In The Valley Below, courtesy Jaimie Skriba.

The road back to “normal” isn’t without speed bumps. As music fans eagerly, but cautiously return to concerts, some of that same internal dialogue is happening for performers. For Angela Gail Mattson of In The Valley Below it manifests as anxious energy.

“I don’t want to be scared anymore to go out and play a show,” Mattson said, before pausing. “I’m hoping that once we do it, it’ll just be back to normal.”

Bandmate Jeffrey Jacob Mendel is quick to concur.

“It’s so weird, because we haven’t played any shows yet,” Mendel said. “It’s kind of this unknown entity about how it’s going to feel once we get on stage.”

Both In the Valley Below and its fans will get a chance to reconnect at this year’s long-awaited BottleRock Napa Valley on Labor Day weekend, the band’s first post-pandemic festival gig. Mattson said the pandemic created challenges that affected the dup not just as musicians but as parents.

“We did write a lot of music, but at the same time we have a son who was not in school,” Mattson said. “So that made it hard for us to really focus on getting the work done of recording and producing.”

Mendel said the creativity would often come in waves.

“There were certainly chunks of time where neither of us was feeling particularly inspired,” he said. “Then we’d kinda get back in the groove for a little bit when we had the time.”

Mattson and Mendel are from Michigan and Tennessee, respectively, but met and started making music together in Los Angeles. It’s the diversity of influences that helps shape the sound of In The Valley Below. From rock, to Americana and folk, the band harnesses many different elements. The duo has always had the advantage of writing, producing, and engineering music on its own. The all-in-the-family approach helped when it was more difficult to gather or get into a studio.

“We were used to working from home, so that wasn’t much of a shift for us,” Mendel said. “The main shift was not having our kid in school, as that was usually the time when we’d get a lot of work done.”

The duo has a set of songs, penned over the pandemic, which Mendel said are ready for mixing, but is still figuring out how they’d like to share them.

“They’re in the final stages so it’s exciting to at least be nearing the end,” he said.

In the meantime, the two used their creative energy for a little more unorthodox a project: making a board game. Mattson said the initial idea came when the two were in a game store before the pandemic, and the concept grew from there.

“We came up with all these little thoughts and slowly worked on it for about a year,” Mattson said. “Then, when the pandemic hit, we decided it was time to do it now!”

It’s a hobby the the pair enjoys. They have a small collection of games at home, and Mendel said the interest speaks to the greater point of how they make music.

“We just try to write songs that we want to play and want to hear,” he said.

The two are also no strangers to ambitious and immersive musical projects. Their 2019 album, The Pink Chateau, was accompanied by a sensory experience in Los Angeles, where attendees actually walked through a mansion full of actors while the band’s music played on headphones.

“That was so much fun, and challenging and amazing,” Mattson said. “We would love to do something outside the box to go along with a typical music release.”

The event culminated with the band playing live in a hidden room at the mansion. Mattson said its a mindset she’d love to take into future projects.

“I’m sure we’ll figure out something else that stresses us out, but in the end turns out amazing,” she said.

Follow writer Mike DeWald at Twitter.com/mike_dewald.