Now She Know My Name

Follow Othersides, Jameson Brenner & Kris Hansen

You may not have heard of Jameson Brenner or Kris Hansen until now, but you’ve certainly heard of them before. Contributing to some of Chicago’s best projects in the past few years, they have a robust list of collaborations with a lot of These Days favorites including Pivot Gang, Appleby, Kweku Collins, Eryn Allen Kane, Twin Peaks and Probcause.

Originally from the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago, the two childhood friends have been making music together since they were 11 years-old and were part of the band Zaramela during college, but recently found themselves working separately on other collaborations. This sparked the idea to come back together under the moniker Othersides and release both new music and older compositions they had already started.

These Days is premiering today their second ever release “Now She Knows My Name” featuring Elton Aura. Their sound is at the intersection of various genres with a knack for chill vibes. This single is allowed to breathe with an airy guitar melody and soothing vocals that contemplates “wonder who we’re going be in a year, pack your bags up tight leave some rooms for the memories.” It’s a reflective record that slowly adds dynamic nuances as it builds with snares towards Elton’s verse.

Listen to “Now She Knows My Name” and check out These Day’s quick Q&A with Jameson about Othersides, their creative approach and what lays ahead.

You’ve been a lowkey, behind-the-scenes figure for most of your career. What made you want to venture out with your own project? How did the Othersides partnership come about?

The two of us have been writing music together since we were 11 years old, so it feels really natural to work together. We’re both really inspired by collaborating with other artists, so we’ve both fallen into many different roles working with other artists, respectively. We wanted to create Othersides as an outlet for us to release the music that we’ve written together.

What’s your creative approach as a duo? How is it different from all the collaborative work you’ve done in the past?

Our creative process is constantly changing and evolving as we work together. Since we both have pretty extensive experience collaborating with other artists, we try to fall into whatever role the song or idea needs at the time. After coming from being in a 7-piece band together, where everyone had their own specific role, it was important to us that we didn’t limit our creative process as a duo, so that we’re able to explore different ways of making music with each other.

Is there a specific inspiration for “Now She Know My Name?”

“Now She Know My Name” actually came about very organically. We used to let Elton use our practice space for rehearsals sometimes when him and Phoelix played together as a group called, MDMC. Elton ended up walking in one day before their rehearsal, while we were jamming, and started noodling around with the melody that would inevitably become the hook for “Now She Know My Name.” It wasn’t until a few months later that we listened back to a voice memo of that jam, and we realized that he had stumbled upon a really cool idea, and we knew that we had to make it into a full song.

What’s next for Othersides?

We’re just trying to keep putting out more and more music, and start bringing these songs to a live setting. We’ve spent a lot of time in the studio, so we’re definitely trying to balance that out with some shows this summer.