Kevin Bronson on May 22nd, 2020

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Brother duo Mating Ritual should be celebrating in Palm Springs right now. Instead, they tell Buzz Bands LA’s QUARANTUNES, they are holed up at home, plotting an album release and desperately wanting to see people — even the ones they don’t like very much.

THE LATEST FROM MATING RITUAL

Mating Ritual owes us an album. As we noted when the brother duo of Ryan Marshall Lawhon and Taylor Lawhon released their new single “OK” in April, they are three-fifths of the way to their goal of releasing five albums in five years. Previous albums have come out in the spring — are they faltering? (Spoiler alert: News on a forthcoming album, the follow-up to 2019’s “Hot Content,” is expected next week.) Suffice to say that whatever they pull back the curtain on, it will be part pop, part rock and all moxie.

HOW ARE YOU HOLDING UP AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MANAGE THE ‘STAY AT HOME’ EDICT?

Ryan Marshall Lawhon: We’re doing fine. Not great, just fine. We have a back house with a studio, so when we first got the order we were a little excited, thinking we’d be able to bang out another album since we can’t do anything else and the studio is on site, but honestly we’ve been so unmotivated to work on anything creative. I think a big part of that is that we got the masters back for our new album the literal day before mandatory quarantine hit, so we might just need a little time before the inspiration well fills back up.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO WHEN THIS IS OVER?

Ryan Marshall Lawhon: Everything. I used to think I was a pretty antisocial person, I love living the hermit lifestyle whenever possible, but this has proven me wrong. I want to drink at bars, go to shows and see people who I don’t even like very much. Everyone and everything is going to seem so exciting when we can finally return to normal, whatever that will look like. We’ve had to cancel and move back our tour twice now, so we won’t be doing that till early 2021, but I sorely miss playing music with people not through a screen.

ANYTHING WE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THIS PLAYLIST?

Ryan Marshall Lawhon: Usually we release our albums in May, and celebrate by renting a house in Palm Springs and getting drunk/sunburnt for a few days. This playlist is what I would be listening to if we were there.