When Los Angeles indie-pop trio Cannons returned from their grueling Heartbeat Highway tour in late 2024, just as their career was really exploding, frontwoman Michelle Joy knew something wasn’t quite right.

“We were in survival mode. We didn’t want to say no to anything — and that’s the quickest way to burn out,” she recalls, sitting with LPTV and her longtime bandmates, guitarist Ryan Clapham and bassist/keyboardist Paul Davis, at Studio City’s Licorice Pizza Records after an autograph-signing event for Cannons’ eagerly anticipated fifth album, Everything Glows.

The burnout and subsequent impostor syndrome actually inspired one of the new LP’s singles, “These Nights,” in which Joy wonders if she’ll be able to maintain this pace and still perform at the high level expected from the group. “I came back from tour and I was just in this low state,” she confesses. “Like, ‘Can I even perform again? Can I even write a good song? Can I show up the way that I want to show up?’”

Thankfully, Joy eventually got her joy back, as indicated by the new album’s optimistic title, shimmering and euphoric tracks like “Light As a Feather,” and overall summer-soundtrack disco vibes. But it frustratingly took three months for her to be diagnosed with severe anemia, because many doctors refused to take her seriously — instead blaming her persistent, crippling fatigue on her rock n’ roll lifestyle or even on clinical depression.

“It took me so long to figure out what was wrong with me… because of dismissive treatment, telling me that it was something smaller than it was and not doing thorough checkups on everything,” Joy sighs. “Later, I found out low iron causes very depressive [behavior] … It shows itself as severe depression.”

Joy is in a much better place now, physically and emotionally, after receiving proper treatment and undergoing stomach surgery. But her health crisis obviously posed a huge challenge as Cannons commenced work on Everything Glows, and they had to radically alter their collaborative process.

“I had six weeks [while recovering from surgery] where I couldn’t meet up, and I told the guys, ‘Don’t let me stop you! Keep going to the studio and keep writing!’” Joy says.

“We were in the studio for a little bit and we were trying to think of, like, ‘Well, what would Michelle write about?’… Or, ‘What’s Michelle feeling?’” ____ explains.

Joy stresses, “The reason I even wanted to make songs or join a band is because I love writing.” So, any lyrics she sang on Everything Glows had to ring true, as if she had penned them herself. “[Clapham and Davis] did an amazing job at that, because once I had the brain space to listen and pay attention to what was going on, like deeply listen… I was just like, ‘How did you guys know? Exactly, this is how I feel!’ These are words and things and images that I would’ve wanted to put in a song.”

There clearly was a sense of camaraderie and trust, almost even osmosis, between the three band members by this point; they likely wouldn’t have been able to make an album this way if this setback had happened 13 years ago when they were first starting out.

“I feel like there’s not that weird, ego-based thing in the room that might’ve been the first year, where I’m like, ‘But I need to contribute this!’” Joy chuckles. “We’re all in the same space where we’re just like, ‘What’s going to be the best thing we can do to bring out the best in each other’s talents?’”

“Also, at the end of the day, the three of us collectively form our sound. So, there’s no egos in it,” adds ___.

While Davis and Clapham’s friendship goes back to childhood, their bond with Joy formed when they answered the then-recent Florida transplant’s “vocalist seeks band” ad on, of all things, Craigslist.

“I liked writing poetry… and I would like to try writing songs, but I’d never been in a band,” Joy explains. “I didn’t want to go into this solo-artist type of world because that scared me, and I wanted to grow with people, because if you’re a female that’s trying to make some songs, it seems scary to just hop from producer to producer. So, I was like, ‘I want to meet people I feel safe with, and I can learn from them.’”

Campbell was intrigued by the ad’s mentions of darkwave influences like TR/ST, but since Craigslist can often a skeevy forum, Joy ended up barely checking her messages. “Honestly, after the first couple of replies, I was like, ‘I’m just not even going to open these emails,’” she shrugs. So, Campbell tracked her down on social media instead (which sounds skeevy, but it wasn’t in this case), and after they finally connected, they began trading audio files.

“I vividly remember hearing Michelle — her voice on a demo,” Campbell says. My wife was with me at the time; it was like Thanksgiving or something. We were driving home and I’m like, ‘Listen to her voice. This is absolutely amazing. I think we have something here…’”

“And then we met up at a coffee shop in Studio City, and it felt like you were already my friend,” Joy says, grinning at Campbell. “It felt like I already knew you. And then when we all worked on music together, it felt like this was what we were supposed to be doing. Nothing felt out of place. It just felt like one of those things in life where you’re just like, ‘This is what I’m supposed to be doing.’ And we just kept doing it.”

(courtesy of Columbia Records)

When Cannons eventually played their first gig — which was, incredibly, Joy’s first time singing live in public anywhere — at a dive bar called the Rendezvous in Clapham and Davis’s L.A.-adjacent hometown of Santa Clarita, they somehow managed to fill the venue. And that’s when they really knew they were onto something.

“We expected a couple people, maybe just three people, friends and family,” ____ admits. “I’m not even sure how it was so packed! How did they even find our music? … That was a really cool thing in the beginning, though. We always had fans coming to our shows just by finding us on SoundCloud and through blogs. … It definitely felt like we had something, and if just people would just listen to it, it would catch on eventually.”

Cannons have long since graduated to major stages, and as they return to the road for their Everything Glows tour, they’re making sure to pace themselves this time around.

“We really want to be a band that has longevity, so there’s a specific way I feel like you have to work so you don’t burn out,” Joy asserts. “We’ve reached a point where we make good music, we’re proud of what we do, we have more confidence, and taking care of ourselves, mentally and physically, is No. 1 — showing up fully to each thing we do, instead of having 15 percent [strength that day] because we’re exhausted.”

The band enlisted a supportive new management team to make sure their limits aren’t overextended (“‘Boundaries’ wasn’t even in my vocabulary when we first started, but I can’t tell you how important it is to say no to things and really take care of yourself,” says ___), and Joy even recently took her first-ever vocal lessons to increase her stamina.

“I had horrible breath support for half of this album because I had a stomach surgery and it was hard to breathe, so it took me some time to get my breath support back. But now I’m in great shape and ready to tour,” Joy says. “[I’ve learned to] just pay attention and trust my body, and take care of myself a little bit better. And that’s going to make a huge difference with the longevity thing.”

Listening back to Everything Glows now, after the band has survived so much and emerged all the more stronger, closer, and more inspired for it, Joy muses, “It’s kind of cool to see the progression of my confidence throughout the album, because the beginning was a very unconfident kind of fearful place, where it started out. But the music is so beautiful and juxtaposes the feelings that I had, and it makes it feel safe to be in that space.

“My dad is no longer here, but he came to me in a dream and told me that this album is something that people really need right now,” she continues, getting a bit choked-up. “I definitely feel the message on the album is the idea that we all come here with a spark and a light inside of us, and many things happen throughout your life that maybe by a certain point dampens it. And you can’t really see it sometimes, when life gets really heady… but there’s a lesson in it that can bring you back to this knowing of inner joy. I feel like I’ve done that personally through being in this band. It has brought me so much joy, so much purpose, and all of the trials and stuff that we’ve been through over the past four years have taught me so many lessons. … There is so much light that comes from making it through a tough situation and finding out how to move forward in a new way.”

Michelle Joy hugs a supportive Cannons fan at Licorice Pizza Records on Everything Glow‘s release day, March 27, 2026. (photo: Max Scott)