Interview: The Krickets Bring Lessons in Love To “If You Only Knew”

The Krickets Bring Lessons in Love To If You Only Knew

The Krickets are an all-female Americana group consisting of three songwriters who collaborate on this special project, which was originally founded around a charitable event for Breast Cancer and still supports The Cricket Fund who provide treatment for the uninsured. Their third full-length album incorporates an updated line-up of Lauren Springs, Emily Stuckey Sellers and Rachel Grubb, is titled If Only You Knew, and arrives on October 30, 2025. If Only You Knew is loosely themed on the different forms of love we encounter in life, but also carries an undertone of experience and lessons learned. Those inner experiences of struggle, hardship, and meaningful revelations bubble to the surface in songs that showcase three different lead vocalists and plenty of powerful harmonies.

 

To track the album, The Krickets headed down to Muscle Shoals, the birthplace of their 2016 debut album, Spanish Moss Sirens, and worked at Sun Drop Sound. Their previous producer, Ben Tanner of The Alabama Shakes, played on the record, but his close colleague Austin Motlow handled production, also bringing in local talent to play on the record. I spoke with all three Krickets about the perspectives revealed on If Only You Knew, and the powerful sound with which it delivers truths from an internal emotional landscape.

Americana Highways: I got an early listen to the album, and I have to say, it’s really powerful, sonically and emotionally. Every single song has that power to it.

Lauren Springs: That’s so cool to hear.

AH: Was there a particular reason why “Right in Front of Me” was chosen as an early single? Does it represent the album for you?

Emily Stuckey: It kind of worked out that way, because that was the first one that we recorded, and we felt like the message behind it was a positive, loving message to start to introduce the album, because every song on the album was about love, pretty much. “Right in Front of Me” was kind of a sweet way to introduce all of them, I felt like, and the band, too. It made sense.

Lauren: I wholeheartedly agree. It was the first song that we recorded, and we were there for ten days, and maybe it was the song that we were all most familiar with, but Austin, our Producer, thought it had some of that first-recording magic about it. It does seem that way. It’s such a soft launch into the album, since it gets a little crazy in places! It was a precious, sweet way to start it.

 

AH: That’s interesting to hear because I’m often told that there was a particular song when recording an album that really established the particular feeling or tone, creating a direction that the artist then follows. When I listen to that song, and I think about the rest of that album, I felt like it worked well as an intro because there’s a kind of realization in that song, and you can almost see it as a starting point to pay more attention in life. The other songs are about the experiences being reflected upon more fully.

Emily: That’s awesome!

Lauren: It’s so fun to hear you talking about it. I think sometimes, when you get so close to a project, you just stop being able to see another perspective, so thank you for that.

AH: That song also kind of admits human limitation. We can be doing our best, but still make mistakes. It’s just something that needs to be changed.

Emily: Absolutely.

AH: There’s a humility to a lot of the songs that’s like that, asking, “How can I look at things from different angles here?”

Emily: It’s very honest!

Rachel Grubb: I think we’ve all been humbled. We all have families, and we’re all moms, and we’re not in our young 20s, imagining these relationships. This is us looking back on lots and lots of learning opportunities that we used for growth, or made mistakes in. This is us looking back at it and trying to get an honest assessment of either what we wish we had done, or the way that we feel now about it.

AH: Doing that all at once, in one album is intense! But at the same time, it takes the opportunity in life. You’ve had these experiences, so you have the perspective.

Rachel: Also, I will say, our writing wasn’t intentionally done, to embrace the theme of love. When we picked the songs that we enjoyed the most, that was the common theme, so there was a little bit of a discovery there.

AH: I know that you each have other musical projects that you work on, and this is a special project that you do together. Do you have a specific goal with your songs for this group that you should be very direct about your life experiences?

Lauren: I think that all of us have writing for a while, and I think, as you mature as a songwriter, though I certainly have a long way to go still to mature as a songwriter, you start to learn that it is the authenticity and the part where you take some accountability for your actions, that is the true story of love. These relationships that you’re describing have endured something to make it worthwhile, to make it special. You’ve loved somebody through something.

Those stories are the ones that you want to talk about. Also, not having a super “rainbows and puppies” perspective on everything helps. Love is not that, it’s anything but that. Yes, there is absolutely so much joy, and peace, and euphoria in love, but there’s also a lot of learning how to be a tolerant human being, and how to accept a lot of responsibility for your actions. In terms of writing, all of us have been writing for a long time, and I think that’s where the songwriting style comes from, but when we get together, we intentionally write towards The Krickets, though not to a theme.

With this album, it’s been six years since our second album. We’d had this time where we’d had some turnover in the band, and we wanted to make sure that we understood ourselves as a band, our perspective, what we wanted to put out in the world, and how we sounded as a band. And we waited a long time. We gave our fans a chance to get to know Rachel. But all of these songs come, hopefully, from a place of authenticity, and that’s the goal. If anyone relates to a song, then we did our job. It’s definitely not writing to take the easy way out, with a rosy picture of love! Hopefully, it’s a little more self-aware, and a little more accountable for our actions, and how we treat people.

