Familiar with one another, they were soon united by the idea of listening to a track and thinking, ‘This is cool, but it should go like this.’ And so, they found themselves face-to-face with a new idea back in 2019 at Kevin's suggestion: a twee-pop band. "I remember getting a text with the simple statement: ‘I want to start a twee-pop band’," reflects Nina.
For Kevin, it had to happen - "the way Nina writes songs [being] similar" to the exact sound he'd originally been chasing. The duo soon began piecing together elements of their previous work into what would become two new projects - first Mana, and now Wishy.
"Nina was leading the way on the vibe. She was writing softer, poppier, gentler stuff that still kind of had an upbeat poppy feel," Kevin describes. "So, the two projects initially felt very different. Eventually, we were like, 'Well, we want to make something out of both of these', but making two bands happen at once is kind of difficult."
Folding "the two into one," Mana members drummer Conner Host and guitarist Dimitri Moss joined the pair, before completing the lineup with bassist Mitch Collins. Together, they've found the balance between the world of Kevin's power pop-rock and Nina's breezy indie.
With the album rocking as the guitarist so intended, the band has "other songs that are more delicate and intimate and not in your face," he acknowledges. And so, 'Planet Popstar' explores "a different side sonically", while still being Wishy. It's still the two minds whose paths crossed all those years ago searching for the same thing – a place to create, and a place to explore, without limits.
