When Real Estate’s Martin Courtney sings “you and I” on The Main Thing, it’s not the start of a swoony love song—it’s a quiet panic attack with a smile. “It’s sweetness through the lens of parental fear,” he admits. “You want to make your kids feel safe… but you also know what’s out there.”
On the band’s fifth album, that tension is everywhere: gorgeous harmonies wrapped around existential dread, shimmering guitar lines hiding storm clouds in the lyrics. It’s what happens when a decade in indie rock collides with a world falling apart and the creeping anxiety of raising children in it.
Courtney says the album began with a question: Why even make another record? “It just felt weird,” he explains. “I was like, maybe I should be doing something else. It felt a little selfish.” But slowly, what emerged was a recommitment—not just to music, but to each other. “Making music is the main thing,” he says, wryly nodding to the title. “It’s what holds this band together. It’s what holds me together.”
The band took their time—nearly a year in and out of the studio—to chase that purpose. They brought in new collaborators, like Amelia Meath of Sylvan Esso, who remotely recorded vocals for “Paper Cup.” “We gave her a little direction,” Courtney says. “What she sent back was totally different—and so much better. That surprise is what made it exciting.”
And they got weird. “Friday,” the album’s opener, is all dreamy synths and washy grooves, landing somewhere between Moon Safari-era Air and the most wistful corners of a French cigarette ad. “Once we heard that baseline and drum loop, we were like… yeah, this is Air,” Courtney laughs. “Then we added white noise and timpani booms. It felt new for us.”
They debuted the album with a series of “outstores”—performing outside iconic record shops in New York that no longer exist, like Kim’s Video and Other Music. “It felt like playing in front of ghosts,” Courtney says. “Somehow, it worked. People showed up. Some came to all three sets.”
The point, he says, was to shake things up after a decade together. “We wanted to feel something,” he says. “Like, if we’re going to make a record, let’s make one that actually means something to us.”
That weight comes through loudest on “Silent World,” a track written with his kids in mind. “It’s about trying to build a safety bubble around your family,” Courtney says. “Knowing the world’s insane but hoping that inside this house, at least for now, we’re okay.”
He chuckles about writing lyrics from a place of quiet dread. “It’s probably all my own craziness,” he says. “But it’s also being a parent in a world that keeps getting weirder.”
The pandemic hit shortly after the record was released, adding a surreal layer to songs already about isolation, anxiety, and holding on. “My kindergartner probably already had her last day of kindergarten,” Courtney says, laughing, then pausing. “Which is… not funny. But what can you do?”
It’s not all existential spirals, though. There’s warmth, even joy, in songs like “You” and “Friday,” and a sense of play in the way the band expands their sound. “This record felt like a rededication,” Courtney says. “Like falling back in love with music. And that made us want to try things.”
Even the decision to tour the record in full before it came out was part of the experiment. “It was scary,” he admits. “Some of those songs we may never play again. But it felt like a moment. Like we were letting people in early, before the polish.”
That vulnerability runs deep through The Main Thing. It’s a record about fatherhood, about not having the answers, about clinging to the rituals—music, friendship, family—that give shape to chaos.
“Making music with these guys is still the most important thing,” Courtney says. “Even when the rest of the world feels upside down.”
And if the world does fall apart? At least they made something beautiful on the way out.
Listen to the interview above and then check out the videos below.
