We talked to Fantasy of a Broken Heart over diet cokes...
June pt 2. x get to the polls
An Interview with Fantasy of a Broken Heart
by: Hannah Pruzinsky and Ceci Sturman
We were interested in doing this interview with Bailey Wollowitz and Al Nardo of Fantasy of A Broken Heart because we think they're putting out some of the most exciting music in New York right now, but more importantly they’re best friends, and we don’t need to explain why that’s interesting to us. In this interview we somehow do a good job of not making it about ourselves, but we meet at The Seneca for Diet Cokes and Fries and I (Ceci) do start off by sharing with everyone that the last time I was here I was crying about moving away from ridgewood because ridgewood is where Hannah lives. Hannah nodded to confirm this and gave me a little smile.
Ceci: So yeah, this seems like a really cool, like, buddies sitting down situation. Buddies sitting down with some Diet Coke.
Al: It really is just so specific. Like, it’s really nice to meet other people who understand what that kind of partnership is like. Because when you're best friends with someone and you work together and you live together and you can push your life in that way, it’s really specific and really nuanced. And I think you can only understand the layers of it if you've had a relationship like that.
Hannah: We were just talking about this when we were on tour. Our friend was saying that those kinds of relationships where it doesn’t fit into one square label and you're not able to actually describe what it is, are the most special.
[Fantasy of A Broken Heart started working on Chaos Practitioner in 2020 and put it away to work on other music, and decided to come back to it earlier this year, releasing it on April 11, 2025. The EP is literally chaotic, fast and fun and full of dissipating synths and overdubs and vocal layering and repetition. It feels classic Fantasy to me, in that this band has successfully and sort of rarely trademarked their sound in their short career of releases. It feels like projecting internal turmoil onto someone close to you, the turmoil then mutually spiraling into a shared thing to project somewhere else…]
Bailey: I had this idea to do this EP that we were just kind of loosely working on in LA during COVID. So we started working on some stuff and then abandoned it to make the Fantasy of a Broken Heart debut album [Feats of Engineering]. Functionally, the EP is not the same thing that began in 2020. Tracks 2 and 3 are from an abandoned project by the same name that was recorded in 2021. But [<<flash forward to now>>] it was fun to really smack the EP out super quickly at home. It was incredibly organic. It put the control back in our hands a little bit.
Al: Yeah. It's so nice to work at home. Bailey's tweaking something on the laptop, and I'm cooking. There's no time crunch.
Ceci: How did you guys meet?
Al: I had seen Bailey at a birthday party before and was like, who's that?
Ceci: Do you remember what Bailey was wearing?
Al: Bailey had bangs, short bob. You probably had lipstick or glitter or something on your face. Blue hair.
[They told us that Bailey soon after took the drummer’s spot in a band Al played in. They started playing in many bands together, as they currently do in Water From Your Eyes and This is Lorelei. They were fast friends and then lovers and then eventually broke up and landed as best friends.]
Hannah: How/when did you two start playing your own music together? When was fantasy born?
Al: We just started playing music when we were dating. We would just sit around and jam all the time because at that point in time neither one of us was really a guitarist in a primary way. It was kind of like this fun thing that we were exploring together. I think it was very new to both of us to be like sitting down and like writing songs, trying to figure out like guitar harmonies.
Bailey: I think we probably started calling it fantasy pretty [early on]. Like, within a year or something. And then fantasy itself had a couple iterations.
Ceci: What were the other iterations?
Al: It was Fantasy Al Bailey for a little bit. Aw. Which was fun. One word.
Ceci: Spaces?
Bailey: Spaces, I think. yeah. It was like A pasta dish. Fantasy ‘al Bailey.
Hannah: What’s the usual songwriting process now?
Bailey: Quite often we write the music first. Like, maybe the name of the song will exist, or like a narrative concept. And I'll come up with some words and sort of a form and we'll write all the parts and maybe write some lyrics down on the notes app or whatever. For Chaos Practitioner, most of the vocals were recorded like, the day before or whatever. That adds such a pressure and energy and excitement to it that you're like, this is it. This is the moment, literally. And we’re staring at the notes app and deciding on the fly to change a word at the very last second. There's less preciousness around what you end up choosing.
Ceci: Do you feel, like, lyrically the songs from Chaos Practitioner have similar themes throughout? Are they in the home together?
Al: Yeah. I think the first three songs are sort of intended to be one long song, lyrically speaking. There's some lines that are in all three of them and stuff.
Bailey: I think yes and no. I think the interesting thing about this project is it did end up having, a little more of an allowance for the songs to not be related to each other compared to the first record, which was very much like that - where the track order was the first thing we did. And I think if the EP was the first three tracks and “Demon”, I would say full-heartedly that it's an all- the-way-through thing.
Al: I was going to say also, “Demon” to me is way more of a personal song than any of the other ones are. I think there's a specific beauty in writing with someone else, but specifically writing with someone that I know so well or have an idea of what something means. If Bailey's writing something, I can have a sense of what we're talking about, or can ask for context, and then can participate by reflecting on my own life or thinking about Bailey or being entirely fictional.
