Ripe remembers sweating to hell in a basement underneath a Subway sandwich shop, buildingtheir very first songs in a concrete cube that smelled like fresh bread. They remember sellingtheir first tickets by hand outside the coffee shop that their friends worked at, holding court liketwenty-something impresarios trying to move like 50 tickets to a bar that was willing to let youkeep the ticket sales if they kept the bar. In a world where we constantly feel the loving pressure to "tell our story", where so many of ourfriends that have found success as artists have done it alone, Ripe is using their bio to tell youthat at the center of everything is collaboration and community, a friendship that has become abond as strong as family, a constantly spinning object that cannot be properly captured by anysingle still photograph. This moment, the two songs already out and the new songs coming, catches the band in amoment of intense joyous swelling energy. Working in dream studios, in a city they spent yearstrying to take a proper chance on, with a producer that had made albums we loved in ourformative years, alongside the closest musical relations we've formed. This is our love letter tocomplicated nostalgia, to relentless empowering change, to realizing that making dreams cometrue (just like a crisis) only fully makes sense when it is shared. Joy in the wild unknown let us tell you who we were. Bright blues had us ripped apart so wecould start again. What comes next is the band swinging for the fences, all in at the table,risking everything for a shot at feeling connected to you. Thank you for being here.