Start Listening To: GARDENS
Discover how Vienna's GARDENS crafted their debut album Flaws and what it means to share their personal stories with the world.
Fresh off the release of their debut album Flaws, Vienna-based indie band GARDENS open up about the deeply personal nature of their music, the therapeutic process of songwriting, and the journey that led to their first full-length project. Flaws is a heartfelt exploration of mental health, youth, heartbreak, and the messy, beautiful in-betweens of growing up. In this exclusive Q&A, members Luca, Peter, Laura, and Patrick share insights into the emotional undercurrents of their work, the inspirations behind key tracks like "Shift" and how their collaborative sound developed organically without conforming to any single genre. They also reflect on the raw, honest approach to recording that made Flaws resonate with authenticity.
For those unfamiliar with your music, can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?
We’re GARDENS, an Indie Band from Vienna, Austria and we just released our first album called “Flaws” on November 1st.
Your debut album Flaws is finally out! What does it feel like to share this deeply personal project with the world?
Luca: It really feels crazy and I think I haven’t even really realized yet that we’ve accomplished this big milestone already and that the album is finally out! It really is extremely personal, especially for me, since a lot of my thoughts and my personal trauma and experiences are now out for the world to hear but it feels good. Maybe I can compare it somehow to sharing something that’s been on your mind so long with someone else, it feels kind of liberating.
Peter: It’s beautiful! I always hate stuff by the time it’s out but then when you play it live and see how many people truly connect with the music and the meanings and stories behind songs it becomes obvious that we are giving something for people to feel understood or even at home. And that’s giving back so much joy!
"Shift" has a driving, restless energy that feels very therapeutic. Can you tell us more about what inspired this track and the emotional journey behind it?
Luca: When I was younger I loved someone who kept telling me that things could always be worse, no matter how big my pain or my annoyance about something was. I remember getting so angry at him for always making me feel like my feelings weren’t valid enough since of course there were always people who felt even worse but that didn’t lessen my pain. I still get angry at that sentence from time to time when I think about handling situations and feeling the feelings now and I wrote Shift thinking about my younger self with compassion for all the hurt that a teenage body holds.
Naming your album Flaws seems like a bold statement. What does the title represent to you, and how does it set the tone for the album?
Luca: To me the title Flaws made sense since it is kind of the collection of my coming of age and living through all of my flaws, getting to know them, sitting with them and also somehow accepting them. Everybody’s flawed and although the songs are my individual stories, they’re also about themes that most teenagers/young grown ups deal with like mental health struggles, heartbreak, love, trauma and just all the beautiful and scary in-betweens.
Peter: I think it's a powerful way to introduce yourself to the world, offering so much insight into your errors, imperfections and past. Knowing someone's flaws means looking behind their facade. That’s what we all look for in the end, isn’t it? It’s also how we approached recording the album, leaving space for fragile segments that are not aiming for perfection.
You've mentioned that songwriting for you, Luca, is like a form of therapy. How did writing these songs help you process your experiences?
Luca: It’s kind of the same as when people tell you to write things down to get them out of your head. I don’t sit down and think I’m going to write about this or that, but sometimes I guess something needs to get onto paper to not get stuck in my head and writing songs conserves these experiences in a very satisfying and natural way to me.
Your sound combines dream-pop, 60s psych-folk, and indie pop. How did you arrive at this blend of styles, and what influences shaped Gardens’ sound?
Laura: Our music fits into all these genres, It’s also what we listen to.. But we never actively tried to fit a certain genre. It’s just a mix of what all of us bring to the table I guess. But I think each one of us has this love for 60s music so it’s definitely not a surprise that you can hear that in our music as well.
Patrick: Our music expresses itself rather through various facets of emotions, than a typical style of genre. We actually never talked about how we want to sound like, and so we never tried to fit into a certain box. Flaws is a very diverse piece of music that just became what it is, a full range of unfiltered emotions, expressed through music.