Ceci: Something I was thinking about at some point when I was listening to the EP was how how special and specific and kind of back to the original friendship thing of it all it is - that you guys use “you” lines or “I” lines where you're both singing it in unison, where it becomes one voice. Maybe you both know what this was specifically about at some point, but in singing like that it becomes your experience together, and I think that’s really beautiful.
Hannah: So many of the lyrics that stood out to me on the EP are also those same “you” lines like, “you always do this, or you wanted a love like this,” and I think it's really cool to see that there's almost a subconscious observer, that it sounds like you both kind of hold that role within the other, at least in these songs.
[“You want it but you’ll never get ahead of it,”
“Would you ask me to go / if I wanted to stay? / If I needed your love / Would you push me away?”]
Bailey: Yeah we are always talking about perspective. We'll actually really really argue about the perspective of the song. We didn't do that much on this one because we made it so quickly.
Al: Our ability to write together is just like getting faster and faster all the time which is a cool feeling because it feels athletic in a way, to be like, okay the song is like this and I'm filling this space and I'm trying to make this point - how do we do it? And we know each other's instincts and rhythms more and more and more.
Hannah: Are you guys inspired by any video games? I saw you are anime heads.
Al: I feel like video game soundtracks are just so beautiful and the purpose that they serve is just like slightly different than a lot of other music. It's like a score. There are some games that we both played as kids where I feel like we both share as reference points.
Bailey: I don't know if that's something we talk about like as much anymore because we don't have the same “all-time games” either.
Al: True. I used to like literally fall asleep to my DS or my game boy like cracked open playing Pokemon or Animal Crossing.
Hannah: What do you guys like to get when you go to gas stations on tour?
Al: I've been really into yerba mate recently. But I really try to get the one that doesn't have the added sugar in it. If I can find one of those at a gas station, it's gonna be an amazing day.
Bailey likes to get bags of Mr. Peanuts. One spicy, one normal. And a cold brew.
Hannah: What’s a dream bill you’d wanna play on?
Al’s Version
Fantasy
Hello Mary
Model actriz
Blonde redhead
Bailey Friends Version
Palm
Deerhoof
Godcaster *only if they play the old record in full
Fantasy
Bailey’s Legends Version
Mahavishnu Orchestra
Stevie Wonder band
George Harrison
Fantasy
Ceci: Does playing shows still feel fun every time?
Al: It's complicated in the sense that it sucks when the sound is bad. Or that something's breaking. But I don't feel jaded about shows. I'm not jaded about performing. Yeah. I love doing it. And I feel like I'm able to be present pretty much every time I'm performing.
Bailey: Al would like for the floor of the stage to be just the right amount of viscous for them to perform their dance moves. And sometimes we'll play a spot that's either carpeted or the floor is like a little too slick or something. And that can potentially put a wrench in Al's shoulder.
Al: Yeah, dangerous. I'm always dancing. The stage can be a way to kind of take out whatever [is going on] with your friend, like if you're fighting all day and then you have to like go play a set together, that can be kind of a cathartic thing. It's weird doing this as a profession because you go out for a month and, well, technically for 24 hours a day you're not at home, you can't be in your own space. How do you even put a price tag on that as a profession, you know? I feel like most bands need an amount of love to exist within them, because if that's not there, the only thing you really have is money. Well, hopefully you have a creative thing, you know.
Bailey: The music.
Al: Yeah, the music
NYC Mayoral Election!!! Let’s keep Cuomo the hell out of here.
Soft Power Vote’s ranking has changed in light of recent events that happened after we went to print. NYC politics, baby! Every day is a winding road!
Follow
on IG for the latest updates, as we can’t predict what else might happen between now and Election Day on June 24!But still, no matter what, Don’t Rank Cuomo.
Important Dates:
Deadline to register to vote: June 14
Last Day to Request an Absentee Ballot online or by mail: June 14
Last Day to Request an Absentee Ballot IRL at a Board of Elections office in your borough: June 23
Early Voting: June 14 - June 22
Election Day (aka the LAST day to vote!): June 24
Register to Vote HERE
Deadline is June 14!
Find your Poll Site HERE
Remember: Early Voting and Election Day Poll Sites may vary
June GUNK is flying off the shelves this month! if you haven’t been able to find it at your usual spots, please remember there are a few venue partnerships in effect now where you can secure a copy!
Thank you to our venue sponsors at Bowery Ballroom (LES), Roulette (downtown BK), Earthly Delights (Ridgewood), Arlene’s Grocery (LES), and Light and Sound Design (Greenpoint). Feel free to pick up copies at these locations if you are having a hard time finding one!
We have a big party coming up in August…..our second birthday to a beautiful baby GUNK girl (ceci told me GUNK is she/her (!) yesterday). If you or any organizations in your life would like to be involved in sponsoring this event and helping us secure some fun raffle items for guests, hit our line! It’s gonna be a fun one.
Get to the gig!!
xoxo
Hannah and Ceci