2019 Tiny Desk Contest Entry - Drowsy Driver

It’s that time of year again! Tiny Desk season is upon us which means thousands of independent musicians from all around the world create video entries in hopes of getting to play a coveted Tiny Desk Concert at NPR’s office in Washington, DC.

This year, we are throwing our hat into the ring with a brand new song called “Drowsy Driver.” We’re so proud of this song which has taken us almost two years to complete. The idea started when Rachel saw a road sign in Salt Lake City, UT that read “Don’t be a drowsy driver - pull over” and thought it would make for a good song. On tour, there are many days where Rachel drives for 8-10 hours straight, so she is often a drowsy driver. A strange thing happens when you drive for that long, which is you start to hallucinate a bit - common things on the road start to resemble other things. So she compiled this ongoing list of images and just kept adding to it for nearly two years.

Meanwhile, Thu was playing around with this guitar line that was based around a clawhammer technique (to see an amazing example of this technique, check out this video of Molly Tuttle). Eventually, we put all of this together and “Drowsy Driver” was born. The song is told from the perspective of the road, presenting these various images to the drowsy drivers as small gifts of encouragement, watching over them, and gently guiding them all safely to their destination.

We hope you love this song as much as we do, and if you do, please give it a like and a share! And wish us luck for the Tiny Desk Contest this year!