Last week, California duo, girlfriends, dropped their first music video for their debut single, “California” – and fans lost their minds. Having already amassed nearly 100K views and over 1 million streams across digital platforms — “California” has become a solid foundation for the group. Yet the pop-punk duo has no plans to just lie and wait – their new track “Eyes Wide Shut” is out today and it’s opening our eyes to girlfriends‘ musical range. Complied of rapper, actor and multi-platform host, Travis Mills and Big Noise, Gross Labs, and Find Your Grind mogul, Nick Gross — girlfriends started as a passion project for the duo as Mills found his way back into creating music.

“Eyes Wide Shut” becomes their second-ever single — it dances along with the similar styling that “California” possesses while maintaining its own unique musical DNA. The track opens with a heavy synth-pop beat reminiscent of an ’80s rom-com opening sequence before breaking into an authentic pop-punk tune. “Eyes Wide Shut” showcases the themes in the early stages of getting over a partner – “Haven’t seen much of you lately/I’m coming down/And you’re not around right now/It’s been feeling like a nightmare/When I wake up and you’re not here.” Travis’s vocals coos over the melody, revealing a very raw side to the once MySpace rapper.

In recent years, Mills found himself mourning the loss of a close friend and dealing with the dissolution of a romantic relationship both heavily displayed within the public eye – girlfriends became a therapeutic outlet for Travis to put pen to paper and unleash every thought and emotion that lurked inside. Travis shares, “I just had so much to write about. It came from a genuine place. I’d be stressed out, or bawling my eyes out, and the songs would come very organically. If we ever spent more than an hour trying to figure out a hook or a verse, we scrapped it and just kept moving. This project is different from anything else I’ve ever done.”

While girlfriends label themselves as a pop-punk project — it’s clear that both musicians happily dance across the genres, using all the skills they’ve both learned in their years in the music industry, in an attempt to create something truly unique. Drawing strong inspiration from the punk rock music they both grew up on, Travis and Nick are exploring the grounds and testing the waters to come into their own within the genre.