Interview by Lindsay Kafka
In the hospitality tent after their set at the 2025 Springtime of Youth Festival, Connor Brogan, Ryan Brogan, and Quinn Brogan of Modeling sat across from me. While the sounds of the festival pulsed outside, time felt slower in the corner of that tent. A post-set haze lingered in the air, the calm after something immense. Earlier onstage, Modeling had built a world of their own… a lucid, dream-like performance that swelled with synths, layered vocals, and emotion. Sitting together, it became clear that their artistry comes from a place of deep intention. Every note, texture, and interlude is handcrafted with the medium of their own emotion. Over the next fifteen minutes, we sank into a conversation about liminal spaces, films, video games, nostalgia, their creative process, and the poetic meaning behind their name.
Lindsay: Would you guys mind saying your names really quick?
Ryan: My name’s Ryan.
Connor: I’m Connor.
Quinn: I’m Quinn.
Lindsay: Y’all have a very distinct sonic identity; it’s cinematic and nostalgic. If you had to describe Modeling’s sound as a place or a feeling instead of a genre, what would it be?
Connor: Feeling instead of a genre… Well, even you saying that it’s a feeling instead of a genre is a good description.
Ryan: Isolation, maybe? I don’t know if that’s a feeling, that’s like a state.
Quinn: That could be a place.
Lindsay: Definitely, a lonely place.
Ryan: We’ve all actually been talking about the word liminal.
Connor: Oh yeah, I like that! It’s like a feeling that you’re familiar with, but it’s a little uncomfortable at the same time.
Lindsay: Right, right.
Quinn: I’ll go with that!
Lindsay: I read that you three are brothers. How does that familial bond shape the way that you collaborate creatively?
Ryan: Well, it’s great because we all know each other-
Connor: And we all live together.
Ryan: And we all live together, so we do have that advantage, and we know what we like and what we don’t like. I guess it’s more comfortable to work with somebody who you have a relationship with.
Connor: I would just say to me, it’s an advantage to be in a family band.
Quinn: The Jackson Five! They were brothers, so hopefully it works out for us like them.
Connor: I think we just understand each other. If something’s not working out, we just understand the other person. Not that you can’t have that in a friendship, but it’s built in. And also, friends come and go sometimes, but we’re always just here together.
Lindsay: You know the ins and outs of each other having grown up together.
Connor: We’re always on the same wavelength, too. We don’t have to explain ourselves ever.
Lindsay: I noticed you sampled the Interstellar soundtrack on “Somewhere Before”. Is Hans Zimmer an inspiration for y’all?
Connor: We didn’t actually sample it, but we were inspired by it. That’s a good callout, though. We definitely love the movie Interstellar, and Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack for that movie was very influential. That song was actually very influenced by ET!
Lindsay: Ohhh, ET, ok ok!
Connor: Yeah, all that’s in there!
Lindsay: Extraterrestrial!
Ryan: It’s not just ET, yeah, it is Hans Zimmer, it’s everything. We really wanted that piece of music to sound like a film score, but not connected to a film.
Lindsay: On that note, if you could collaborate with any filmmaker or video game designer to score some work of art, who would it be?
Ryan and Connor: Paul Thomas Anderson
Quinn: Who did Midsommar? Oh yeah- Ari Aster.
Connor: Also, Quintin Tarantino. I’d be down for the challenge.
Lindsay: Being based in Northwest Arkansas, how do you feel about having played a University of Arkansas campus production? And do you feel like the NWA community is tied in with the creative scene?
Ryan: I’m gonna answer your second question, I think it’s not so much currently, and that’s
because of all of the music venues being closed down. There’s only George’s and Ozark MusicHall now. There used to be a lot more. I wouldn’t say the music scene right now is really tied to NWA because of that now. What was your first question?
Lindsay: How do you feel about having played a University of Arkansas production?
Ryan: I feel good about it! This is actually our second one; we played one inside some building
on the U of A campus.
Quinn: It was for Headliners like two years ago.
Connor: I would like to say thank you to whoever from Headliners had us come on here, and we also love working with KXUA! We’ve done some past interviews, so we have a good connection with the radio station.
Lindsay: Creating music is a very intensive process, and y’all’s music is very emotional and complex; there’s a lot of layers to it. How do you stay grounded emotionally while you’re producing this music?
Connor: I don’t know if we do!
Quinn: I think we go a little insane, haha
Ryan: I think we do subconsciously. For me at least, you’re right, when we work on music all day, it’s very intense, very draining. I just go outside and go on a run. When I come back from that, it’s like “Everything is fine”, even though everything in music is not fine, it’s always a challenge. But it clears my head.
