Babehoven's Maya Bon on co-writing 'Water's Here In You,' defining meaning in songs, compilation album

Maya Bon, the frontwoman of the indie folk rock duo Babehoven, said the band’s new album involved letting go of some of her control, but the new dynamic felt really exciting.

In the past, Bon wrote the songs then brought them to bandmate/partner Ryan Albert for further collaboration. This time, as Albert was playing guitar parts around their home in Hudson, New York, Bon felt inspired to ask if she could sing over them.

“It happened naturally, pretty organically, so there were weird things we had to work through, like the feelings of growth, I guess, expanding the way that I view songwriting,” Bon said in a recent Zoom call. “It’s always been very personal and very insular, and then I share it, and it becomes our work from there. But it was interesting to work together on the actual songwriting part, not the lyrics, but the song itself.”

Those songs became their latest album, “Water’s Here in You,” which came out April 26. Babehoven just launched their first headlining tour, with a show May 17 at Club Cafe on Pittsburgh’s South Side. Greg Mendez and Pittsburgh’s Merce Lemon will open the show, which will be Bon’s first visit to Pittsburgh.

“I think we’re always kind of exploring the boundaries of what we can do together,” Bon said. “Every album, every body of work we release, we’re growing into a new form of what the band can be.”

Babehoven’s first EP, “Sleep,” came out in 2018, when the group was a trio. Albert started working with the band on their second EP, “Demonstrating Visible Differences of Height,” in 2019, and the lineup became just the duo in 2022.

“Water’s Here In You” is filled with intimate, introspective lyrics and dreamy ballads, as well as poppy melodies and some more experimental, ambling tracks. Asked to suggest one song for someone who hadn’t heard Babehoven before, Bon struggled a bit.

“’Birdseye’ could be categorized in some ways as a pop song. It could attract a pop listener because its verse-chorus structure is really concrete, there’s a catchy little jingle to it,” she said. “So there’s a way that I would say ‘Birdseye’ because it’s both heartfelt, honest, beautiful songwriting that exemplifies our project and also is poppy enough that it could attract a listener to listen more.

“But then part of me wants to answer with a song like ‘Lonely, Cold Seed,’ which is one of the songs on the album that actually isn’t co-written, it’s just me on the keyboard and singing and it’s very not pop. There’s no chorus, it’s just ambling, me describing seeing a bird outside of my window in winter, but the lyrics I’m really inspired by.”

The freedom of a full-length album — their second after 2022’s “Light Moving Time” — left space for songs that wouldn’t make the cut on an EP.

“I think it’s cohesive, too, definitely nothing that’s like, ‘What the hell is happening?’” she said with a laugh.

The instrumental “Cherry,” for example, started as the ending of “Chariot.” It wound up as a separate track, in part, so it wouldn’t hurt “Chariot” from being playlisted on streaming services.

“Ryan balanced a version of ‘Chariot’ so we could listen to it, but he had actually muted a bunch of parts and then we were listening to it, and we were like this is really cool,” Bon said. “It was the acoustic guitar part in the background and then organ-y sounds … Actually I like that ‘Cherry’ has its own track because sometimes I just want to listen to that song without listening to ‘Chariot.’”

While acknowledging that her songwriting resonates with the band’s audience on an emotional level, Bon said she doesn’t consciously think about that connection with listeners as she’s crafting songs.

“I feel very deeply emotional when I write,” she said. “I often write to release some of the deeper things that I don’t often get to address in my daily life. It makes sense that that’s something people pick up on and are attracted to in it.”

Related

• Young Rising Sons' Andy Tongren on 'Un(Happy) Hour,' silver linings and singles
• Patty Griffin, Micky Dolenz, Paula Cole highlight Allegheny County Summer Concert Series
• 2024 Pittsburgh area concert calendar

Bon has been asked often about the meaning behind songs — and she’s shared quite a few — but she also felt that defining a song before it’s even been heard could take away from a listener’s experience.

“My experience of what ‘Birdseye’ is about is my experience of what ‘Birdseye’ is about, and your experience, I’m actually equally interested in, you know?” she said. “Just because I wrote it doesn’t mean I’m the one who gets to have a meaning. When I listen to ‘Romulus’ by Sufjan Stevens, for example, I have such a personal narrative and vision in my mind of what that song is about — and I would be super curious to hear what Sufjan Stevens actually has to say about what ‘Romulus’ is about — but like, it’s almost unnecessary for me to know.”

Besides the new album, Bon, alongside Raquel Dennis and Andy Molholt (Speedy Ortiz), helped organize an album, “Musicians for a Free Palestine,” a 71-song compilation with demos and unreleased songs to raise funds to ensure cell service for people in Gaza.

“As a Jew, and as someone with Palestinian family, I feel very invested in this issue, from many aspects of my heart and also feel like it’s important as a Jewish person right now to be outspoken,” she said, “because especially with the narrative of being anti-Zionist is antisemitic in the U.S. right now — that that’s literally been passed as a law — it’s so upsetting to hear that people are being labeled as antisemitic for speaking out about something that’s just extremely violent. I just completely don’t stand for the genocide happening in Gaza, and I don’t want my heritage and my culture to be used to defend the violence.

“Something I feel really proud of in the music world is that a lot of my peers feel the same way.”