Interview with Amelia's Best Friend

April 20, 2026

Peter caught up with the Austin, Texas-based five-piece Amelia’s Best Friend, asking about their bandmate crossover with Motorsports, their influences, and what to expect from them in the remainder of 2026.

Q: First off, how are you? And what have you been up to?

We’re good! Just wrapped up a run of shows for SXSW and taking a month or so off of shows to recoup. We’ve also been playing a lot of basketball outside of our house together lol. Ethan’s been fishing a lot.

Q: How did Amelia's Best Friend come to be? Is there an origin story that you can share with me?

Basically Ethan had gotten a show offer for his project Shooting Birds and they weren’t able to make it work. He had released some solo demos under the ABF name (Put You Down/Be Safe) and was like, “Do you guys (Motorsports) wanna be my band for these songs?” He just had the two, so we wrote a few more within like 6 or 8 weeks that became "C.A.P," "Lake," and "W.R.C." I can’t remember if there were any more, but we were like "shit, this is kind of a band now."

Q: You seem to play house shows quite often. What is it about the house show that draws you to them, and is there a particular house/garden/space that is your favourite to perform in?

We all kinda grew up near Denton, Texas where the house show scene at the time was pretty much where everything was happening. I think it just feels familiar, and it’s especially fun when they’re with friends’ bands and stuff. It’s definitely not intentional, so I guess it’s just a product of our environment more than anything else.

Q: As far as I'm aware, Amelia's Best Friend and fellow Austin, Texas based band Motorsports share band members. How does this dynamic work?

Yeah it all sorta happened from that one show and having all the overlap makes scheduling a lot easier cause if we do run into a scheduling conflict it’s just a discussion without any real outliers, which is nice. Musically we’ve had some “is this a Motorsports song or an Amelia’s song” which is kind of a good problem to have, I guess. We’ve more or less decided that we’re gonna put the most energy into what’s coming out the most in terms of songwriting output, and Amelia’s seems to be where everyone’s head is at, at the moment.

Q: What albums/artists would you say influence your output the most? What was it about these albums/artists that drew you to them?

Twin Star Runoff by Nick Brobak

Teethe by Teethe

hey alright by skimp

The Acrobats by Helvetia

Acetone by Acetone

Sky Blue Sky by Wilco

The Lonesome Crowded West by Modest Mouse

Know by Heart by The American Analog Set

I think what draws us to all of these records is that they’re all able to pull off that transition from droning to twinkly to heavy and still be clear intentioned. A lot of the tracks on these records have really great story telling too. We’re bad at talking about influences lol.

Q: And finally, what can we expect from Amelia's Best Friend in the remainder of 2026?

We’ve got a short US West Coast run coming up in May, where we’re hitting LA for a couple days and playing with some friends out there, so we’re really stoked for that. Hopefully gonna firm up an EP or another full length by the time fall/winter comes around. We’ve all been really into recording recently and it’s been super gratifying. Maybe hit one more larger tour before the end of the year but we’ll see. Should be a fun year!