Photo credit: Mat Abad
A quintessential Cigarettes After Sex track is akin to the musical equivalent of a black-and-white film. The band’s technicolor lyrics, however, paint their melancholic tunes in themes of nostalgia, regret, and most importantly, love, and it’s a raw formula that has propelled the trio (that’s Greg Gonzalez, Jacob Tomsky, and Randall Miller) into cult fandom, their ethereal catalog spanning over 16 years thus far.
“Creating music can reveal feelings you didn’t know you had,” Gonzalez, who fronts the band as lead vocalist tells Beyond The Pines. “You can write something, and it can bring you to tears.” Understanding the Texas-born musician is realizing he’s a romantic at heart, no matter how sorrowful the music feels. Love outlines his favorite films – The Red Shoes, L’Avventura, The Wind Rises, and The Double Life of Veronique – and a glimpse at Gonzalez’s Instagram (it’s comprised solely of black and white images, like the band’s joint account), indicates its influence on the group’s signature sound, a slowcore melancholy that builds in the pit of the stomach.
What began as an “accident” in a stairway at the University of Texas at El Paso turned into Cigarettes After Sex’s debut EP, I (2012), a noir-tinted introduction to a decade-plus career exploring romance in its varying shades. However, it wasn’t until 2016’s “K.” that the band found the level of notoriety it enjoys today, making its rounds then on what some called the “sad girl” side of Tumblr, á la similar alternative figureheads such as Lana Del Rey, Arctic Monkeys, and The Weekend.
Gonzalez’s velvety soft voice no doubt sweeten Cigarette After Sex’s mainstream appeal, but it’s his pure autobiographical approach to songwriting that seals the deal, with “K.” becoming the centerpiece of a very important storyline. “The songs that relate together are usually that way because they are about the same person,” he says. “‘Affection’ was the first song I wrote about that person, sharing specific details of the beginning of our relationship. Then “K.” would be next, telling the story of a week we had together in New York, and how I started to miss them when they left.”
With “Sweet” encapsulating the height of his love and “Touch” documenting the break-up, Gonzalez admits the latter is “the least faithful to the actual real-life story.” However, he calls last year’s “Bubblegum” and “Stop Waiting” their discography’s outliers, describing the singles as “more like scenes [he] wrote based on specific emotions [he] had.” The backstory for “Stop Waiting” starts with a night on which Gonzalez recalls taking too long to work up the courage to talk to someone at the bar. “When I finally did, they were leaving, and I only got to talk to them for a second before the moment was gone. I guess the sadness of that experience led me to imagine the romance that plays out in the song.”
Though originally intended for 2017’s self-titled debut album, their latest tracks received a second wind during Cigarettes After Sex’s sold-out UK/European tour in late 2023, and will get another chance at the band’s upcoming Bonnaro set in Tennessee.
Their impact continues to transcend the Tumblr generation, finding a new home on TikTok thanks to 2017’s “Apocalypse” going viral with a lipstick-smudged trend that translated into over a billion streams on Spotify. Also among their popular Spotify tracks is “Cry,” the title track to their sophomore album, now with nearly 390 million streams.
“I remember feeling vulnerable about the lyrics to ‘Cry,’” Gonzalez says. “I thought that the lyrics might come across as arrogant somehow. The honesty of having to tell someone you can’t be with them for those reasons.”
It’s this vulnerability though that, for the three of them, just seems to work. Gonzalez’s autobiographical limerent ramblings and lush world-building has proven to have awakened a new generation’s love for good ‘ol nostalgia and longing, and, if love is ever lost, Cigarettes After Sex is perhaps the best in the business of rekindling the beauty of trying again.
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