“I think we’ve always been really open to trying stuff,” The Rubens vocalist/guitarist Sam Margin tells Apple Music. “You can hear it on our records. We haven’t ever been that safe.” And so it continues on SODA, The Rubens’ fifth album. While drawing on familiar elements such as Margin’s soulful vocals and the group’s infectious mix of rock, soul and pop, here the quintet experiments with production techniques such as Auto-Tune (the title track) while taking a lyrical approach that subverts ideas around heartbreak (“Gone”) and growing older (“Pets and Drugs”, “Sunday Night”). Not that this was the vision that initially inspired them to create—that came from a far more primal place. “We’d just come out of COVID, and we’d missed everything we had and realised how much we love what we do,” says Margin. “That was reason enough. We love making music. I don’t think we had something specific to say or a concept but, as we started recording it, we started to realise what we were going for.” Margin credits the downtime during COVID with giving the band space to consider what they liked about their previous albums, arming them with ideas about where to take SODA. “The things that we’d learned, the sounds we liked, the pedals we liked, the synthesisers, the drum sounds, and everything we’d learned from the producers we’d worked with in the past,” says the singer. “I think it was a culmination of everything we’d done previously.” Here, Margin and his brother Elliott (keys) talk Apple Music through SODA, track by track “Death Is a Friend” Elliott Margin: “When you sit and think about the fact that we’re all going to die, that can either be really scary or it can be comforting, and make you not want to worry about anything. This is more leaning into the comforting side of it. If none of this is permanent then try and be OK with having fun here in the moment.” Sam Margin: “It briefly shows a lot of the different elements that you’re about to hear in the record as well.” “Black Balloon” EM: “The song is anti-nostalgia. A lot of people tell you your youth is such a good time, cherish it, you have no reason to be sad, but kids can have heavy feelings too. It’s a bit naïve or even moronic to think that your youth were such great years. You should allow yourself to remember the bad times as well as the good and not just think that everything was rosy.” “Pets and Drugs” EM: “It’s a reference to growing up and getting older, where you see your friendship groups veering apart from each other and picking different paths. Some people get engaged and get a dog and that’s their part of growing up, and others get a bit stuck in the lane of still hitting the pub or clubs on the weekend. I don’t frown upon either of those things. You find your path and whatever works for you as an individual is OK. I don’t think you need to beat yourself up about it.” “Good Mood” SM: “It’s a song of joy. It’s a pretty emotional start to the record, and I think at this point it’s a bit of a release. It’s obviously uptempo, energetic, but it’s more of an optimistic song.” EM: “It’s optimistic in dark times. It’s the melding of the two.” “Cornerstore” SM: “It’s about being honest with yourself about your shortfalls in a relationship; being a shit partner at times and maybe hoping to be better, but then repeating the mistakes. That’s often the case with a lot of songs I write. I’d rather write from the place of being the sinner than the saint ’cause it’s a bit more honest.” “Sunday Night” EM: “It’s an anti-maturing or growing up kind of song. It’s kind of about finding the person in your life who also thinks the bad idea is a good idea, and gallivanting down that path. The metaphor of the whole ‘Sunday night’ thing is, I probably should be going to bed, gotta get up in the morning, but then you find the person who’s giving you the side eye and you think, ‘Should we push it?’ Using that as a metaphor for making unhealthy choices in general in life but doing it with someone who you’re arm in arm with.” “Soda” SM: “It’s from the perspective of a person in a relationship who’s starting to realise that this relationship is going nowhere. I don’t think it’s saying that this person is the only problem, I think it’s the relationship that they’ve got together is falling apart, and starting to acknowledge that. The second verse is slightly more hopeful, or trying to say I’ve got more to give than this, so there’s maybe a bit more helplessness and hoping for better as their relationship ends.” “Talking to Horses” EM: “Lyrically, it’s about someone at a party who has taken it too far, and everyone is now avoiding them. They’re walking down the hallway leaning on the wall and making a menace of themselves; they’re on the roof when they shouldn’t be; they’re jumping in the pool when they shouldn’t be. But in their mind it’s like they’re having the best time, and isn’t everyone else having a great time with them? It takes someone else to pull them out of it and hold a mirror to them.” “Liquid Gold” EM: “It’s the old smiling through the tears kind of thing; realising that something is maybe ending and there’s nothing you can do about it, and you might as well put on a sunny disposition, be OK with who you are, be OK with who the other person is, and keep putting a smile on until it feels real. It’s not real right now, it might not be real tomorrow, your cheeks hurt because you’re faking it so hard, but eventually it will be true.” “Gone” EM: “It is a song of heartbreak, but not of the typical-love-story heartbreak. It’s a breakup love story between a drug dealer and the drug dealee. The drug dealer is giving up drugs, they’re going away from it, and it’s your love song to them saying, ‘How could you give this up? Look what we have!’ Every metaphor is a link to saying goodbye to your drug dealer.” SM: “Elliott masterfully wrote this song. Even once you know what it’s about, it’s still heart-wrenching.” “Roll Away” EM: “Ending with Sam solo on the vocals, it kind of feels like all this stuff has happened on the record, we’ve gone in so many different directions, and then it’s like Sam’s standing there and bringing everyone back together for one last hurrah. It feels like the right way to end.” SM: “There’s so much bizarre shit that happens throughout the record, in a way that I love—lyrically and thematically we’ve been on quite a ride—and I love that this song comes back to heartbreakingly earnest lyrics. Especially the bridge, it’s super emotive. It does feel like you’re bringing everyone together for a hug at the end.”