The parking-lot photos came before the final lineup. By the end of summer 2026, Vancouver band 32flightsdown had already spent months playing as a trio when Sofie Quebral answered a Google Form calling for a new member. She joined Rhea Rao, Asha Ben Davis and drummer Taiga Furusho, moving Davis from bass to lead guitar and giving the group its current shape.

Their debut single, “Monatova,” introduces that lineup through ringing guitars, a slightly distorted vocal and an invented place large enough to hold the band’s growing mythology. Behind the polished recording sits a group still young enough to argue freely, change direction and laugh at its own mistakes. We spoke with 32flightsdown about the band’s first rehearsals, creative disagreements, Vancouver audiences and the music already taking them beyond “Monatova.”

photo by Hayden Delamere

Hi, everyone. What are people already getting wrong about 32flightsdown after hearing “Monatova”?**

Asha: It’s a project, an art project honestly. No one gets anything wrong or really right; we have our intentions when making it, and once it’s out they can interpret us however. I really like to think 32flightsdown is a narrative. The music, the looks, the sound, the audience, THEY are the band. Taiga is always very vocal about the aspect of individuality in college bands. When I go to a show with him for the night, we always end up talking about what makes them different. When we apply that to our own work, we work to try and create this story, this event that we are presenting. We wrote about a fictional place, Monatova. Our new unreleased work talks about a ruler who wears a neon crown, and she watches over vast hills of cities. Sofie wears that crown at our shows to represent that story. Without the culture around us shaping the identity of these fictional places and people, there would be no narrative to share. Taiga can’t stand something not being unique; he gets in a bad mood when he’s bored, so that’s a drive; we don’t like the bad moods; I also respect him a lot. For me, the band, the performance, and the art are one. One continuing story.

Rhea and Asha, take us back to your first session together. What did you play before either of you knew a band was forming?

Rhea: Late December 2025, Asha and I started playing together, and I remember that all we did was play “No Surprises” by Radiohead on a loop for about 2 hours straight. We kept switching out who was on drums and who was on the guitar, and I don’t think either of us had a set plan or agenda of what we were doing. But the next day, we did it again. As we both had previously recorded music, we gradually started writing together, but the idea of a band came to be only when a really big gig opportunity came our way and we realized that we could turn whatever this was into something bigger. Soon after, we started playing with Taiga (it is still a mystery to all of us on how that came to be), and things just started falling into place that led the building of this band to happen very naturally. It’s hard to believe it’s only been less than a year.

Taiga, what did you hear in their early material that made you want to join?

Taiga: I think the chill and friendly vibes they had. They were mixed up with a kind of modern pop, but also with some indie sound. We could generate it easily and make it sound really great so I really felt I was creating something in this modern society. It was a new challenge for me to do something. I am always glad that I play music with other people, and it’s one of my expressions of creativity. I am happy to play with this band and will continue to play. Hopefully, we can get bigger because I truly believe people will love it if they listen, and it’s great.

Sofie, you arrived while the band was preparing to expand. What convinced you that this group had room for your own musical personality?

Sofie: I just knew I couldn’t miss out on being part of something great. I’ve been following the band ever since they debuted with that effortlessly cool photoshoot in a parking lot. I remember thinking, “Wow, they look like they’re gonna make it big.” Fast forward to the end of summer 2026, they suddenly posted a call for a new member. I have always thought 32 was perfect as a trio, but something about auditioning made sense to me. My life has not been the same ever since I filled out that google form, haha. In my own solo stuff, I never go out of my comfort zone, being the indie-folksy sound. With 32flightsdown, I feel so confident exploring new musical horizons because of how bright and skilled Rhea, Asha, and Taiga are. They might not have necessarily needed a new musical personality, but I am all the better musician with their presence in my life.

Asha: We love you, Sofie, we all needed you.

Who suggested distorting the vocal on “Monatova,” and how extreme was the first version?

Asha: I blew out the mic trying to record Taiga’s kick drum on the demos, so in the final version I spent a lot of time trying to make that broken mic sound in Logic during the mixing process. Most young singers try to chase that early Julian Casablancas sound, but somehow it wasn’t intentional. Sometimes it can be. My inspirations are very apparent sometimes.

I want the mildly embarrassing rehearsal story: which part of “Monatova” took far longer to finish than any listener would guess?

Rhea: Once we had the foundational basis of the song, the hardest part for us was deciding on how we could make it a little more interesting. We went in circles on adding and removing riffs, background vocals, and guitar solos before landing on something we believed to have the catchy sound we were looking for. We went through quite a few demos that now sound like completely different songs, and the project was almost scrapped in its entirety before we picked it back up, primarily because we had trouble creating a chorus that stuck. As for the embarrassing part, I spent a long time trying to perfect background vocals through harmonization for the chorus. Mind you, these vocals are very, very subtle, but they took a while. There was a lot of trial and error, so we probably still have multiple takes of failed harmonies that will hopefully never see the light of day.

Asha: The embarrassing part for me is that as a stupid American, I swore Manitoba was spelled that way.

Let’s get the awkward question out of the way early. Who usually wins when all four of you want the song to move in different directions?

Rhea: I’d say about 99% of the time, that would be Asha. Quite honestly, though, it very rarely becomes an unwilling direction for us to move in. Asha handles all of the production, mixing, and mastering, and I know we all have a lot of trust in him creatively. I like to think that the way all four of us work together works as a symbiotic relationship; we all have our different backgrounds in music and opinions in how we want to define our sound, and we often tend to build off of each other’s ideas. However, it goes without saying that we aren’t always going to agree on things, and sometimes those opinions can be strong. Taiga and Asha sometimes clash on what they think sounds great and what doesn’t, and when that happens, they duel it out in a match of sumo wrestling, and the winner gets their way. It’s a foolproof method – I have video evidence. Actually, they got into a bit of a fight at a party once, which is an example of the level of intensity that can come out of being constantly surrounded by a group of strong-willed creatives. Love them though.

At the next show, watch the crowd during “Monatova.” What reaction would tell you the song has properly connected?

Sofie: I think watching people sing the lyrics is so gratifying. That is my measure of success and connection, especially for a song like Monatova. Its catchiness is meant to create an anthemic response, and once we see people singing at the top of their lungs about a place they’ve never heard of before, we will know Monatova has done its job.

Which current band would each of you happily share a bill with, even if their audience had never heard your name?

Taiga: I would love to play with Turnstile if we are talking about the modern music scene. They have some really hype songs, and the atmospheric mixture of the punk genre makes it more engaging, and I hope we can play with such a band that has that because I believe that in live music, atmosphere is one of the most important things. They make music that is able to express identities. Identities that are hidden in our daily lives- I want to help with that by making music for people. I am really happy that we have an opportunity to play and be able to make the audience satisfied. I love the environment where the audience starts to sing on their own, because that’s the sign that they’re really engaging and truly feeling the music from their heart. We want to provide those opportunities.

What are you making now, and how far does it move away from the version of 32flightsdown heard on “Monatova”?**

Asha: We are working on projects steering away from Monatova. I don’t think any of us have any connection to the song. It isn’t our “baby”. It’s like a kid we are babysitting that somehow showed up at our house. I know I shouldn’t say that. We wrote it to show that we were capable of making something clean and catchy. Now that we did, we can focus on more raw and experimental sounds while maintaining the bar we set for an ear-friendly sound. We hope to release an EP by next year.