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Jared and Kristyn Corder are *repeat repeat, a Nashville-based garage surf pop band that rose from the couple's meeting and courtship, not the other way around. Their full length debut, Floral Canyon, was released in 2017 and new music is ready--it's so ready that the band will perform a lot of it during their set at Sloss Fest.

The couple just bought their dream home outside of the hustle and bustle of Nashville. Jared chats about the couple's meeting, their love of rescue animals and how to beat the heat during July in the South.

You guys didn't meet until you independently arrived in Nashville. How did that happen?

Kristyn has a background in PR, and at the time she was doing PR for artists. One of the bands she was doing PR for was headlining a show [The Future] and the band I was in [Oh No No] was opening for that band. She came out to the show when we were opening for The Future and the band I was in was this ridiculous party/pop/indie rock band; we were all about being as ridiculous as possible on stage. That night, we decided to all dress in '80s outfits--I was Tom Cruise from Risky Business. So I'm just wearing a white shirt and whitey-tighties with sunglasses, so when we met that night, I wasn't wearing pants. [laughs]

You don't really think you're going to meet the love of your life and your co-pilot in your career without pants on. It was certainly a moment that I could have not written if I'd tried.

So you and Kristyn were actually dating before you began working on music together?

Yeah! She knew that I wanted to pursue music; that was something that I was pretty clear about. And she owned her own business; she was doing PR and she was slowly transitioning into graphic design at the time. She was an entrepreneur and she worked really hard and she knew what she wanted, which was owning her own business.

When you start a band, you're kind of running a small business as well. I think that's something that we were both really attracted to when we met each other. 

How do you balance your personal relationship with your working relationship? Or is there even a line? Are you always working?

We both really like to work. And we both really like to feel like we've earned things. So we never really stop working; and we work really hard.

It's kind of all-encompassing in our lives. We see a color we like and think, "That'd be a really cool thing to have on a record" or we hear a song we like and we think, "Those drums would sounds great on a song of ours." At some point, it becomes part of your identity; which is what we set out to do. I wanted to be a musician, and if I'm being a musician, it's not like being a postal worker or a server at a restaurant in the sense that you go home at the end of your shift. Being an artist--being a musician--whether you're famous or not, it's something that you just are. We work really hard and we love to work and that has become who we are. 

For the first time ever with our new music, we're actually cowriting from the inception of a song; we're creating it together. That's an exciting moment for us and our career. It only solidifies that we don't really have a fall back plan and we also don't really know what's next. We have a strategy just like any smart artist should have; but in that sense, we don't know what the future holds. I just don't know what else I could be but a musician.

Are you and Kristyn the only two "official" members of the band?

The answer is yes; Kristyn and I are the band, especially with the new incarnation of our music. From the get-go, Kristyn and I have been the ones that have put our heads together to figure out what's the look, what's the feel of the band. 

We're also very loyal. We hire musicians out, and in Nashville, there is certainly a large pool of artists that are very talented. But once we find someone we like and work well with, we try to hold on to that person as long as physically possible. The only real difference between anyone in our band and Kristyn and I is that they aren't in the pictures and they actually make money [laughs].

You spend a lot of time rescuing animals. How do you manage their care when you're out on tour?

There are a lot of great people in town--millennials--looking to make some money and they love animals. We surround ourselves with people that are working professionals--that are in creative fields--and are also animal lovers. We have a good group of people that we rotate to help with our pets when we're on the road, but as for our personal time with them, they're our family. 

When we're not on the road, we want to just be home surrounded by our pets. Most of them all have special needs. We have a three legged lab; we have a kitty with two back legs that fixate forward like skis--we found him that way when he was a kitten in the street. 

We've always just been drawn to animals and taking care of them. If we're not doing something immediate with music, that's where our heart is--I can see us running an animal rescue or animal shelter. We want to expand the animals we have, too, as we move to the farm. We want to have a pig and a goat and a cow, and rescue all of them and take them somewhere that they'll be loved and treated with respect. 

You've been on the summer festival circuit across the South in the middle of summer. What is *repeat repeat's advice for beating the heat during summer at festivals?

Growing up in Phoenix, I was only about four hours from the beach in Mexico. That's actually where Kristyn and I got engaged--on the beach in Mexico. And I learned a valuable lesson there that I still use to this day which is a "one for one." You do one drink, then you do one bottle of water, and that way, you're not throwing up into a black trash bag at the end of the night--especially if it's tequila. So if you're drinking, do a "one for one." Alcoholic drink? Then have a bottle of water. 

Also, find a partner that is going to be willing to wipe off your face if you're playing an instrument. If you find yourself playing an instrument at the festival and you can't wipe your face off because your hands are currently playing that instrument, find a partner that is going to grab a towel and wipe you down. Huge help. I do it all the time. I ask Kristyn to wipe my face because I wear glasses, so by about halfway through the set anytime we play an outdoors show in the summer, my glasses are pretty much gone at that point. 

What can we expect from the live show?

New music that is not on our record that we are recording right now in the studio. So you can only hear it at our shows. We also have a brand new song that we are going to cover that we are really excited about. At Bonnaroo, we covered "Tick Tick Boom" by The Hives and we've done "Sleep Now in the Fire" by Rage Against the Machine. And we prepared a special cover song just for Sloss Fest. We're excited to bring this one out. No one has heard us play it yet; it'll be the first time.

We've had a crazy week. We had a dog that needed surgery last minute. That was traumatic for us; we haven't had anything super scary happen with any of our pets in 7-8 years. We saved up and we worked really hard and rented for eight years and we are about to buy our dream house in the middle of the woods--mainly for the pets--and we were worried we were about to lose our dog and our house in the same weekend. It was a hard time for us. 

Coming to Sloss and feeling the energy already that is leading up to this festival is really palpable and really exciting. Knowing that there are a lot of people there that are really excited to hear us play--my hope is that it creates a moment for us on that stage that most everyone won't forget. I want to put a realness and an authenticity and a rawness for that show on stage that we haven't been able to do.