Interview: The Darts (US)

A Conversation With Garage Rocker & Retired Judge Nicole Laurenne

Feb 26, 2026

The Darts (US) with Nicole Laurenne front and center. Photo by Tina Gross.

Seattle-based garage rockers The Darts (US) are back with the killer new album Halloween Love Songs.

The 13-song collection—featuring Nicole Laurenne (lead vocals/organ), Lindsay Scarey (bass/backing vocals), Rebecca Davidson (guitar), and Rikki Watson (drums/backing vocals)—was recorded by Mark Rains at Station House in Los Angeles following extensive US and European tours in 2025.

“(Rains) also did our 2024 record Boomerang, and two of my bandmates live in LA, so after such a great experience with him last time it made total sense to run in between tour legs and whip this album out in three days. I love that he can do this kind of quality work on my crazy time demands,” Laurenne told me for the interview below.

The album comes out swinging with lead track “Midnight Creep,” a collaboration between Laurenne and Scarey.

“We met while go-go dancing at an event, so we decided the world needed a dance to go with the song that the crowd could do with us. While I reworked (Scarey’s original song ‘Phantom Creep’), she made up the dance and ‘Midnight Creep’ was born. We started playing it out on tour and the crowds instantly loved it,” Laurenne said.

I caught up with Laurenne by email in the weeks leading up to the March 3 release of Halloween Love Songs (Adrenalin Fix Music / Meow Hiss Music). We discussed the writing and recording of the album, Laurenne’s previous careers as a judge and litigator, and what’s next for The Darts (US).

I’m loving the new album. How was this one written and recorded?

Nicole Laurenne: I started writing this record in the summer of 2024 when The Darts were on tour in Europe. I did an interview with Rock n Folk in Paris and the journalist and I were joking that there needed to be more Halloween anthems, other than just “Monster Mash.” I started writing Halloween-themed songs that very day.

I realized as I started writing that there are two sides to Halloween—the monster, trick-or-treat, kitsch fun side and the darker, mischief-night, devil-be-damned bonfire side. Side A feeds the first need and Side B heads into darker themes.

Halloween Love Songs is a great title. How did the concept evolve?

Nicole Laurenne: All the songs have something to do with darkness and Halloween generally, but, like all my songs, I find myself constantly writing about relationships— bad love, breakups, yearnings, crushes. So when you combine the two, you get songs about vampires falling love and creeping around after your boyfriend falls asleep and being haunted by past loves. It was an easy title to arrive at once I noticed that there really weren’t enough songs that combined love and Halloween.

I was instantly hooked by the opening track “Midnight Creep.” Can you tell me a little about how that song came together?

Nicole Laurenne: Almost every Darts song starts the same way, with me on my laptop on GarageBand—usually in the tour van—with a bass line or a riff in my head. Then I write the drum parts and add a counterpoint guitar line, with vocal melody and organ parts as almost a decoration on top of that stuff.

Sometimes a band member would give me a riff or a lyric or an idea to start with, but not very often considering how many albums we have done. Enter Lindsay Scarey, the new bassist, and—without knowing I was writing Halloween-themed songs—she handed me a full song concept she called “Phantom Creep.” She gave me permission to run with it.

“Apocalypse” is a real barnburner. Does a track like that one start out as something more stripped down before the band gets their hands on it, or does it arrive fully formed?

Nicole Laurenne: All my demos are full formed, right down to backing vocals and effects, once I send them to the band. My bandmates have never lived in the same areas, so rehearsals aren’t possible. They all have to do their own homework and arrive on tour ready to perform that same day.

So, it works well to have the parts already sorted out and have them hear the finished product before they even start learning their lines. Then we slowly add a few of them to the live set before we record it, so we can test it out and get a feel for things. But most of the tracks are being played together for the first time in the studio with just one or two takes.

“The Devil Made Me Do It” is a real standout track. I imagine it gets live crowds revved up. Is that one in your current setlist? What has the response been to the new songs?

Nicole Laurenne: That is probably my favorite song on the record right now! I love how Mark started the song with a dry, almost ‘90s grunge guitar sound and then fuzzed it up as the band kicked in. Irresistible, to my ear anyway. We added it to the setlist last summer and the crowd always claps along and pogos in the pit to it.

Our crowds are super lively and interactive. Usually I am on someone’s shoulders in the front row, wearing someone else’s hat, the Farfisa is tipped over and my bandmates are flailing around all over the place. It’s quite the experience. We know we have a winner song when people come to merch after the show and ask where they can buy the song, even when we haven’t recorded it yet.

You’ve played in many bands within the garage punk universe. What is it about this music that speaks to you?

Nicole Laurenne: When you play the Farfisa organ, that sets the tone instantly for a ‘60s-inspired garage rock feel. Granted, The Darts have never limited the sound to a strictly garage genre—you can hear lots of pop and classic rock and even soul in the albums for sure—but when I first learned about garage rock, I was thrilled to find a genre that celebrated the organ sound that I could bring to the table. The Seeds, The Animals, Question Mark and The Mysterious, The Lords of Altamont, The Doors…all these organ-fueled bands really spoke to me instantly.

You are also a retired judge and litigator. I’m curious how you balanced that career with your music life. Do you see those element of your experience as separate, or all part of who you are?

Nicole Laurenne: It was very difficult to juggle, once the bands got bigger and the tours got more demanding. I was working full time at court and raising twin daughters. I had a lot of help with the kids from my ex-husband and my parents, but it was still a magic trick to make the tours work. Often my flight would land from Paris at 6:30 am and I would be on the bench by 8:30am for a full day ahead of me, eyeliner still in place from the last show. But I took both jobs very seriously, and I refused to let either of them suffer for the other. They were both too important to me.

I don’t think any of us are one-dimensional; we are all parents and musicians and neighbors and co-workers, and so yes that world was as much a part of me as anything. But my heart and soul were in the music, always. That has always been number one, for better or worse. It was a choice I made a long time ago, or maybe the muse made it for me.

The Darts (US) are about to embark on a world tour. What would I be listening to on the stereo if I climbed in the tour van with you?

Nicole Laurenne: Whatever our driver wants to listen to, since we all have our own earbuds in! In Europe we have drivers since it is tough to navigate other countries’ traffic rules and tiny cobblestone paths in a huge van—and they listen to whatever they need to stay alert and focused.

In the US, we drive ourselves. I usually have some kind of news radio on, like NPR, as it keeps me focused. If I listen to too much music while I drive, I get distracted. Rikki drives too, and she listens to a lot of psych rock, like maybe The Oh Sees or something. I don’t know—whenever someone else is driving, I’ve got my giant headphones on, plugged into my laptop, writing a song almost all the time!