<\/p>\n
A pop-rock group led by a married couple traveling the country in their camper van says Vilano Beach and Jacksonville played a pivotal role in their forthcoming album\u2019s production.<\/p>\n
Ever since they became \u201cnomadic,\u201d as Jane Fitzsimmons puts it, she and her partner \u2014 in life and in music \u2014 Ian Jones have tried to spend their winters in Florida. The two, who front the DIY band TWEN, built their camper during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and saw it as the perfect opportunity to return to a place they came to love while touring with their band.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second we finished it, January 2021, we beelined to St. Augustine, Florida, because that was like our dream of, \u2018We\u2019re gonna be there,\u2019\u201d Fitzsimmons tells Jacksonville Today. <\/p>\n
From Vilano Beach with love<\/p>\n
Fitzsimmons says a friend asked if she and Jones would be interested in looking after her home (and cat) in Vilano Beach. They jumped on the opportunity to write and record the forthcoming Fate Euphoric, their third full-length album, there. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor about two months, that\u2019s where we finished the record and just went to the beach every day, and it was just a beautiful time,\u201d Fitzsimmons says. \u201cI wish I was there right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not the first time the Sunshine State has been a part of TWEN\u2019s music \u2014 in 2023, the band released a beach-infused song called \u201cSeaStar<\/a>\u201d inspired by time the two spent at Indian Rocks Beach near St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n The band fell in love with the First Coast after a tour stop at grilled cheese pub Sarbez!<\/a> in St. Augustine when they were just \u201ca baby band,\u201d Fitzsimmons says.<\/p>\n \u201cThe culture in St. Augustine is so surprising to me as well because it sometimes feels like a Nashville equivalent, but only in the best way, in the sense that you hear live music all over Downtown,\u201d she says. \u201cYou don\u2019t see that everywhere. And it\u2019s like that beach bum, you know, off-the-beaten-track kind of person that I think we connect with.\u201d<\/p>\n A special place in Jacksonville<\/p>\n In addition to Vilano Beach, a Jacksonville landmark played a part in the development of TWEN\u2019s new album, too. <\/p>\n The band visited Jacksonville while touring earlier this year to play a show at Kona Skatepark, which opened in 1977 and is considered the oldest operating commercial skate park in the country.<\/p>\n In addition to performing at the venue tucked inside of the skate park, the band shot a music video for their new song \u201cGodlike\u201d<\/a> that includes local skaters and other people who attended TWEN\u2019s Jacksonville show.<\/p>\n That song is about feeling powerless amid the heightening political tensions of the 2020s, they say. <\/p>\n TWEN, named for a German slang term for people in their twenties, has a sound that\u2019s at once modern and nostalgic. Per the band, it\u2019s \u201c1965, 1995 and 2025 all at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n Fate Euphoric will be available on music streaming platforms Nov. 4.\u00a0In addition to vocals, guitar and songwriting from Fitzsimmons and Jones, the album features Asher Horton on guitar, Camden Pink on bass and Forrest Raup on drums.<\/p>\n The post Vilano Beach, Jax played key roles in TWEN\u2019s new album<\/a> appeared first on Jacksonville Today<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pop-rock group led by a married couple traveling the country in their camper van says Vilano Beach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[749,116,118,117,14229,17856,266,748,17855],"class_list":["post-23171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-breaking-news","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jacksonville-today","tag-jax-played-key-roles-in-twens-new-album","tag-local-news","tag-newsbreak","tag-vilano-beach"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}TWEN filmed the music video for their new song \u201cGodlike\u201d at the Kona Skatepark in Jacksonville. | YouTube screenshot<\/p>\n