hometown: Dallas, TX
current town: Dallas / Nashville / NYC
music icons: Radiohead / Cage The Elephant / Phoenix
favorite food: Sushi and Grilling
bio:
Upon first listen to Self Titled, the Hollywood Records debut from Dallas alt-pop trio little image, you’ll probably find yourself asking, “With songs this well-constructed, how have I not heard of this band before?” That’s primarily by design, says drummer Troy Bruner.

“We’ve been playing music together for eight years, but it doesn’t look like we’ve been a band for eight years, and there’s a reason for that,” he explains. “This is the beginning.”

Throughout that near-decade, little image morphed from a group of perpetually online suburban teens who were obsessed with underground indie rock and had no idea what they wanted to be into the tight-knit outfit you see today. (Along the way, Bruner toured with platinum-selling act Judah & The Lion.) While many young artists had their careers derailed in 2020 due to COVID, it actually managed to save little image, which was gearing up to announce itself to the world without realizing the members needed more time for reflection.

“It was a blessing in disguise,” Bruner says of lockdown. “We were about to jump into something we didn’t exactly have figured out.”

”More than half the record came out of that downtime,” frontman Jackson Simmons elaborates. “We got to hone in on some ideas. To be able to sit with them was really good.”

That extra time allowed the members of little image to fully expand on the promise of their early singles “WORTH IT” and “EGO,” exploring different ways to create a pop-rock song beyond the basic guitar/bass/drums template. This new burst of creativity led to a partnership with producer Chad Copelin, whose CV includes such sonically diverse artists as Third Eye Blind, Sufjan Stevens and 5 Seconds Of Summer. Simmons credits Copelin with creating a warm, nurturing studio environment that allowed each member to explore their influences.

The result, Self Titled, is more than just a collection of 13 songs — it’s an actual album, deliberately sequenced to tell a story of self-doubt, self-reflection and eventually, self-love. But while the album is a document of its three members’ lives to this point, little image hopes to use it to connect with people across the globe.

“Something we talk about a lot is if little image could be anything, it would be a world people could live in,” comments bassist Brandon Walters. “It’s very important to us to create a world where someone can have a safe place to question things and not know the right answers and not have it all figured out.”

“It starts with the three of us,” Bruner continues. “We’re all best friends. If we can start there, which is how we love each other, that expands and a culture is created. At the end of the day, we make all of this so someone can go to a show and be impacted — socially, mentally, spiritually. We want to give them an opportunity to step into something bigger than them.”

Of course, all of this is moot unless you have the songs to back it up, Luckily, little image don’t lack in memorable moments: From the funky hip-hop groove of “BALLET” to the electro-dance break in “WORTH IT” to the acoustic softness of “MAKEUP,” Self Titled sonically delivers the goods. The M83-esque indie-dance number “LUNGS BURN” is a diamond in a sea of gems; the double-meaning lyrics of “OUT OF MY MIND,” a love song which Simmons describes as being about both their individual partners as well as their relationship as a band, has the potential to speak to millions of people. Then there’s the more guitar-oriented vibe of “BLUE,” a song spawned out of the past few years of political strife in America, described by Bruner as “a very special song to all of us.”

“What inspired ‘BLUE’ is that sometimes in our culture, things can be very, very loud and you can hear a lot of opinions,” Simmons begins. “We love to hear all kinds of sides, but instead of screaming and yelling, we take a back seat and just listen and try to find the voice of reason. I think if a lot of people would take that approach more often, there would be a lot less chaos going on. I respect the passion and the rebellion in some aspects of things, but sometimes you have to take a step back and say, ‘Let me learn from you.’”

This level of self-reflection is a rarity in music these days, and is a testament to the work little image’s members do on themselves. (Therapy and journaling are among the topics that get brought up freely in conversation between the trio.) It’s part of what makes Bruner’s big-picture goal for little image so delightful.

“When bands headline Red Rocks in Colorado, they write their name backstage,” explains Troy. “This was probably not the right thing to do, karmically speaking, but when I played there with Judah & The Lion in 2019, I wrote half of our name — ‘little’ — and took a picture of where it was, so when we headline Red Rocks, we finish it off together.”

Together. If there’s a single word that can sum up little image — from their music to their mindset — that’s it.