Listen to Hop Along’s Frances Quinlan in conversation with Talia Schlanger of World Cafe

We couldn’t go more than a few weeks without sharing some more Hop Along news. When the band released their new record Bark Your Head Off, Dog earlier this month, they stopped by World Cafe Live to play Free at Noon, cramming four new songs into their short, 25-minute set. Hop Along appeared on and disappeared from the stage so quickly that day that we couldn’t help but want more. Well, here’s more — Hop Along’s performance was recorded for a World Cafe session, and later that same day, bandleader Frances Quinlan found some time to sit down with Talia Schlanger for an in-depth interview. The session aired last week and is available to stream below via NPR Music.

Quinlan discusses everything from leaving her longtime job at Johnny Brenda’s (and describes the atmosphere of Johnny Brenda’s for those not from Philly); to the challenge of playing music with her brother, drummer Mark Quinlan; to how not being cast as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz led her to where she is now. The conversation also digs deep into some of Quinlan’s evocative lyrics, and is interspersed with songs from the band’s live onstage performance — starting with album opener “How Simple,” followed by the World War I-inspired “One That Suits Me” and the biblical reference-filled “Not Abel,” and closes out with the six-minute “Prior Things.”

Listen below. Hop Along embarks on an extensive tour today, and stops by Union Transfer for a sold-out show on May 19.