“Well, it all started with Fred Again,” says Rainbow Kitten Surprise frontwoman Ela Melo about the beginnings of the quartet’s fifth album bones. It’s a delightfully unlikely statement from a band founded at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina back in 2013, a band who bonded over a shared love of The Avett Brothers, Bon Iver, Modest Mouse, Iron and Wine, and The Lumineers. Completed by guitarists Ethan Goodpaster and Bozzy Keller, and drummer Jess Haney, RKS made their name creating soulful, hook-heavy indie rock, buoyed by electrifying live performances — their communion through music cemented by a warm camaraderie, drawing a devoted fan base, and over two billion streams across platforms.

But back to Fred Again. It seems that same something caught the ear of the English dance titan who reached out for a potential collab back in the summer of 2024, so Ela started cranking, firing off ideas. Ten songs turned to 15 turned to 32. “Something opened up inside of me, I was wanting to get this creativity out, so I just kept writing,” recalls Ela. “Pretty soon it was 50, 80, and by the time we wrapped, we had 160 songs going into the record.”

Bones comes hot on the heels of 2024’s 22-track double opus Love Hate Music Box (released six years after the acclaimed How To: Friend, Love, Freefall). It’s an album which saw the band stretch their sonic wingspan to encompass synths, clipped beats, glossy pop textures, and included a guest spot from Kacey Musgraves. It was a necessary season of experimentation which sprung from a protracted period of writer’s block and compounding pressure. During this time Ela also battled with her mental health, experiencing a psychotic break and manic episodes which ultimately led to a bipolar diagnosis. The result is an ongoing approach focused on regulation, balance, medication, and therapy. It’s a process.

“I just try to keep myself grounded and stay in the best state I can be to make sure I can do my job with the people I love,” Ela acknowledges. And with this understanding came a new vulnerability and freedom. “I’m not the most qualified to do everything there is to do. It’s accepting that and accepting people’s help when they offer it. And not just accepting but encouraging and being open and negotiating with other’s perspectives, wants, and needs. If everybody’s engaged, that’s what’s going to create the best result. But in order for that to happen, there are things you have to let go of.”

 “It’s been a journey of self-improvement for every single one of us,” agrees Bozzy. “Where in the past we maybe would have been a little more apathetic, or shy, we’re all here to step up and lend a hand.”

The acknowledgement of these helping hands there to hold RKS as a whole is an  evolution warmly reflected in their art, making bones their most collaborative collection to date. Ela’s indelible melodies flirt and flit between slice of life confessionals and evocative, cryptic couplets, each component working in lockstep: hooky, heartfelt, and rich with grooves that you can’t help but move to and be moved by. Even though the foursome were working at pace, they still allowed themselves the space and time to be super prepared, with the band decamping to their West Nashville RKS HQ, aka the band house, to flesh out initial song sketches.

“Ela was writing all the demos in a very, very purposeful way to leave room for us to create,” says Ethan. “It was like we were a different body part, on the same body, working together in harmony. Looking back it’s insane how easy it felt.”

Having first worked with Grammy-winning producer Jay Joyce (Lainey Wilson, Orville Peck, Cage the Elephant) on How To… in 2018, by the time they reunited at his vast, converted church — Neon Cross Studio — in the spring of 2025, RKS were no longer the newbies Joyce had met, “flying by the seat of their pants,” as they put it. This time, they were seasoned, focused, and ready. They’d caught the wave.

Bones opens with ‘Friendly Fire,’ its melancholy swing giving way to a chorus that swoops and soars, a joyous exhalation. With its gang refrain of “Time tells all,” it’s the tone-setter: perseverance proving RKS’ longevity and mettle. It also happens to be the first song they recorded back at the band HQ. “It was like, ‘Oh, we’re so back, we’re in this!’ recalls Bozzy.

‘Hell Nah’ also feels quintessential, Ela’s vocal somehow both laconic and urgent, a slow build to thrill before they slide into the title track. Packing a propulsive wallop of a chorus, Ela casts back to 23, “chasing bodies,” and nostalgic snapshots of a different time: “I got no sorrys / I was sipping on molly.” 

For the most part Ela’s reticent to be drawn on lyric specifics but concedes that ‘100 Summers’ is her rawest song to date. Honeyed melodies and epic peaks bely a heart-rending yet cathartic chorus: “A hundred summers died calling for you / Nevermind, nevermind, I guess we’re through.”

“Songwriting, I swear, it’s a spiritual process,” says Ela. “It’s like channeling other energies

— those of your friends, your partners, it’s drawing from a shared experience. I believe other people speak through you and into the music, if you’re willing to open. I don’t know exactly where this is coming from, but I don’t take ownership of it and this is the most representative and most in some ways, complex and cohesive thing we’ve ever done. I’m proud as shit.”

Elsewhere there’s the playful, romantic check-in of ‘Stars,’ while slowie ‘Murder’ bleeds into the rollicking ‘Dang,’ which bear a kinship of chiming guitars — both hat-tips to formative influences The Avett Brothers and Kings of Leon, back when Ela, Bozzy, Jess, and Ethan were just kids in dorms, a dreamer’s future still waiting.

“I would take my acoustic guitar and walk around our college campus and try to make friends,” recalls Bozzy. “I was looking for that human connection and I think the scale of that’s changed, but ultimately that’s still what we do every night: we make a connection.”

Raring to get back on the road, RKS are already testing new cuts to rapturous reactions, and in the composition of bones, they were always thinking about how this new body of work would translate. “It’s like eating pixie sticks as an adult,” affirms Ela. “Every new song is like, let’s go!”

And of course we’re dying to know: what’s up with that Fred Again collab? Ela laughs: “To this day we’re still waiting. Put that in the bio!”

Strange as it is, Fred Again was the spark that lit the fuse — the new era of Rainbow Kitten Surprise is here.