AH: Because you’ve had a bit of time between the albums, and had some changes, did that spur your desire to record in Muscle Shoals again, like with your first album? Was it a way of touching base?

Rachel: We used the same studio again, of course, however, our producer this time was different. I say, “We,” but for me, it was the first time. Austin [Motlow], though, was a great match for us.

Emily: Yes, he has amazing instincts. He understands sound in the way that you absolutely want your producer to understand sound, and he understood us.

Lauren: [Laughs] It was strange to be there! Our old producer was there, and he was absolutely a part of it, he just wasn’t our producer.

AH: That’s right, Ben Tanner played on this!

Lauren: Austin came up under Ben, and was Ben’s right hand for a long time. On this project, The Alabama Shakes were about to go back on tour, and Ben didn’t have time. He asked if we wanted to meet Austin, and we trust Ben, so we did. It ended up probably being a cooler match than we could have dreamed. Also, Ben came and played keys on four of the tracks. He couldn’t help himself. Austin held his ground and made sure it stayed on track. It was a cool and crazy time.

 

AH: For me, that’s heartwarming, because I often ask producers about how younger producers get trained, and how it becomes generational. We can see the process at work there with Austin, carrying skills forward.

Lauren: And he wasn’t afraid to tell us things about his own life! He had been a student at University of Florence for music. He found himself working under Ben Tanner one day, and he’s ended up recording at FAME and other studios. He said that he was fan-girling inside his head just as much as everyone else.

Rachel: He said that he committed to listening, and that’s a lesson for us all.

Emily: He was definitely observant of us. He takes it all in, and really waits before he speaks.

AH: I noticed that you have different vocal leads on different songs, just like you all write songs, too. Did that make it more complex to record the songs, or was it easier because you could switch off with each other between songs?

Emily: It sure makes it fun to have different leads, because then you get to sing different parts of the song. Me, Rachel, and Lauren all got to switch around. I’d be on a high harmony on one song, then on another song, I’d be the low harmony. That made it really fun, and it does give each lead a break. You’re right, that’s definitely needed. You can blow out your voice pretty easily if you’re doing a whole album. I don’t imagine that we would have been able to get done as much as we did in that amount of time.

Rachel: We tracked it pretty fast, as I recall.

Lauren: It wasn’t even ten days, but eight days in the studio. We were down there in Muscle Shoals for ten days, but it was eight studio days. We were doing two songs a day that we were working on. He kept us very on-track. We also like the switch-up on the lead because we are different songwriters coming together. That makes it feel more like a Beatles, or a Fleetwood Mac situation. It gives the listener a different experience, and they choose who they vibe with the most. As a listening experience, and at a live show, the dynamic changes and it keeps it moving.

AH: I thought that was a really cool aspect when I listened to the album as a whole, because it changes up the mood between the different songs. How did you prepare for going into the studio in terms of being ready to play and sing, since you live in different places?

Emily: We each took the demos that we had previously written, the scratch tracks, and went to our individual recording spaces, and recorded it. We would add what we were thinking in terms of harmonies or instruments. Then, we weren’t really able to get together, and work it up together, because of time and distance. Really, that all came together in the studio.

Rachel: We rehearsed a lot after the day’s work was done. In a studio, changes happen, like, “Let’s do this in a different key.” Or, “Maybe we don’t need this extra part of the bridge.” Things happen like that. It was pretty much: Record all day, practice at night, maybe a little exercise break, or a nap time. Then we’d just get right back to work. It was quite an experience.

Lauren: It was. And one thing about this record, which I’ve also found on other records, is that if you get too married to something, it causes friction between you and the Producer. It’s their job to make it bigger or reimagine it based on things that we wouldn’t have thought of, or that we weren’t capable of. Getting to utilize some of Muscle Shoals’ finest was amazing.

Rachel: We were pretty in awe.

Lauren: It just felt good. And it definitely feels good listening to it. I enjoy it so much.

AH: Part of all of this answers my questions about how robust each of these songs is, with all the layers, and ideas in place, despite doing it in a short time. I’m going to credit you all with also working hard on the writing side. I think those must have been solid demos that Austin worked from. A really clear roadmap helps people.

Emily: The songs had good bones, and he made them even better.

Rachel: For sure.

Lauren: I will say that we had a lot of room for him to imagine, but also had a very clear vision, ourselves, for how we wanted the songs to feel. We’d say where the ceiling was. We’d say, “We want this song to sound unhinged!” [Laughs] Or we’d say, “We want this song to sound desperate! Just desperate! Because that’s the theme.” He helped keep it that way, and make it the best it could be.

Thanks very much for chatting with us, Krickets!  You can find tour dates and more here on their website: https://www.thekrickets.com/