Connor: I’m gonna say the same thing, I’m gonna agree with that. I think doing some kind of exercise and playing video games, doing something that’s stress-relieving, always helps. But really, the whole process of making music- I feel more grounded most of the time… It’s almost like there’s a lot of emotions that take place in everyday life that are kind of-
Lindsay: Weighing you down
Connor: Stuck, yeah. And then creating the music lets those out in a way, so it almost is like a therapeutic thing.
Lindsay: A decompression in a way.
Quinn: Yeah, I think they got it for me!
Lindsay: Your sound carries a very nostalgic feeling. It sort of reminds me of like- I used to play Legend of Zelda and stuff on my 3DS late at night, ya know? Do nostalgia and world-building play a part in your songwriting?
Connor and Ryan: Yes, absolutely.
Connor: And I think subconsciously, because none of us are like “let’s make this song sound like Zelda from 3DS,” but we just play a lot of video games. Actually, Quinn, do you still play..?
Quinn: Actually, I don’t think I’ve played games in a while haha
Connor: The worldbuilding is definitely a big thing, and I think a lot of that comes from movies, too. And it is a subconscious thing, but we are conscious in that when we start something, we’re like “let’s connect it to the next piece or do something that feels connected,” so things aren’t just random.
Lindsay: Your song “InCreases” is very vulnerable. It touches on family conflict and seems to take a bit more of an intimate twist on the album. How did that shift come about?
Connor: Man, you are diligent. I think everything that I write lyrically comes from an intimate personal place, so for me, it wasn’t any different than anything that I write. To be honest, the only reason why it’s at the end of the album is because it was the last song that we wrote, it was the newest one, so it went there. But lyrically, I think everything that I do is from an intimate personal place.
Lindsay: Got it, so it drew from the same source of inspiration as the rest of your tracks.
Lindsay: If you could go back and play your younger selves any Modeling track, which would it be, and how do you think your younger self would react?
Ryan: As a drummer, whenever I was younger, I just liked playing fun songs, so I’d probably choose one of the funner ones to play on the drums.
Connor: Your younger self probably wouldn’t be into the more serious ones haha
Ryan: That’s so true. So I’d probably choose to play “Until it Ends” because that one feels fun, but also the newest one we put out, “At Variance”, is fun for me too. But I know that my younger self wouldn’t know what to do with those at all. I grew up playing pop-punk, so I would probably play some pop-punk beat over that music. Could be interesting, could be cool!
Lindsay: Yeah, could be fun!
Quinn: I would probably choose “Drifting”, but I would choose it because of Braveheart, the movie. I watched that movie growing up. I really liked that music. I didn’t think I would ever play something that has that emotional weight to it. And then showing my younger self that we’re doing something emotional seems kinda cool. I knew that I liked it; I didn’t ever think that I would play it or be in a band.
Lindsay: It would be an inspirational moment for young you for sure!
Connor: That’s almost verbatim the answer that I was gonna say. I was gonna say “Drifting”, and for the purpose that when I first heard ambient music without vocals and without drums, itaffected me in a way that I was like- I didn’t know that you could feel something from just music without having a singer sing words at you. So I would choose it for the same reason.
Lindsay: This might be odd, but I noticed an Instagram caption of yall’s that said “Ideas are like fish,” and that drew me in. I was so curious as to what this might mean! What does “ideas are like fish” mean?
Ryan: We stole that from David Lynch! He’s amazing, he’s a huge inspiration for all of us. I think we were watching a bunch of videos at the time, and we were like, “This guy- he gets it!”
Connor: Well, because we struggle sometimes to come up with things to put in songs. When we get writer’s block, we’ll go and watch interviews, and David Lynch said, “Ideas are like fish, you’ve gotta catch them when they come to you. You can’t just let them go.” And that’s how he was describing it, and I like that idea.
Lindsay: Definitely, it’s a great idea!
Quinn: Yeah, it’s a great one hahaha
Lindsay: And it’s just like a fish hahaha, we caught it while it swam by!
Lindsay: And our last question, what does the name Modeling mean to you? What inspired it? Was there a conception or moment behind it?
Connor: So it comes from this French poem book by Michel Houellebecq. The book is called The Art of Struggle. In this book, he describes people and how they go through life, modeling and shaping themselves from materialistic things, and it’s a very depressing way he describes going through life. But I took the work because I liked how he used it, and I liked the idea of shaping ourselves over time. “Modeling” being a verb and being something that’s ever-changing is what it means.
Lindsay: Right, we’re constantly modeling ourselves. We’re like big balls of clay.
Connor: Yeah, I’m glad you asked that because people always think it’s like actual fashion modeling.
Lindsay: Right, but it’s about modeling yourself into who you wanna be and who you are.
Lindsay: Well, that was awesome, thank you guys so much!
Connor: Great questions, great interview, thank you.
Ryan and Quinn: Yes, thank you!