening multiple times to figure out where that came from.”
“Birds” also takes from the folk tradition through collaboration with the band’s artistic community. The band worked with Kyle Morris, who played the steel guitar on their previous album, Ed Runs, a saxophonist from Fort Wayne and Peter Kopenstein who accompanied the tracks “Rhodes” and “Misconstrued.”
“These are our friends, and they’ve poured into us and, how can we give them space in this piece of work that means so much to us,” Knerr said.
The Namby Pamby will hit the road on their “The Girls are Migrating Tour” beginning April 11. The tour’s first stop is at The Brass Rail in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and will play until May. They will make a stop in Bloomington returning to The Bishop Bar on April 20 with local band Prairie Scout to open.
While the band described themselves as homebodies, they said they were looking forward to sharing their new album with live audiences and that it felt like only the beginning.
“We hope to keep doing it for a while,” McKenna said, “I'm just so glad that people are enjoying it and like what they hear.”
