Biography

FF5 is the brainchild of twin brothers Jacob and Joshua Olds: two Atlanta-bred musicians with wildly divergent sensibilities and a shared passion for shattering boundaries. Although the Nashville-based duo have endured much upheaval over the years—label drama, lineup changes—FF5 now return with new music that proves their chemistry to be more potent than ever. Built on powerful melody and brilliantly sculpted beats, new song “Fire on the Highway” redefines the possibilities of pop and shows the strange synergy at the heart of FF5. With its shimmering textures, the song draws from Jacob’s affection for ’80s pop and Joshua’s raw rock-and- roll energy to dream up a hypnotic yet hook-driven sound. Like most of their new material, the synth-laced track was shaped by the band’s belief in following through on the beautiful mistakes that so often occur in the creative process. As Jacob explains, “Fire on the Highway” came to life while FF5 were loitering a casino parking lot in Reno, crafting some distorted vocal samples with the help of a MIDI controller. “We were messing around with this sample and the song just went off into a totally different place that made it so much stronger,” he says, noting that the track was partly inspired by ’80s dance-pop duo Nu Shooz. “That’s one of the coolest things about us having vastly different ideas and personalities—when we work together, things end up going into these exciting directions we’d never get to on our own.”