When Brady Hughes talks about the making of How Can I Love You?, he doesn’t sound like someone who found peace. He sounds like someone who found clarity through chaos. “It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever written,” he says. “I wasn’t in a bad relationship or anything like that. I was just… not okay with myself.” That self-doubt became the pulse of How Can I Love You?, The NOVA’s second EP and their boldest work yet. The Panama City Beach trio—frontman Hughes, guitarist Grant Tallent, and drummer Will Dolan—has been carving out a space where pop melodies and rock grit coexist without friction. Their sound has always been atmospheric, but on this record, something cracks open. It feels more honest, more human, and more self-aware.
“I’ve always written my best stuff when I’m hurting,” Hughes admits. “But this time, I couldn’t pull from heartbreak. I was happy in my relationship. What I was feeling wasn’t about love, it was about me. I felt disconnected from myself. I couldn’t relax or feel satisfied. It was this weird internal disassociation that I couldn’t shake.” Instead of silence, Hughes found sound. The unease became the foundation for a record that thrives on contrasts: heavy guitars cutting through soft synths, melancholy wrapped in hooks big enough to fill a stadium. It’s a record about restlessness—how even happiness can feel like a foreign language when you’re unsure who you are.
Much of How Can I Love You? was born in Hughes’ home studio, a place he describes as “chaotic but comforting.” The band’s choice to record there wasn’t just practical; it was philosophical. It gave them room to fail, to rewrite, to sit with their songs until they started breathing. “If we had gone to a traditional studio, I don’t think the record would sound like this,” Hughes says. “At our level, we’d be worrying about money, about time, about finishing a song just to say we finished it. At home, we could sit and let the songs unfold. It made everything feel grounded. It felt like us.”
The opening moments of “Headspace” feel like an adrenaline rush, a distorted wave that crashes into the song’s chorus. “That one started from pure noise,” Hughes laughs. “It was literally chaos. Distorted guitars, layers of synths, a mess of sounds. But it was beautiful too. That’s how most of the songs started—chaotic but beautiful.” He pauses before adding, “Maybe that’s how I felt too.” What sets The NOVA apart is their ability to hold contradiction. Their music feels both cinematic and small, both grand and deeply personal. Hughes credits that to the band’s live-first approach and their shared love for ambient and post-rock textures.
“I love that tension between soft and heavy,” he says. “You’ve got these ambient synth sections that just soar, and then you’ve got these guitars that hit like a brick wall. That’s what makes it interesting to me. It’s not about being loud or quiet—it’s about how they collide.”
Songs like “Headspace” and “Back To You” highlight that collision. The former channels heartbreak through thunderous instrumentation, while the latter feels like a quiet confession disguised as a midtempo anthem. “Headspace is about being torn apart by someone you love,” Hughes explains. “But it’s also a song for everyone who’s ever been there. It’s kind of an anthem for feeling like you’re not enough.”
“Back To You” takes a different tone. “That one’s about working through things together,” he says. “People have anxiety. They freak out. They break down. And then someone has to help them pick up the pieces. That process—it says a lot about who you are as people.” Both songs feel like emotional mirrors, reflecting the different ways we lose and find ourselves through love.
The NOVA’s first EP leaned heavily on samples and loops. It was polished, catchy, and self-assured—but it didn’t quite capture who they were becoming. On How Can I Love You?, everything shifted. “We really wanted to sound like a band this time,” Hughes says. “We wanted people to hear how tight we are as musicians. We spent so many hours playing together, rehearsing, figuring out what worked. By the time we recorded ‘Headspace,’ we knew we had stumbled onto something that actually felt like us.”
That sense of unity changed everything. The record feels less like a collection of songs and more like a shared realization, the moment a group of musicians stops imitating their influences and starts speaking their own language. “Every project before this felt like practice,” Hughes says. “This one felt like the beginning.” The NOVA’s sound often draws comparisons to The 1975, The Maine, and The Band CAMINO. Hughes doesn’t mind the parallels; he welcomes them. But he’s careful not to lose himself in imitation.
“You write until you sound like yourself,” he says. “You keep writing. Then you write more. That’s the only way. I love to wear my inspirations on my sleeve, but I never want to sound like someone else’s song.” He laughs when he mentions that “Headspace” went through at least four complete rewrites before the band settled on the final version. “The only thing that stayed the same was the chorus. Everything else got torn apart. But that’s what it takes sometimes. I try not to listen to a lot of music when I’m in my writing phase. It helps me not just copy what I’m hearing.”
When The NOVA headlined their hometown’s amphitheater at Aaron Bessant Park this summer, nearly a thousand people showed up. It was their biggest show to date, and it changed how they saw themselves. “That night was insane,” Hughes says. “It was emotional. Playing live is where you really find out if a song works. When people start singing it back to you, it hits different. I remember playing this small bar once and hearing kids scream our song ‘MYHEADMYHEADMYHEAD’ louder than we were playing it. I started crying. It’s like, wow, this song actually means something to someone.”
For Hughes, that’s the real test of music: not the charts, not the streams, but the human connection that happens in a crowded room. “When you’re recording, it’s just a song to you,” he says. “But when you give it to people, it becomes a soundtrack for their lives. That’s when it becomes real.”
All three members of The NOVA grew up playing heavier music. Hughes and Dolan once played in a metal band together, and Tallent came from a punk background. Those roots never went away; they just evolved. “There’s an energy in heavy music that’s addictive,” Hughes says. “It’s fun, it’s aggressive, it’s alive. Bringing that into the pop world gives us so much room to play. We can throw in a breakdown or a scream and it still feels natural. You can hear that at the end of ‘Calling You’ or even in ‘How Can I Love You?’ when my voice starts to break up a bit. That’s just me letting go. We’re rock guitar players with a metal drummer writing pop songs. What’s not to love?”
If there’s one phrase that defines The NOVA’s new chapter, it’s the one they chose for the title. How Can I Love You? sounds like a confession, but Hughes insists it’s not directed at anyone else. “That question is for yourself,” he says. “It’s about the inability to let yourself be happy. To look in the mirror and say, ‘I deserve to feel good about who I am.’” He pauses before adding, “It’s disguised as a relationship record because that makes it more relatable. But it’s really about trying to find self-acceptance without falling apart in the process. It’s about realizing you’re allowed to love yourself even when it feels impossible.”
As How Can I Love You? continues to reach new listeners, Hughes says he hope’s they feel like they aren’t crazy. “Like they aren’t alone in how they feel. I hope they listen and think, ‘Yeah, someone gets it.’ That’s what the record did for me. It helped me look in the mirror and smile again,” he says. In the end, The NOVA’s second chapter isn’t about heartbreak or fame or even the struggle to find a sound. It’s about something quieter and far more human—the act of learning to stay when everything in you wants to run.
And maybe that’s what makes How Can I Love You? resonate so deeply. It isn’t just a record about love. It’s a record about survival, made by three musicians learning, note by note, how to love themselves through the noise.
Featured Images: Artist Supplied
