In October 2025, Weakened Friends released their third album, “Feels Like Hell.” After ten years together as a band, the album reflects their dedication to steady growth and improvement. Juice Box Press spoke about that process with lead guitar/vocalist Sonia Sturino ahead of Weakened Friends’ upcoming tour with The Wonder Years.
Before the Drop
In the half year since “Feels Like Hell” was released, Weakened Friends have already toured with the new music across the US, hitting East Coast, Midwest, and West coast markets. Seeing the fan reaction to the album was a welcome reprieve from the quiet anticipation that filled the gap between album release and the start of an official tour. Sonia reflected on the time leading up to the album drop, “It’s exciting, there’s all this anticipation, and you put so much work into a record, and you’re waiting for the day you put it out, and then we put it out and then you’re just like ‘okay cool, now I have to like, do laundry and take the trash out,’ and nothing really changes. It’s just out in the world, and it’s not until we get on tour that it starts to feel real.”
For Sonia, reality hit after seeing how the album “really connected with people and every night it’s been a packed house, and a lot of people are seeing us for the first time and have found our band through this record… it feels really, really awesome to see that reaction.”
Building A Fanbase
Weakened Friends’ growing fanbase is no mere coincidence. In the lead-up to “Feels Like Hell,” the band made a proactive effort of pushing their work to the public wherever possible, but in a way that felt authentic to their identity. In addition to filming four music videos and regular posting activity, Weakened Friends focused on record stores in nearly every city they toured in, highlighting local businesses and taking a mutually beneficial approach to their promotional work. Their strategy minimized the need to chase social media trends. “I don’t think we’ll ever be an obnoxious TikTok band that posts the same clip of a song every day,” Sonia affirmed. “I know that’s like, the thing [that bands do], but it feels so disingenuous that I can’t bring myself to do it. We maybe do it a little, but I don’t know if that’s the story of Weakened Friends.”
Sonia prefers instead to let the music speak for itself: “I think the record’s our best record… we really dialed in on it, and I think it’s just better. I think when something’s better, it’s just going to reach more people.”
Sonia framed it all more broadly, “we’ve been a band for ten years, so I think we’ve just been hammering away at it and building and growing.”
Taking It Song By Song
Weakened Friends’ nose-to-the-grindstone mentality extends to their creative process. When asked about the genesis of a Weakened Friends album, Sonia states simply, “I mean, we just start writing songs, right?” They elaborate further: “Take it song by song and then eventually you have a collection and see how they speak to each other.”
The work is continuous, but they describe it as routine. “I think it’s just committing a little bit of your day, every single day, to being creative and being in that space… I think it’s just that process of constantly chipping away at it. I read somewhere once that your job as an artist is to stay inspired and always just trying to stay inspired, whether it’s reading a book, or going to watch a show, or just kind of keeping your brain like a sponge to the world around you.” Sonia added, “I think in order to create art, you have to have this very curious mind, and a very fearless mind that just kind of opens itself up to the world around you and lets that in. You let those things impact you and then ultimately put them into your artform.”
When Creativity Strikes
Sometimes inspiration can come conveniently; Sonia often notes intriguing quotes while reading. “If there’s a line in a book I really like, I’ll write it down, and write who wrote it, and ruminate on it a little bit. There’s been lines in a book I’ve read [that] I’ve based a whole song on, or feel like I could base a whole song off of, or ideas off of,” Sonia said. Other times however, finding inspiration means mustering the will to go out and find it. “I think it becomes really easy for me when we’re not on tour to seek out a little more introversion and a little bit more solace and alone time, but I’ve been trying to also be cognizant about how that sometimes can force me to be a little bit of a shut-in and avoid the world that might inspire me, that might be like, just a good time. Like, I’ve been trying to ‘go to the party’ more, go do the thing.” Sonia acknowledges the temptation to stay sheltered inside, especially in the gloom of winter, but they restate the overriding objective: “I’m always just trying to grow and always just trying to see more, do more, experience more.”
The creative direction of Weakened Friends has historically been guided by Sonia Sturino, but in the production of “Feels Like Hell,” bassist, sound engineer, and producer Annie Hoffman (who also happens to be Sturino’s wife) took on a more prominent role. Annie’s greater involvement is quite a natural evolution of the album-making process. Sonia explains, “When you think of the face of the band, of Weakened Friends, I think it’s always been in my mind equal parts her and I really fronting the project. I say that because she’s always been the one to engineer and produce our records and in a big way [help] with the arrangements and the production side of things. On this most recent record and even moving forward now, it’s like we’ve been really dialing in co-writing and she’s been there to help with that, which has been awesome because it’s always been something I kind of did on my own.” Sonia describes Annie’s contributions as supportive and motivating, her creative instincts spurring Sonia to push past mental blocks and stick with concepts that might have otherwise been discarded. “Sometimes with songwriting I give up when it’s not easy, and she’s been able to really be like ‘No, you should keep pursuing that idea, let’s go back to that one. I think you have it, I think you just need to do this, and this, and this,’ where I would be like ‘This song’s shit. It’s done. We’re done,’ a little sooner. I’m very judgmental of myself and she taught me to not be.”
Annie’s advocacy for particular songs paid off in the final product. Two of the most prominent tracks on Feels Like Hell would not exist otherwise. Sonia recalls playing the opening chords of “Tough Luck (Bleed Me Out)” to pass the time while Annie got ready to go to the gym, thinking nothing of them until Annie spoke up about their potential. “I wouldn’t have thought they were cool. I was like ‘this is just chords,’ but she was like ‘Can you remember that?’” From that small request, the album’s lead single was born. Sonia also credits Annie with NPC, another highlight of the album that features blistering guitar solos by Buckethead. Sonia admits that they nearly gave up on the song out of frustration from a lack of progress, until Annie intervened and fought for the song. Of Annie’s contribution, Sonia jokes, “They’re both staples and two of my favorite songs on the record, so no big deal.”
