Minneapolis shoegazers She’s Green are playing the long game

On a sub-zero night in January 2025, during a visit to Minneapolis, NME stumbles onto a band that won’t remain a local secret for much longer. Called She’s Green, they have been handpicked by influential local radio station The Current to open its 20th-anniversary celebration at the legendary First Avenue. It’s easily the biggest show of the band’s career, supporting Pixies frontman Frank Black before a packed hometown crowd.

On the stage that Prince made famous, She’s Green look firmly in command. Their stately, sonorous take on shoegaze casts a dreamlike spell over the room while frontwoman Zofia Smith pirouettes along the stage’s outer edge. Plenty of local bands have buckled under the pressure of playing First Avenue. She’s Green never so much as flinch.

When NME mentions that performance over Zoom a year and a half later, guitarist Liam Armstrong smiles, barely missing a beat: “You should see us now.”

It’s no empty boast. Since then, the band’s rise has only accelerated. More than half a million monthly Spotify listeners. Tours with Blondshell, Softcult, Turnover and Narrow Head. Even headline dates in China – an invitation they initially assumed had to be fake.

“When we first got the email, we thought it was a scam,” laughs guitarist Raines Lucas. Thankfully, curiosity won out over scepticism, resulting in some of the biggest headline shows the band have played to date. For all their recent momentum, though, She’s Green is a band built on patience.

Smith and Armstrong first met during the pandemic while sharing an apartment near the University of Minnesota. Yet according to Smith, their musical collaboration was far from inevitable. She had spent years writing and singing her own songs, but she had always been reluctant to share. “I kept wondering, ‘Does this suck?'” she says. “I just decided to keep it all to myself.”

Call it a crippling case of imposter syndrome. In Armstrong, however, she found something of a kindred spirit. The pair bonded over a shared love of dream pop and shoegaze – Cocteau Twins and Slowdive chief among them – and as they began writing together, Smith slowly gained the confidence to let someone else into her creative orbit. Before long, the project had a name, a full band rounded out by Lucas, bassist Teddy Nordvold, and drummer Kevin Seebeck, and a future that suddenly felt much bigger than either had imagined.

Their timing proved impeccable. She’s Green emerged just as shoegaze was entering another boom. Legacy acts like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive are now drawing some of the biggest crowds of their careers – years removed from their genre-defining records – while younger bands like They Are Gutting A Body Of Water, Julie, and Wisp have managed to carve out a sizeable audience of their own.

“You only get one chance at your first album, and we’re so much more prepared now” – Liam Armstrong

Unlike many of their next-gen peers, though, She’s Green have resisted the temptation to put out a debut album to capitalise on the early momentum.

Instead, they’ve taken a far more deliberate path, releasing three EPs in as many years, culminating in the expansive 26-minute ‘Swallowtail’, which was released last week. They probably could have called it an album, and few would have questioned the decision. They simply chose to wait.

“We’ve grown so much as a band,” Armstrong says. “Looking back now, I’m so glad we waited. You only get one chance at your first album, and we’re so much more prepared now.”

Recorded with producer Sonny DiPerri (Julie, DIIV), ‘Swallowtail’ feels less interested in perfecting She’s Green’s existing formula than testing how far they can stretch it. The biggest surprise arrives on ‘Empty House’, where the layers of reverb are stripped away, leaving Smith’s unadorned vocal accompanied by a single acoustic guitar and gentle percussion that doesn’t arrive until the song’s half over. The result almost sounds like a live take from a BBC session, right down to the countdown in the intro.

“The original demo was definitely more She’s Green-ed out,” admits Armstrong. “But it was Sonny who convinced us we could do something more minimal and vulnerable. And he was absolutely right.”

The epic seven-minute closer ‘Close Your Eyes’ proves She’s Green haven’t abandoned the symphonic, squalling feedback that first won them fans. But ‘Swallowtail’’s greater accomplishment is revealing they’re no longer dependent on sheer volume to make their point. It cements She’s Green among the most exciting young bands emerging from shoegaze’s current wave while suggesting they’re already charting a course well beyond the genre’s familiar boundaries.

As the conversation winds down, NME asks whether the band see themselves headlining the aforementioned First Avenue anytime soon. Like the subject of a debut album, it’s clearly not the first time they’ve fielded the question, and they’re very much aware of the expectations that come with top billing at the hallowed venue, especially for a local band. But they’ve also learned not to reflexively give in to the pressure. “All in good time,” Lucas says with a grin. “Slow and steady suits us.”

For now, they’re just as happy playing a backyard house show, which they had done only two days before our call. “And in Minneapolis,” Armstrong laughs, “the neighbours don’t call the cops [on a house show].”

It all tracks for a band whose career to date has unfolded almost entirely on its own terms. In an industry that rewards urgency and constant churn – release the album, book the bigger room, chase the next milestone – She’s Green appear to be playing a much longer game, one that trusts their audience will stick with them. They may hold off a bit before headlining First Avenue, but if the past few years have established anything, it’s that She’s Green have become remarkably good at knowing exactly when their next step should come.

She’s Green’s ‘Swallowtail’ EP is out now via Photo Finish Records. 

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