“I’ve been drumming since I left the womb,” Lutalo Jones tells me over the phone (we meant to video chat but the sound didn’t work on my end-- a really professional start to my interviewing career). He’s in Good Luck Finding Iris, a chamber pop band from Minnesota that’s about to celebrate its first year together. He met Michaela Stein, vocalist, and Patrick Hintz, guitarist, at McNally Smith last summer. They hit it off immediately and Enzo Vinholi joined soon thereafter. His main instrument is piano, though he plays bass in the band.
Enzo explained to me that the name is a message to “lovers, hopers, and dreamers.” They all came up with the name after creating a sort of character, named Iris, who represents everything in life that someone might want, whether it be something tangible or emotional. “I’m a lover,” said Enzo. For him, ‘Iris’ means being in a relationship with someone he truly loves and spending their lives together. For Lutalo, Iris is more difficult to pin down. He wants comfort and love, sure, but he also wants to figure out what Iris is. Whatever Iris ends up being, Lutalo wants to make something that will live on after he’s gone. Like the flower for which it was named, Patrick’s perception of Iris is growth. He wants to make something that will continue to get bigger and more beautiful. He wants to leave an impact on the world through his art, he wants success and recognition. Michaela considered the question the longest, then told me that what she wants in life is happiness. Being able to define happiness despite its fluctuations and changes is something that she thinks about a lot, especially in relation to how a person’s outlook can shape their world. She also mentioned the value she places on bravery, especially using bravery to go after the causes she believes in.
As a group, Good Luck Finding Iris believes many things. They believe in the importance of writing truth in their lyrics, in capturing ephemeral beauty, and in enticing their audience to come up with their own meanings for Iris. Patrick also stressed that they believe in figuring things out, but that they’re “just as lost as anyone else”. He referred to himself and his bandmates as “just a bunch of idiots,” which might seem mean if you didn’t know how close they all are, like family. Lutalo agreed that they don’t spend all their time philosophizing, saying that they like to have fun, hang out, and live in the moment.
Their first EP, which they plan to record with Subaquatic Records, will be released later this year. Color Me, a single, came out in May. The song is about a lot of the things that are on the minds of high schoolers: change, growth, and self-awareness. Patrick also said that the meaning largely lies in how the audience wants to interpret it. The music video was filmed and edited by Michaela, though you’d think from watching it that someone much older and more experienced had made it. She says that the concept came from the location where it was filmed, and that the masked people demonstrate a lack of direction and purpose. Her biggest fear is that she doesn’t do something meaningful with her life.
What makes something meaningful? We don’t know yet, but my Iris is to find out.