Brandon Robbins is Following His Songs Home
For more than a decade, Brandon Robbins has been at the center of The Moth & The Flame, taking the band from its early days in Provo to an Elektra Records signing, major tours with artists like Imagine Dragons and The Naked and Famous, and a growing international audience. Their atmospheric, expansive songs have found their way onto alternative radio and streaming charts, but at the heart of it all has always been Brandon’s songwriting.
Now, Brandon is taking those songs out on his own, leaving some of that scale behind and bringing them into much more intimate rooms. Just Brandon, a guitar, and songs he’s been living with for years.
There’s something fitting about returning to that simplicity. Many of these songs started out that way, and playing them solo gives Brandon a chance to reconnect with where they began—and to discover how they’ve changed along the way. We caught up with him to talk about revisiting those early songs, growing alongside them, and the moments that still surprise him when he plays them today.
The Moth & The Flame spent years making music that could sound enormous. Now you're taking those songs into rooms intentionally built around quiet and listening. What have you discovered about the songs when they don't have anywhere to hide?
It's a bit like going back to the origins of the songs, honestly. Looking back through old voice memos and remembering what they sounded like when it was just an idea on a guitar. We always had the mindset that, when writing, if you stripped all the production away, the song still needed to stand on its own. So, I'd say, for the most part, I’ve discovered that not having anywhere to hide is a really enjoyable, connecting experience, especially with the right audience.
The earliest version of The Moth & The Flame was essentially you playing songs with an acoustic guitar. Does doing a tour like this feel at all like returning to where the project started?
I guess, in some ways, it does feel reminiscent of the early days, but more than that, it feels like exciting new territory. I feel like I'm coming at it now with a new arsenal that I didn't have before. I genuinely love performing, which wasn't always the case. It's a privilege to be able to do this and connect in this way.
Is there a song in the catalog that surprised you when you started playing it stripped down?
There are moments in almost every song that hit different. It is so refreshing when it happens, like a certain line will just impact and I'll think "ok maybe you aren't terrible at this," jokingly, of course
You've lived with some of these songs for well over a decade now. Are there lyrics you understand completely differently at this point in your life?
When performing some of the old songs, I sometimes feel compelled to give a disclaimer that I was young and emotional when I wrote them. Oh man, some pretty dramatic lyrics at times. But they were so real at the time; it's interesting to see how I still value those songs deeply, but I've moved on from the place where I wrote them, so the experience is very different.
If you could sit next to yourself while writing your first record in Provo, what do you think he'd be most surprised to learn about where those songs took you?
I've thought about this so much. I listen back to our first record and remember the pure exploration of songwriting that I was experiencing. I had no idea what I was doing, and that can be an advantage in so many ways. The amount of time you spend completely engulfed in the moment, just feeling the music, not thinking about anything. That is a superpower that lots of young songwriters may not even know they have.
What tells you that a song is actually good before all the interesting production and instrumentation get added?
Does it make me feel something? I remember we were in the studio recording an EP that Joey Waronker was producing for us, and there was this guitar part that I wanted to re-record because it was the "demo" recording. Joey just said, 'Why? If it sounds good, it sounds good." And he was right, it wasn't perfect, but it had something to it that felt great. Its really easy to overthink everything. Does it make you feel something? Simple as that
Is there a Moth & The Flame song that never became one of the "big" songs but that you personally think deserves another life?
I'm glad you put the word "big" in quotation marks; I'd have said all of them otherwise. One song that gets me every time I go back to is "Round" off of our album Young & Unafraid. It was never going to be a big song; it’s not a single at all. But listening loudly with headphones and some mood lighting is an experience. It’ll make me cry to this day. Peter Katis absolutely nailed the production on it.
You've talked about how some of the hardest periods of your life ultimately changed the way you connected with other people. Has that changed what you believe music is for?
Sincere connection with people is maybe one of the most fulfilling things we can do in life, and it's not easy, or at least it wasn't always for me. Music has always helped me feel understood. I love how a song can make someone say, "That's exactly how I felt," and I love trying to provide that for someone. Those times when it happens are special.
There are songs that can be difficult to write, but then you have to sing them hundreds of times afterward. Has performing ever changed your relationship with something you originally wrote about?
I remember early on touring, I started to feel the numbness setting in of playing the songs over and over, but then you have something like the first show where people in the audience are singing along, it gives those songs new life and then you can't wait to play them again. I think every song eventually takes on new life and new meaning, and you just have to be willing to embrace that.
Since you're coming through Florida, what does your ideal Florida day look like if you have absolutely nowhere you need to be until soundcheck?
I love to play golf, so that's probably what you'd find me doing, then maybe some seafood at the beach and cooling off in the ocean. That sounds pretty dreamy
