Hailing from Huntington Beach, CA, indie rock band Your Favorite Color have been inspired since childhood to play music. The band is comprised of Matt Warren (lead vocals), Nicky Neighbors (keys), David Silveria (guitar), Cameron Pearson (bass), and Matthew “Foz” Fosmire (drums). Growing up in Orange County, the birthplace of many notable bands, their childhoods revolved around surfing, skating, and music. As longtime friends, they found themselves forming Your Favorite Color and bringing their individual influences together to shape their sound as a band, blending alt-rock and dreamy 80’s pop influences. After performing in California for six years and growing and finding their identity as artists, the band signed with indie label Prajin Parlay in 2024, subsequently releasing their debut album For You that year.
The band has had a whirlwind of successes since then, including the popularity of their cover of the Thompson Twin’s “Hold Me Now”, their track “Medicine” that became a fan favorite, a 2024 standout performance at SXSW, and their first European tour in 2024 as support for The Driver Era’s X Girlfriend Tour, playing to sold-out crowds in various countries. In April of this year, the band released the single “Forever”, which captures the rush of living in the moment and most recently released “Less In Love”, about self-liberation and owning your true self without apology. The biggest lesson they have learned over the years has been to not lose sight of why they do what they do, which is making music they love and expressing their true selves. With these goals in mind, as well as performing live and exploring new avenues of songwriting, I have no doubt that the future of Your Favorite Color will be bright!
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What can you tell me about growing up in Huntington Beach and the music scene there? How did you guys meet and start playing music together?
Growing up in Huntington Beach, we couldn’t escape the influence of music, especially with so many notable bands coming out of Orange County. That scene really inspired us early on to start bands of our own. The energy in Huntington when we were kids revolved around surfing, skating, and music, it felt like a rite of passage to choose at least one. For a lot of us, it ended up being all three.
Who are some of the artists that have inspired and influenced you and in what ways do you take those influences to create your own style of music?
Gosh, we all love so many different types of music. It’s difficult to narrow it down. Ultimately, I think we take influence from everything we consume, even if it’s a microscopic amount. As for some of our larger influences, we are very inspired tonally by the 80s. Specifically bands like Tears for Fears, The Cure or Depeche Mode.
You spent 6 years honing your craft and performing in California before signing with Prajin Parlay Inc and releasing your debut album, For You, in September 2024. What were those early years of the band like and what did you learn along the way about yourself and/or the industry?
Those early years before we signed with Prajin were full of growth and finding our identity artists. We worked with a handful of producers and engineers as well as recorded, mixed and mastered our own music. Although making music is our passion and a massive part of our identities, there were definitely periods where pursuing our dream wasn’t easy. Over time we learned that making music we love and playing shows is only about 50% of the work that needs to be done while working towards success in the music industry. The other 50% is about tapping into a business mentality and figuring out how to put ourselves out there. Social media being a large piece of that puzzle. It’s difficult to balance having a creative and artistic mentality versus a business oriented mentality. Whenever we favored one of those mentalities too much, it was easy to feel stagnant. Especially on the business side. One of the biggest takeaways that we’ve gained from juggling these two aspects of being in a band, is that no matter what, we can’t lose sight of why we do what we do. Which is making music we love and expressing our true selves. This career path takes time to start paying the bills and if we’re not getting fulfilled financially, we need to make sure we’re getting paid with a fulfilled soul.
How did you come to sign with Prajin Parlay Inc.? What can you tell me about that experience, as well as releasing your debut album?
One of David’s ex-coworkers from a sales job was related to George Prajin. Over the years of us continually releasing music, that coworker shared our music with George. George believed in our vision and we trusted his. Not too long after we were signed to Prajin and it’s been a great experience being a part of this record label. Getting to a place where we could finally sit down and record an album to the standard of our liking was a huge moment. It felt amazing putting out a collection of songs that we could call our first “statement” as a band.
You performed at SXSW – what are some of the highlights for you of that experience?
One of the biggest highlights was being able to go try some authentic barbecue at Terry Blacks in Austin, TX. I don’t think any of us have had brisket of that caliber before and it was an experience that we won’t soon forget, haha. Overall, Austin is an amazing city and we look forward to returning again soon. Of course the live performance was a highlight as well. It was our first time playing our album live. It was a very special moment for all of us.
You had the opportunity last year to tour Europe as support on The Driver Era’s ‘X Girlfriend Tour’. What can you tell me about the tour, getting to tour Europe for the first time, and expanding your global fan base? How surreal was it to play for such massive crowds on your first European tour?
Yes, it was surreal to say the least! Being in a band for years, constantly dreaming of the moment we’d get to play for an electric crowd of thousands of people and then to have it finally have it come true was quite indescribable. It was even better because the music we worked so hard on seemed to translate very well across the sea. The Driver Era has an absolutely amazing fan base and it was extremely special to be able to get to perform with them. There are so many beautiful places in Europe and the UK. To be able to play music while traveling throughout those countries was insane.
You recently released the song “Forever”, a song you describe as being about everything you love about music and that you wrote while on tour with The Driver Era. What can you tell me about your love for music and performing live and translating that into lyrics, as well as the visualizer you made for the song?
It’s hard to exactly pinpoint where each song we create comes from exactly but yes, we did write ‘Forever’ during the sound check of our last show on tour in Europe. I think that music has a funny way of expressing subliminal feelings that even the writer might not understand yet. That song is about living fast and in the moment, which is what we were doing all tour. It was only natural for it to be born when it did.
For all of us, music is of course a love of ours, but almost more so it is our identity. We don’t know who we would be without music and the ultimate form of sharing that music is playing live shows. It’s the best way to immediately exchange energy with those listening and experiencing the music with us in real time.
The visualizer was a fun experiment that Cameron had the idea of trying. The idea was to create this never-ending mirror effect with live video. We did it by projecting real time video of us performing onto an LED screen behind us. We wanted to show the energy that the song might bring at a live performance for those watching the visualizer along with tying it into some sense of the word ‘Forever’ hence the infinite mirror effect.
You’ve had a whirlwind of successes over the past year, from releasing your Thompson Twin’s cover of “Hold Me Now”, to your single “Medicine” going viral on Instagram, to signing a record deal, playing SXSW, and touring Europe. Can you talk a bit about your thoughts on how far you’ve come as a band in a relatively short amount of time?
“Medicine” was a very special song to make, and we’re glad that people are enjoying the song. We definitely take the wins when we get them, but also try not to “hang” onto them so tightly. In life, there are so many highs and lows, and we just do our best to embrace every moment as it comes. At the end of the day, we are just loving the journey and can’t wait for what exciting experiences await us.
What can you tell me about your upcoming single “Less In Love”, “an anthem of self-liberation”, to be released June 13th?
“Less In Love” is about resisting the pressure to change into someone else’s version of who you should be. The message is real and personal, but we chose to express it in a fun, playful way, almost with an unserious tone to reflect the freedom that comes from letting go. The feeling behind the song came from a night we spent running around London on our first UK tour. There was this overwhelming sense of release like all the opinions and voices from our past suddenly felt so small, like they never mattered. In that moment, we were unapologetically ourselves.
As a band, you’ve emphasized the desire to keep evolving and forming your identity. What are your goals going forward, both personally and musically, in that regard?
Moving forward, we aim to keep doing what we’ve been doing, which is making music we love, performing it live as much as we can, staying in the moment and constantly digging deeper within ourselves to explore new avenues of songwriting.
What’s next for you guys?
We have new music that we are extremely excited about. “Less In Love” being up next and many more to follow. We can’t wait to share these new songs with the world.