Landing Buckethead
How does one land a feature from a legendary guitarist like Buckethead? Sonia matter-of-factly describes the unexpected friendship that came from their other job at the State Theatre in Portland, Maine. “I was working as a house manager. I try not to really be in the artist space much, but for where our offices are located, you have to go through the bigger main area of the green room, which is a little awkward at times. I was doing my little awkward shuffle, and he was like ‘Hey!’ and I was like ‘Hi!’” They became fast friends over the history of the venue, the sights of the city, and comic book stores.
That friendship is ongoing, as Sonia notes. “He’s been a very supportive person when it comes to our band and our creative process.” Collaborating with Buckethead for “NPC” was therefore a straightforward matter of sending the following brief: “We have a song called “NPC,” it’s a song about being [a Non-Player Character]… I kind of want a guitar solo that sounds like this artificial world that this NPC is living in, like the fabric of reality starts to shred apart, pixelating and exploding.” The result speaks for itself, and the first take that Buckethead sent back was everything Weakened Friends wanted.
A Unified Collection of Tracks
“Feels Like Hell” is more than the sum of its parts, though, however bright those individual spots might shine. Sonia describes their desire to make a cohesive album in an era of music where albums are often consumed piecemeal through streaming. “I’m an album person. I do like when you sit and can listen to an album, looking at it as a packaged product and not just like a bunch of singles. We’re so in a single-oriented, very like ADHD world right now that it’s kind of counter to that I guess.”
Note-worthy hints toward that intent on “Feels Like Hell” are the two interludes following “Weightless” and “Not for Nothing,” and the downright cinematic outro of the album’s final original song, “Great Expectations.” Explaining how the interludes came to be, Sonia describes them as unplanned moments that occurred while developing the rest of the album, opportunities to be creative and have fun while still sticking to the goal of a unified collection of tracks.
Speaking of the grand outro of “Great Expectations,” Sonia said, “it does have that cinematic quality to it, and it has this slow build into this big part, and I love a song like that. I love a song like that to end a record. That one was really just different for us, but I loved it so much. I love the lyrics. It’s one of my favorite songs on the record.”
A Response to “Quitter”
There’s an impulsiveness to “Feels Like Hell” that is in some ways a response to the development of Weakened Friends’ 2021 sophomore album, “Quitter.” Sonia described how Annie’s perfectionist nature collided with their more free-wheeling approach to shape the production of “Quitter” at the time. “I think on Quitter, her and I kind of butt heads a little bit because she was getting like so in a wormhole with a lot of it.” Sonia contrasts that with their own tendency to seek momentum and chase vibes when creating music. “I think she just cares so much, and caring so much, then the combination of being in lockdown led to this world where we were, I think, what it felt like to me, really over-tweezing.”
That’s not to say that Sonia dislikes the album, but the arguably over-tuned process that forged “Quitter” was one that they were happy to leave behind. “I think ‘Quitter’s’ a good record. I like certain songs on it, but I love the energy and the vibe of making this last record, like ‘Feels Like Hell’ was just fun to make and enjoyable. We didn’t cut any corners, and we made sure everything sounds great, and the songs were strong, but like weren’t trying to prove some point to who the f*ck knows who.”
Deconstructing the Binary
The pressure to prove a point, Sonia elucidated, stemmed from a self-imposed attempt to fit into a gender role. By the time work started on “Feels Like Hell,” however, Sonia had unshackled themselves from that burden. “At some point, I just kind of like gave up on gender roles, like ‘this is so stupid,’ for me. In so many ways, I do feel very feminine, but in other ways I feel more masculine… As someone who was socialized female and grew up in that, to be just that felt limiting and didn’t feel correct. It felt like being placed in a box that didn’t always fit right.” Sonia detailed how trying to fit into that box limited them. “I always would have these habits I would pick up to try to make myself sound more feminine, or I would have anxiety that if I would go certain places with my voice or with songs that it wouldn’t be well-received because I’m a woman and people are not really receptive to that. It’s just nice to really not give a f*ck about what anybody thinks anymore and just kind of make music for the sake of the fact that you’re creating art and that’s what matters, and it’s my truth.”
While Sonia pushes back against the confines of gender norms by eschewing them entirely, Annie has occupied Weakened Friends’ “Feels Like Hell” era with self-assured confidence to push back in her own way. Sonia observes, “Annie is an incredible engineer, she’s incredible at production, she’s an incredible musician-one of the best I’ve ever worked with-and I know I’m biased, but I mean that, and I think the sound engineering world and the tech world can be such a fucking dick-swinging contest.”
The male-dominated field offers many frustrations as Sonia lists countless examples of demoralizing gate-keeping and condescension. “I think it puts you in this place as a woman in engineering and in music and in that world where you have imposter syndrome, and you’re trying to prove a point to this… collective male voice that occupies that world. That can be so detrimental…”
Looking back at how things were when “Quitter” was in production, Sonia recalls that Annie spoke about feeling the need to suppress her instincts to appease that collective male voice. Now more self-assured in her own ability, Annie has moved past putting herself in the corner. Sonia remarks, “it’s so nice to see her like the most confident she’s ever been, making this new record and totally in her own element and doing it for the sake of the art and really thriving.”
“Feels Like Hell” is a high-water mark for Sonia and Annie, and they’re determined to keep pushing higher. It’s a safe bet to assume they will; they’ve already demonstrated the will and the skill to keep hammering away at their goals. Weakened Friends are stronger than ever.
Featured Photo Credit: Justin Labadie
