Babe Club’s Jenna Desmond and Corey Campbell Are Better “Together”

Babe Club’s Jenna Desmond and Corey Campbell are better together. 

That was the realization that prompted the duo to break off from fellow Charleston band SUSTO in 2018, and it’s also the takeaway from their new single “Together,” which premieres below with a self-directed video that was inspired by a “Nuns Having Fun” calendar (yes, you read that correctly).

“Back before Babe Club existed, Corey taught me how to play the bass over the course of a few weeks,” Desmond tells American Songwriter. “We called it Booty-Bass-Bootcamp, because we woke up at 6:00 AM every morning to learn/practice. We were working to prep me for an audition for SUSTO. I had never played a string instrument before, so I really needed to put the hours in. A few years later, we were out on the road, and Corey made a track that would become the OG demo for ‘Together.’ When you hear the lead guitar in this song, you’re hearing me playing the guitar like a bass, because that’s all I knew how to do at the time.”

For Desmond, “Together” is a testament both to her and Campbell’s relationship and to Babe Club’s evolution: “Whenever I hear the song and think about this process, I’m reminded of all the things that we’ve been through together, and what we’ve enabled each other to do.”

The track is a wistful indie pop number that pairs Desmond’s lilting vocals and vivid songwriting with nostalgic production. These opening lines set the tone: “Do you remember we were lying in the naked woods of each other, looking at the edges of our lives. How do I get back? I’m trying to be normal again.” 

The video depicts two nuns playing basketball, mini-golfing, eating ice cream, skateboarding, and frolicking on the beach. “We wanted the video to be less about a romantic relationship and more about how spiritual friendship can be,” Babe Club note in a press statement.

“Shortly after Jenna and I started dating, we started touring in a band together,” says Campbell, reflecting on their early years as a couple. “It was an intense way to get to know each other. We were sharing hotels and living room floors with our bandmates all over the country. When we moved in together, we didn’t really know what it was like to be alone together. I wanted the lyrics [of ‘Together’] to feel cinematic, like a scene out of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I wanted to write about our relationship as if it were over, and what we would be missing out on if we didn’t continue dating and collaborating musically.”

“Together” is the first single off Babe Club’s debut EP, which is expected to arrive this fall. The EP was recorded last year at Atlanta’s Big Trouble Recording with Dan Gleason and TJ Elias, the producer / engineer duo behind Lunar Vacation’s latest release. The band is currently rounded out by creative collaborator Meg Ha.

“We have a few songs in the pipeline to get mixed that are finished tracking, a lot of songs that are mid-tracking, and some songs that are written but haven’t started tracking,” Campbell said in 2018, following the release of “Hate Myself.” “We are probably 40 percent through a full-length album. We’re trying to figure out whether we should release an EP and then an album.”

Check out the first glimpse of that EP below.

“Together” is out June 16 via The Orchard.