This post was updated Oct. 17 at 8:14 p.m.

socialghosts is meeting at the junction of music, law and insurance.

Composed of Sean Embrey-Stine, Connor Daniel and UCLA School of Law alumnus Dhruva Krishna, the indie rock band released its latest single, “silverlake,” on Friday. Formed months before the Covid-19 pandemic as a result of his Craigslist posting, Daniel said socialghosts’ name bears a reference to these origins. Multiple jam sessions afterward, the group has produced four singles before “silverlake,” which drummer and guitarist Krishna said is the start to a trilogy that will mark a new era for the band.

“It’s our moment to almost restart the band,” Krishna said. “With this set of songs starting with ‘silverlake,’ it’s a bit more our idea of being cohesive and having a bit more of an image and spending more time being like, ‘What is our actual sound?’ versus ‘Let’s just make a ton of songs.’”

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Next year, two more songs will join the ranks of “silverlake” with upgraded production and songwriting, Krishna said. Punctuated by punchy electric guitar and melodic piano notes, the pop-punk “silverlake” tells the story of meeting a woman in the eponymous town. Krishna said the bandmates sought to encapsulate the energy of meeting someone new during an outing in the neighborhood. He said this excitement comes in contrast to past releases such as “Malibu,” in which socialghosts deals with themes of heartbreak. Envisioned by Krishna, the resulting single was a product of the trio’s combined inspiration, Daniel said.

“He (Krishna) was the one who brought the skeleton of the idea to the table,” said Daniel, who typically contributes vocals, guitar and bass. “I remember being at his house, and he had a chord progression, and he had basically said, ‘Oh, I have these lyrics and I want it to be referencing a girl using Silver Lake as a title.’”

“silverlake,” which spent about a year in development, was originally more guitar-heavy before taking on a more contemporary feel with Daniel’s guidance, Krishna said. Working for music producer John Feldmann, Daniel said he has learned that every part of a piece should offer interest by bending genres and incorporating abnormal aspects. Krishna said the band experiments with seemingly outlandish musical choices during the production process. In the case of “silverlake,” this method led them to add – and subsequently keep – a slide guitar element during the song’s bridge, he added. Because of its new direction in sound, Krishna said he feels the song will come to represent the epitome of socialghosts when he looks back on it in the future.

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Another unconventional aspect is the band’s use of keyboards, Embrey-Stine said. While the rock genre traditionally opts for synth or a piano-led approach, the keyboardist and vocalist said socialghosts strives to subtly include traditional piano tones in almost every track. For Daniel, Embrey-Stine’s keyboard background intrigued him back when they first met following the Craigslist posting, and incorporating the instrument with Daniel’s guitar became a fresh challenge.

“There’s no section of the song that sounds like another section,” Daniel said. “There’s a couple extra ear candy elements in the second chorus as opposed to the first one, and then chorus three has a lot more of that. The bridge is very different, and the only place where there’s big, chunky guitar power chord things is the chorus. Everything else is letting it groove and letting the melody speak for itself.”

On Friday, the band also released an accompanying music video for the single. Embrey-Stine said projects like these are possible because of each member’s respective career in insurance underwriting, law and music production. Similarly, Daniel said the band sticks to a timeline where singles are spaced months apart to give them enough time to generate the necessary funds for promotion and video production.

While this financial liberty allows the band to take on new opportunities, Daniel also said his profession naturally fuels his work with socialghosts, as his production techniques spark new ideas between them. As an insurance underwriter, Embrey-Stine said he enjoys having the freedom to be creative without relying on success to survive. For Krishna, this professional duality fluctuates but averages out in the long run, he said.

“The main thing for me is recognizing that it’s all part of who I am,” Krishna said. “When I’m thinking about legal questions, it’s a very similar process to when I create music … The same way when I’m drafting corporate documents, I’m going to sit with it and revise it over and over again to get to what I want to say, and when I make music, it’s a very similar thing.”