World Of Night Talks: When the Goalpost Keeps Moving

Success has a bad habit of moving the second you get close enough to touch it. For Night Talks, a band that’s spent more than a decade making music together, that problem has had plenty of time to make itself known. There are always younger artists, faster-moving peers, new milestones still unreached, and another version of where you thought you might be by now reminding you you’ve yet to arrive at your desired destination – wherever that may be at the moment. Look sideways for too long, and suddenly the things you once felt proud of can start looking strangely small.

The band’s recent single, “Window Shopping,” comes from the uncomfortable instinct to measure your life against somebody else’s, while other recent songs like “People Pleaser” and “Dream I’m In” see uneasy thoughts still finding their way into music that feels lively and designed to elicit movement. Which is on brand. The band likes music that gets people dancing. Sure, the mind can keep spiraling, but the body gets to do something much more enjoyable.

The contrast feels fitting for a band that’s spent so much of its history figuring out how to keep moving even when its members aren’t entirely sure where they stand. Night Talks has changed plenty since its members started playing together as teenagers, but perhaps one of the stranger parts of lasting this long is having enough history to constantly compare the band to itself, too. 

In this World Of conversation, Soraya reflects on the slippery definition of success, maintaining perspective when comparison creeps in, and what has allowed three people to keep choosing the same band – and one another – for more than a decade.

Matilia, World Of: Soraya, back in 2019, you talked about having to remind yourself that meaningful careers take time when it was easy to look at younger artists seemingly succeeding overnight. “Window Shopping” arrives years later from another period of comparing your progress to people around you. What feels different about that struggle now than it did then?

Soraya, Night Talks: Things have only gotten murkier in the age of social media, and it’s hard to know what’s real! It’s been really helpful to remind myself to stay grounded and present. And of course, I’m thankful to have gotten to do this thing called music at all! What a gift!

World Of: “Window Shopping” comes from reaching a point where friends seem to be surpassing you and suddenly your own accomplishments feel smaller. Why do you think comparison has the power to erase your perspective on things you were once genuinely proud of?

Soraya: At the end of the day, you have to compare yourself only to yourself and your past. If you start looking around you, it really skews everything.

World Of: How do you distinguish between healthy ambition telling you there’s more you want and comparison convincing you that what you’ve already built somehow isn’t enough?

Soraya: It’s hard, but I again just have to look at Night Talks and how much we’ve grown. It’s so important to always want to improve, but never because you want what someone else has (even if you do…)

World Of: Have there been milestones that you were convinced would finally make you feel like Night Talks had “made it,” only to reach them and immediately move the goalpost again?

Soraya: Absolutely! Every tour and opening slot and [every other] thing seems like a box to check, and then you get there and realize, “okay, there’s still a lot of work to be done to keep this thing moving forward.” It’s part of the changing nature of the industry but also learning what things actually equate to as you get there.

Moving the goalpost is one way to keep yourself hungry. It’s also a very efficient way to forget that you ever crossed the last one. But with more than a decade of Night Talks behind her, Soraya has enough distance now to look back at certain moments without immediately asking what was supposed to come after them.

World Of: What accomplishments in Night Talks’ history do you think you appreciate differently now than you did when they actually happened?

Soraya: Off the top of my head, selling out the Troubadour and the Lodge Room. Those are two of the coolest rooms in LA, and it’s really such an honor to have been on the stage for a full room.

World Of: How has your definition of success changed between being teenagers starting a band and being adults who have spent more than a decade actively pursuing it?

Soraya: At this point I’m just so glad we still get to do it. The working middle class of musicians is disappearing rapidly due to overhead costs, cost of living, and shifting attitudes towards supporting the arts. We all have our jobs that help pay our rent, but the fact that we’ve all found the flexibility to take time off work and create art and tour it is nothing to scoff at.

World Of: When one of you is discouraged about where the band is versus where you hoped it would be, are the other two usually able to restore some perspective, or can that doubt become contagious?

Soraya: It depends on which of us is Patient Zero for discouragement, but I won’t elaborate further. At the end of the day, we can always come back to being stoked because this is something we all love doing, no matter how difficult it is.

World Of: What has kept the band worth choosing during periods when the external results may not have matched the amount of work you were putting into it?

Soraya: There’s no other choice for us. We’re all in it because we love making music together.

World Of: “People Pleaser” is about putting yourself first, while “Window Shopping” looks at what happens when other people’s progress starts affecting how you value your own. Do you think putting yourself first also requires learning how to stop using other people as the measuring stick for whether you’re doing enough?

Soraya: Absolutely! Getting rid of the background noise helps you focus more on yourself and your own journey.

Getting rid of the background noise might help Night Talks decide what deserves their attention, but quiet has never really been the point of the music itself. Even when the subject is anxious, frustrated, or uncertain, the band still seems interested in what happens when those feelings are given a beat and somewhere to go.

World Of: Across songs like “Window Shopping,” “Running On A Cloud,” and “Dream I’m In,” movement keeps existing alongside anxiety, pressure, or uncertainty. What interests you about creating music that lets the body experience something joyful while the lyrics are working through something much less comfortable?

Soraya: Honestly, we love music that creates movement. We’re in a crisis of people not going out to dance anymore, so might as well provide a soundtrack!

World Of: “Window Shopping” existed as a musical skeleton before you figured out what it needed to be about. How often does Night Talks discover the emotional identity of a song through playing together rather than beginning with something you already want to say?

Soraya: More often than you’d think.

World Of: How do you make room for three individual people to keep changing without expecting the band to preserve who you were when you started it?

Soraya: The three of us are family; we’re locked in forever. I think we’ve all changed so much as we’ve grown up together, and we’ve grown together instead of apart, which helps.

World Of: What have you learned about maintaining a friendship when that friendship is also tied to ambition, money, creative disagreement and years of shared work?

Soraya: Small disagreements will always blow over. And laughter fixes everything.

Maybe after more than a decade, that answer says as much about Night Talks’ longevity as any milestone could. There will always be another goal to chase, another artist to accidentally compare yourself to, and another reason to wonder whether the work is paying off quickly enough. But there are also three people who have grown up together, kept finding ways to tour while holding down the jobs that pay their rent, and can apparently still laugh once the disagreement passes. For a band that has spent years watching the definition of success shift underneath them, that might be one measure worth keeping still.

“Window Shopping” by Night Talks is out now.