The Devil Makes Three : The SoCal Sound Session

3 songs performed LIVE + Interview with Mookie

Written By: Tristan Dolce

Spirits, released on February 28, 2025, marks the band's first studio album in seven years, following 2018's Chains Are Broken. The album explores themes of grief, mortality, and personal reflection, influenced by frontman Pete Bernhard's personal losses during its creation.

Mookie sat down with the band to discuss the writing and recording of Spirits. Bernhard admitted, “we definitely had a not so brief hiatus. We were off the road for over two years. Some of the songs are from back then, but a lot of them we wrote actually right before we went in the studio. So yeah, but it's been, it's been a long time coming for sure.”

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Pete Bernhard & Cooper McBean, originally from Brattleboro, Vermont, played music together as childhood friends and during high school. Fast forward a decade and half to the two somehow connecting on the other side of the country in Santa Cruz and forming The Devil Makes Three among a developing folk/punk scene in the Bay Area.

All SoCal Sound Session, interviews, and performances are filmed and edited by Matt Blake, recorded and mixed by Tristan Dolce. 

When talking about the making of Spirits McBean reminisced, “Well, we actually just kind of were drawn there by the studio itself. Dreamland. It just looked like a really cool location. But, Hurley is right next to Woodstock, so it's kind of a nice place to make a record. There's a lot of musical history, there's a lot of great restaurants. It's like a nice little town.

The Devil Makes Three’s new record Spirits is out now on New West Records.