There’s something kind of romantic about the way the duo behind youbet talks about music. Not in the obvious sense, where it’s dreamy or precious or overly reverent, but more romantic in the way some people talk about cities they love or old friends they’ve known forever. Comforting. Familiar. For Nick Llobet and Micah Prussack, the duo behind youbet, music feels less like a fixed thing and more like a living language they’re still teaching themselves how to speak, even if it’s already a language that they speak very well. 

When I spoke with the pair ahead of the release of their self-titled record, which is out now via Hardly Art, they were somewhere between Tucson and San Diego, as they were in the midst of touring for the new album. It’s in this discussion that I learn that the two have a varied mix of taste. Over the course of our interview, they reference everything from Green Day (a band Prussack loves but Llobet “appreciates”), Lord of the Rings music, flamenco, and composer Alfred Schnittke and USSR classical. Their listening habits seem to operate without hierarchy, and they maintain themselves as less concerned with genre, and more of with what speaks to them. 

As both members of youbet are innately talented musicians, and music teachers, it seems almost natural that they’d find themselves working together and creating their own music. “I think the reason why we started working together at all is because we realized we both had the bug for learning songs,” Prussack explains. “We just have this ravenous appetite for listening and learning songs.”

Not to mention, the two have obvious sense of being on the same page about the music they create, and they constantly finish each other’s sentences. “It’s funny you say that,” Llobet says when I point this out, “We met this psychic person-” “My girlfriend’s mom’s friend,” Prussack interjects. “And they were just like, ‘I’m picking up this energy, this vibe that you both are very special, and there’s this connection you have,’” Llobet finishes. 

That “ravenous appetite” that Prussack mentions sits at the center of youbet, a record that feels both meticulous and instinctive at once, much like the artists that created it. The album’s arrangements twist unexpectedly, songs swelling and reshaping themselves before settling somewhere stranger and more satisfying than where they started.

“I think the entire existence of this band has been allowing the songs to take a different shape, both by necessity and through interest,” Prussack explains. “We recorded the album last February. These songs take so much time, and in that time, our ideas about the songs could be completely different, and we want to allow that change.” 

That philosophy of being open to adaptation and change feels important to the ethos of the band as a whole. Appreciation, curiosity, and openness seem to drive nearly everything they do. Even when discussing classical music, a major source of inspiration for both musicians, the conversation centered less around prestige and more around scale, emotion, and arrangement. “I think if we were replicating [songs] exactly like [we always do], I don’t know if it would be true to our process,” Prussack says.

That desire to avoid falling into predictable shapes runs throughout youbet. The record constantly pushes against convention without ever losing its emotional center. Llobet, who handles the band’s lyrics, described their writing style as “a collage approach” built from scraps of poetry, journal entries, humor, darkness, and whatever emotional residue happens to be floating around at the time. 

“I like to think of the themes as a playfulness,” he explains. “There’s some morbidity, some darkness, and I like to be kind of funny in the lyrics. I like to be a little provocative. I don’t have a specific idea, it’s usually kind of a collage. And I like that. It’s less pressure on me. As much as I’d like to be like a Bob Dylan kind of songwriter, where I could write this eight minute, 10 verse story, I just can’t do that. And I’ve tried, and it just always comes out really cheesy and non genuine. My strength is just sticking to my stream of consciousness.” 

Though, that’s not to say that they’re not open to the idea of bringing in inspiration from their personal life. For instance, during the making of the record, Llobet was navigating the aftermath of the end of a 13-year relationship and living alone for the first time since adolescence. But even when the subject matter gets heavy, there’s still movement inside the songs and a refusal to sit still emotionally or musically for too long. That same evolution has carried over into the band itself.

What started as a more isolated DIY project has become something larger and far more collaborative since Prussack joined nearly four years ago. Touring, and the glaring moments of necessity that come with it, forced the band to take a more insular look into its future. At one point, the band had six people onstage. Eventually, budget constraints forced them down to a three-piece setup, which meant rebuilding songs from the ground up every night. “It never ends,” Prussack says of how touring impacts their constant need for evolution. “Our work is so cut out for us.”

Still, there’s genuine joy in the endlessness of it. Llobet repeatedly referred to songwriting and live performance as puzzles to solve. They obsessively record rehearsals and shows, workshop arrangements, ask trusted friends for brutally honest feedback, and then do it all over again “We’re fiends for problem solving,” he says. “We love the puzzle.”

Listening to them talk, it becomes obvious that the music only works because the partnership does too, even if that wasn’t always guaranteed. Despite the fact that the duo almost seem like a pair of twins in their ability to remain in sync, their working relationship has not always been harmonious. “We almost stopped working together,” Prussack admitted matter-of-factly.

The band had to survive its own growing pains before arriving at the kind of trust they operate with now.  But, the duo came out stronger for it, with the constant pressures and demands of touring only intensifying their bond. When Llobet lost his voice during the first week of tour, a nightmare scenario for any frontperson, especially an independent band already operating on borrowed money and razor-thin margins, the rest of the band stepped in seamlessly, with Prussack assuring him that the show would go on. “To know that my bandmates have my back like that,” Llobet says, “it’s incredible.”

Maybe that’s the real shape of youbet: not perfection, not polish, not some airtight artistic manifesto, but a document of people choosing to keep building something together. The album sounds expansive because the lives behind it are expanding too, into touring, collaboration, creative risk, logistical chaos, trust, reinvention, and all the strange responsibilities that come with trying to turn art into something sustainable.

At one point during our conversation, Prussack compared running a band to running a restaurant. Inventory, finances, scheduling, emotional management, problem-solving, all while still trying to protect the actual music at the center of it. But even with all that pressure, neither of them sounds cynical. If anything, they sound energized by the sheer amount of work still left to do. “We have a mountain of work ahead of us,” Prussack said.

And somehow, listening to them talk about it, that mountain sounds less intimidating than exciting.

youbet is out now via Hardly Art.