Flaws explores mental health, youth, and heartbreak. How did you approach these personal topics in your lyrics, and did any particular experiences inform them?
Luca: As I mentioned before I never know what topic I’ll write about next, it just sort of comes to me and once I’ve written one line most of the time it just flows. So of course there are very personal and very real experiences hidden behind all of the lyrics on this album. I sometimes don’t know what I wrote about until the song is finished but then it all makes sense and I can connect it really clearly to exact moments and feelings in my past. There are a lot of metaphors, as well as really detailed descriptions of my experiences.
There’s a beautiful warmth in your arrangements, even when exploring darker themes. How do you balance light and dark elements in your music?
Laura: The songs are about processing difficult times and emotions, which of course automatically entail darker themes. In some songs we counter this heaviness with bright melodies and sounds to highlight overcoming these times and feeling better and stronger. So maybe you could say the darker themes represent the past and times that were mentally draining, and the brighter themes bring in this optimistic prospect for the present and future. I personally find it really interesting to work with both themes simultaneously.
Peter: There is a weird comfort in sadness, especially when it’s living in music. At the same time overwhelming joy can feel sad at its core as well. It’s like Ying Yang or looking at the USA and Russia on a map. They seem on opposite ends but in reality they are right next to each other.
As a dream-pop band, your sound naturally carries a lot of atmosphere. What role does production play in shaping the textures and moods on Flaws?
Peter: We are used to rehearsing with headphones in my small studio space. Everything is miced up and dry as dirt since the room itself is pretty much dead. To make up for that I imagine we lean towards adding atmosphere. I like to use lots of amp spring reverb and delay pedals. So therefore we suddenly sounded pretty big in the album production as we added stuff. I am a fan of sending vocals and synths through guitar delay pedals (Shift is a great example for that) or spring tank reverbs, which I used on vocals on almost all songs (heavily on Youth).
Patrick: haha yeah, we all love Reverb. We just can’t get enough of it.
You’ve got a European tour coming up! What are you most excited about sharing from Flaws with fans on stage?
Laura: I am very excited to listen to Luca sing Seasons everyday, because I cry everytime. Luca: haha aww! I’m excited for all of it, really, I can’t wait!
Patrick: Once in a while, we sneak in some neat covers as well, which catch our listeners completely off guard!
What do you love right now?
Luca: my new big fluffy pillow
Peter: getting up early, cooking food, and the thought of going on tour soon yay
Patrick: my fluffy dog and exploring nature with her
What do you hate right now?
Luca: bell pepper (always)
Peter: Donald Trump, Elon Musk and war in Europe, also loud cars (who the fuck needs them?!)
Luca: ditto on all that!!!!
Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s still important to you?
Luca: Let’s Get Out Of This Country - Camera Obscura, I remember sitting in the backseat of the car and my dad putting this on and it just made me feel something different, I’m still in love with the warmth this album makes me feel.
Peter: Cat Stevens - Mona Bone Jakon. Great songwriting and beautiful raw performance! I have to sing along to every single track. My dad played it alot when I was young.
Now that you’ve completed your debut, how has this experience shaped your vision for GARDENS moving forward?
Laura: All the great feedback we got made us a lot more confident and motivated us even more to keep going. Luca is already writing new songs and I am very excited to hear them and work on them together. Luca: Yes! We’re so excited to just keep on doing what we love and see what happens!
Peter: We put ourselves under a lot of pressure when we decided to record all core tracks of the album within a few studio days. That way we learned a lot about what we can do and what not (yet hehe). Playing together as a band will always be important to us. We are natural players and need the emotion of the moment. That’s a valuable thing to have in a band and that’s a skill we want to continue to nurture.
Patrick: As Peter mentioned, the recording of our last album happened in a very direct and puristic way. It’s what shaped its sound and made its name Flaws even more meaningful down the end. Going forward, I think we will surely experiment with certain approaches to production, but our talent lies within our direct and honest expression of music, and that's something we want to keep going forward.
