The fourth and final single from Pillow Fite leading up to the release of their debut album. “Leaves” is upbeat, hopeful, and dripping in nostalgia for a time when young love was all encompassing; for the long summers growing up before they all turned into falls.

Says singer Art Ross, about “Leaves”:

“Leaves” was always that one little song that I’ve kept in my back pocket. It was almost like a small page ripped from my diary when I was a teen. The song depicts the uncontrollable urges of young teenage love that makes you do wild things such as gallivanting around the city with someone way too old for you, sneaking into shows underage or drinking cheap vodka in a park. Because I had written the lyrics so long ago, I truly never thought it would ever escape its coffeehouse vibe. But when I showed Aaron the song, he revamped it and recontextualized it; it’s now a contemporary pop tune that invites the listener to reminisce about those reckless times in their youth.

Art Ross (they/them) and Aaron Green (he/him) come from disparate backgrounds and musical forms, meeting in the middle to comprise a band that’s tender and fierce, exuberant and gentle. Green—a veteran of the Halifax rock scene, the guitar anchor of Floodland and Hello Delaware—and Ross—a trans songwriter with an acoustic guitar—started writing songs together over text, by accident. Pillow Fite emerged publicly at the start of 2021 with its non-binary gender-subverting aesthetics already in place and a languid lead single in “Playing the Fool.” Halifax, a town built on and stuck in rock music made by men, responded with supportive fervour, selling out back-to-back shows that saw the duo expand its sound with help from the scene’s most in-demand players.