Mandy, Indiana: “What if neither of us compromises?”

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here are a lot of opinions in this band,” synth extraordinaire Simon Catling opens with a chuckle. He, alongside producer and guitarist Scott Fair, is currently unpacking the difficulties that arose during the making of their second outing, ‘URGH’. “There are no passive members and a lot of decisions, and on the bigger, more important decisions, everybody weighs in, so that does take time,” Simon adds.

“It seems like for this band that the struggle results in something worthwhile,” Scott says, pondering back upon this time. “If anything, the difficulties that have presented themselves when we’ve been creating this album add something that you can’t replicate.” Mandy, Indiana, for better or worse, is four strong-headed creatives with a penchant for breaking a figurative sound barrier.

It’s what brought them together in the first place. Formed back in the late 2010s when French vocalist Valentine Caulfield met Scott and began working on music, they bonded over the idea of music colliding rather than coalescing into something new and different. Adding Simon and drummer Alex MacDougall into the mix, before they knew it, the ball was rolling and ‘I’ve Seen a Way’ came out in 2023.

Another key factor this time around was Valentine moving to Berlin. While ‘I’ve Seen a Way’ was written and recorded with the gang together in non-traditional studios, and famously literal caves, in 2022, this time it was more splintered, with ideas being sent online.

“It probably didn’t register with us at the time that it was going to be a bit more difficult,” Simon says. “All this stuff we’ve taken for granted, how we communicate with each other, and being able to check on each other and have a greater read on how people were doing became much harder.” Scott remembers feeling a sense of dread when Valentine first mentioned her moving away. “In the back of my mind, there was a little yelp of ‘It’s already difficult enough to work it around our jobs and various commitments. How are we going to make this work?’”

However, none of this interrupts the disenfranchising power of their sound. ‘URGH’ is, if anything, a doubling down of what Mandy, Indiana started. It’s more cinematic, erring away from the need to fill a dancefloor (but still packing plenty enough punch in that area), and instead trying to use sheer might as its catalyst.

As is the Mandy, Indiana way, this second turn and new addition to the canon is all thanks to their four separate tastes colliding. “There are so many different influences and opinions, and experiences being brought into it. So it really is an amalgamation of these four people in their separate lives,” Scott says. For all the pains that being four individual entities brings when it’s time to knuckle down, it doesn’t half pay off. “It’s these more disparate ideas that sort of mash together a bit unceremoniously, you know? What if neither of us compromises? What if you’re at 100% and I’m at 100% and we just leave it at that? It might sound uncomfortable, but so much the better if it does,” he adds.

This way of dealing with things carries over into the grander scheme of being a band. Mandy, Indiana doesn’t exist as part of a larger plan that’s tacked out on a corkboard in a high-rise office block. Instead, it’s the combination of time and patience multiplying with the members of the band coming together as and when necessary.

Plotting out what album number two would entail was less of a studious task and came more as an act of figuring out what their debut entailed to avoid repeating themselves. The jumping off point was wanting to do something “that felt more direct and immediate, less ethereal,” Scott recalls. “The first album is much more about space and about reverb and reflections, and about escapism.” What they wanted from ‘URGH’ was, as by its guttural, reactive name, something more direct, or as Scott puts it, “More in your face.”

Part of this also stemmed from their time touring. While Mandy, Indiana’s music begets dark, claustrophobic spaces where the sounds reverberate instantly against brick walls, they also found themselves surrounded by looming stages, including Coachella, where it’s a chase to catch up to the echoing sounds.

“It’s about trying to reach across that gap and maintain that energy,” Scott explains. “So I think as a result this album’s heavier than the first one. It’s not as much about trying to confuse the listener about where they’re situated within the mix; it’s more about trying to get the individual ideas across and the changes in structure.” Some of these changes include Valentine singing in English on the toxic masculinity-tackling ‘I’ll Ask Her’, and the addition of underground rap royalty with Billy Woods on ‘Sicko!’

Mandy, Indiana are also the sort of band that rarely, if ever, tour extensively thanks to their individually established lives. In fact, the shows they do play are often the first time the band are all in the same room together after a long period. But this adds to the glue that keeps them bound. “It does mean it’s really nice when we’re together and doing shows, because we’re not on top of each other all the time,” says Simon. “So as well as looking forward to the show, we’re also looking forward to just hanging out.”

Mandy, Indiana are a product of the intensity they brood in. It’s a part of their environment, and it’s why their output is so fraught with combativeness. It’s why Scott can’t relate to the band as being “easygoing”, but rather more adaptable, particularly in those aforementioned changes in live environments, as well as dealing with the punches of being established adults with separate lives all joined at one creative hip. “I suppose that’s about dedication as well because we care deeply about it,” Scott says. “We’re willing to be adaptable to keep it going because it is increasingly difficult in the current climate within the music industry to make a project like this work.”

Being adults with lives outside of Mandy, Indiana gives them a more refined edge to dealing with band life. They all know the four of them are indeed in it to win it, but that doesn’t mean it’s all or nothing. They’re here for a good time (as well as a long time). “We’ve gotten to know what it is that everybody gets out of it and everybody wants out of it,” Scott says. They both agree that it would be a lot easier for any of them not to do this. “So why are we doing it? It’s that shared understanding and honesty that helped us to get this finished,” he elaborates.

“Hopefully, with this record, maybe things will change a little bit for us, maybe it will become something that feels a bit more permanent and not something that constantly feels like it’s teetering on the edge of collapse because of outside influences,” Scott says with a nod to wider industry problems. “But it’s certainly very special to each of us.

Two albums in, things don’t appear to be getting easier for Mandy, Indiana. But there’s that mystical X factor that keeps them coming back for more. “Ultimately, I think what we all realised is that there is something that feels somewhat special about this group of people coming together and making music together,” Simon says. They know that as a collective, theirs is a unique experience and whatever output they bestow upon the world can only come from this combination. “If anybody walked away or was replaced or whatever, something important would be lost. So it is a case of sometimes having to be really patient,” he ends. With the canon of Mandy, Indiana rooted in the four of them, it seems it’ll always be worth the wait. ■

Taken from the March 2026 issue of Dork. Mandy, Indiana’s album ‘URGH’ is out now.