Before Scott Simons (keys, synths, vocals) and Dani Buncher (vocals, drums) formed TeamMate, they were a couple in the romantic, biblical sense. Their relationship fell apart when Buncher came out as gay, but rather than lose their connection, the duo channeled it into an album’s worth of music. Their debut comes out on Rostrum Records next year, but until then, enjoy the single “Nothing’s Ever Over,” a song that epitomizes everything the couple have been through together.

Hometown:

Dani: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Scott: Bridgeport, West Virginia

Homebase: West Hollywood. We live about a half a mile from each other.

How did you two meet?

Dani: Scott used to stalk me while I was in the drumline/marching band at West Virginia University. We were also the only two Jewish people everyone seemed to know, so we were basically introduced over and over again. “Do you know Scott…? He’s Jewish, too!”

Scott: Stalk is a strong word.

You were in a romantic relationship, and your breakup and everything after is divulged in all your press materials. Is it hard to reveal so much of your personal life beyond your music? And how do your personal lives help you make music for TeamMate?

Dani: We’ve both had enough time in our personal lives to work through a lot of our past experiences as a couple. TeamMate stems from a place of personal growth and optimism. We are proud of who we were but more importantly of the relationship we were able to build post breakup. We are very comfortable sharing our story.

Scott: Yeah, I agree. And I think it’s important to share our story for other people who may be going through a similar situation. The silver lining for us was neither of us did anything malicious to the other. It’s just the way things worked out. It took some time and space but we were able to figure it out. Also, we write best when we’re writing from experience and luckily we have something pretty complicated and deep to explore all the different angles of.

Why are you called TeamMate?

Scott: We decided early on that if we couldn’t be a couple, we may as well be teammates. After we broke up, we had a transitional period where we had to decide if and how to stay in each other’s lives. Thankfully, we found a way out of that period and realized that we still wanted to be in something together.

How would you describe your music to someone who's never heard of you?

Scott: Oh man… It’s hard to describe music isn’t it? To paraphrase an Elvis Costello quote: “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” I think we’d prefer people just check it out and see if they like it but that said, we are massive ‘80s fans. So if you like the ‘80s, you might like us.

I love your music and was trying to figure out what's your songwriting process was like … who writes the lyrics? The melodies?

Scott: Thanks! Writing has become more collaborative for us on this new album. Each song is a different process. Sometimes, I come in with some sort of melody or track idea or one of us comes in with some sort of concept/title and we get together and try to figure it out from there. Everything is very collaborative and we sort of know what each other is going to be into at this point.

It’s been really fun to create this stuff even when we hit a wall in the process. It’s fun to try to work our way out of it together.

What thing most influenced your debut?

Scott: I think there was a moment earlier this year where we had an epiphany that most things that we as a band were stressing about or frustrated with were out of our control. We boiled it down to the two things we could control: our songs and our show. And we don’t have a show without the right songs. So, we sort of shut down and holed up in our apartments and tried to write the best songs we could. Things feel so much better when you really love the music you’re making as an artist. The industry is tough and you can’t control what happens really. But if we’re making music we truly love, we’ll take whatever comes at us knowing we did our own thing and had fun.

Why did you choose to self-title it?

Scott: We self titled the album because we just wanted it to be about us and the songs. The name TeamMate means so much to us that it’s all we felt we needed to introduce ourselves to people.

Did you grow up in a musical household? How did you discover music?

Scott: My parents were involved with local theatre so I was into musicals very early on. My dad was a really good singer and played clarinet but he wasn’t a professional musician. He was such a Beatles freak that I caught that bug early on too. He was always blasting Simon & Garfunkel, Billy Joel, Beatles, etc in the house when I was growing up. My dad booked me playing cover songs in bars when I was 15 and I’ve been gigging steadily since.

Dani: Music was a huge part of m family and childhood. My siblings and I were all very active in community and school theater. We got that from our parents… I was raised on Broadway musicals and Top 40 radio. I started playing drums when I was 8, and that was followed by many years of band and orchestra recitals, marching band/drumline festivals, high school rock bands, etc.

Describe the moment when you realized you wanted to make music for a living.

Dani: I think most musicians or artists realize they want to make music for a living pretty early on… It’s the moment when you realize it’s actually possible that things start to take shape. When the thing you love to do the most starts paying the bills, that’s a pretty good start… But the next month, if it doesn’t, and it’s still the only thing you want to do with your life, then you’ve made the right decision.

Scott: Yeah… I don’t remember the moment I decided to do music as a living. It always felt like a given. I can point to about a thousand moments when I told myself I wanted to keep doing music as a living. That’s the hard part.

Who would you love to collaborate with?

Scott: I love producer Jon Brion. I also am obsessed with 80’s songwriters like Holly Knight and Martin Page.

Dani: I wan’t to do an episode of Sesame Street.

Scott: Or that too.

What do you guys do for fun?

Dani: If my dog is with me, I’m pretty much gonna have the best time ever.

Scott: I’m a big football, baseball and college basketball fan. So, if I’m not traveling to the games, I’m probably somewhere watching them and ignoring my texts.

Do you have day jobs? Do they help you make music for the band?

Scott: Our day jobs are luckily in music. That income frees us up to spend time on and invest back into the band. Sometimes, work can be a distraction but if we approach our jobs as just a means to get us to our ultimate goal of getting TeamMate onto a bigger scale then we’re OK.

Talk about your happily ever after?

Dani: I like to focus on the present moment.

Scott: Yeah. Every time I’ve set some kind of goal, I’ve taken some kind of detour. Today is my happily ever after. Hopefully, tomorrow is as good or better.