Talking with Girl Tones About Mall Trips, Sister Dynamics, and Their Long-Awaited Debut Album ‘Precious’

Girl Tones have been making me wait for this one. Since I first wrote about the Kentucky sister duo back in May 2025, Kenzie and Laila Crowe have put out single after single, toured constantly, and slowly built the kind of fanbase that’s been begging for a full-length for years. This Friday, November 6, they finally deliver it with their debut album, Precious.

Something I couldn’t stop noticing is how often their lyrics borrow phrases we all already know, turning familiar idioms into hooks. It makes the songs feel like ones you’ve been singing for years, even on first listen. I caught up with the sisters on a call while they were picking up last-minute things at the mall before heading out on tour.

You’ve released a lot of singles over the last couple of years. When did it stop feeling like a bunch of songs and start feeling like an album?

Laila: It’s hard to define an exact moment. We always had an album in mind, and that was always the end goal, the biggest body of work. It all just kind of fell into place: what we wanted to put on the album and what had already been released. It was a natural progression. We’ve been working on this for four or five years at this point.

Which song came together the quickest, and which was the toughest nut to crack?

Kenzie: “Volcano” was probably the fastest. We had just gotten off tour and we were super tight. Everything was in the groove, and we were at kind of a high point for writing songs. When we finally took it to the studio, we wrote it in probably an hour or two. It was super easy to just go in and get it done.

Laila: One of the harder ones would be the title track, “Precious.” We wrote it at basically the start of our career, and it’s been on the back burner for about four and a half years. It went through rewrites and tonal changes, because we really wanted it to reach its full potential.

Did you know from the beginning that it would be the title track?

Kenzie: Not really. For four years, up until recently, we always just called it “The Ballad.” Laila came up with the name “Precious” because our abuelita would call us that, and the song is partly about her. So it made sense to name it that, and to name the album that too. Like Laila said, it just fell into place. Perfect timing on everything.

Hearing how long you’ve worked on it, it really does feel like a precious thing to you. How are you feeling about finally releasing it and playing these songs live? Is there anything you’re scared about?

Kenzie: We’re mostly just excited to finally say, “Here is the album.” All of our fans have been begging for an album for the past three years, and trust us, we wanted it too. To finally have that physical copy for them is the best feeling ever.

Laila: As far as fears, we’ve never been afraid of releasing songs or of what people will say. If you like it, that’s awesome. If you don’t like it, I’m not offended. If everyone liked it, it wouldn’t be worth listening to.

Throughout the album, your lyrics pull from phrases and idioms everyone already knows. Put together, they become a style of their own, and it feels like I already know the words. Is that on purpose?

Kenzie: That’s kind of the beauty of songwriting. Everybody in this industry borrows from everybody. You hear it every day. At a certain point, how much new stuff can we actually come up with? How many of the thoughts in my head has somebody else already had? Probably a lot of people. So it’s important to be relatable, because everybody wants something they can understand. It’s not fun when you can’t understand what’s going on, and a lot of the time that means there’s nothing deep behind it.

I can’t wait to yell “same old shit again” at a live show. Is there a song you’re most excited to play live?

Laila: “Glowing Buzz.” We haven’t really had time to work it up and test it out on audiences. A lot of these songs we’ve been playing for years, so it’s exciting to work up the newer, fresher ones.

Your videos are so much fun, like “Volcano,” where you’re in a creek with computers. Which was your favorite to put together? And how is making a visual different from making the song?

Laila: My favorite one we’ve done is the “Burnout” video, where we’re basically robbing a bank. When we write songs, it’s usually just the two of us. We keep that very small. Once visuals are involved, it’s a lot more collaborative. For “Burnout,” we worked with Casey Pierce, and he came up with these great visual ideas that expanded our universe.

Kenzie: Our label lets us do a lot of cool visual stuff too. They make it really easy for us to just say, “We want a piano in a field,” and figure out how to make it happen.

As an older sister myself, I have to ask: what’s it like being sisters and bandmates?

Laila: We’ve always gotten along well. We have about four years between us, but it always came naturally, because we’re family before anything else. We both know where the other is coming from, and even when we disagree, we’re able to come to an understanding. We agree on most things, and we know we have each other’s backs. Sometimes you have to fight for things, and it’s good to know each other’s strengths and take the lead when the other person can’t.

There’s also a lot of nonverbal communication, especially when we perform. There are cues in the live show we’ve never actually talked about. We just know. That probably has a lot to do with both of us being classically trained, so we know how to follow the people we’re playing with off visual cues and body language. That plus being siblings makes it a lot easier than it would be if we were just working with a friend.

Since you’ve been working on these songs for so long, are you already writing new things?

Laila: In September, we wrote 18 songs. Maybe closer to 20, but we cut some. It was a nice little challenge for us to see how many songs we could get done in a month. They’re rough concepts, not fully recorded or finished, but we’re sitting on them. We’ll see what happens.

What’s inspiring you right now?

Laila: Today we started getting into Nine Inch Nails on the drive to Nashville, and we’re kind of digging it. I’ve also been doing some serious nostalgic listening, a lot of Alanis Morissette and Red Hot Chili Peppers. And we’ve both been getting into Cake. What we like about Cake, and what we found with Nine Inch Nails, is that no two songs sound identical. They’re all over the place. You might hear something that isn’t really your thing, then go to the next track and really dig it. It keeps things interesting and unpredictable. Even though those are older bands, they’re new to us.

Do you two have the same music taste?

Kenzie: Very similar. Most of it overlaps, but the degree of how much we’re into something varies. I like the darker, heavier stuff, but Laila’s next level.

After talking with Kenzie and Laila, Precious makes even more sense to me. The album opens with “Cherry Picker,” and those first amp sounds kick into a classic rock opening that instantly had me bobbing my head. It slides so smoothly into “Glowing Buzz” that I didn’t even notice the next song had started. From there, the record moves between the ’90s punk and riot grrrl fury of “Again,” the pop bite of “Stubborn Mouth,” and softer, more vulnerable moments like “I Know You Know.” “Volcano” is one of my favorites, and knowing it came together in an hour or two, you can feel that ease in one of the catchiest choruses on the album. The title track, four and a half years in the making, is the closest thing to a ballad here, and “Mirror” closes everything out on a light, airy note with gorgeous harmonies. It was worth the wait.

Precious is out tomorrow via Parallel Vision/Big Loud Rock.