When it was time for Not Your Ex Lover to record its debut EP, the Bend-based band — all women, all Latina — did what most bands don’t do: They set up shop in an abandoned house, decorated the walls, ate a lot of snacks and recorded some songs.

“We’re a new band, so we can’t afford a professional studio, nor did I want to spend money on something we hadn’t done before and then end up not getting what I wanted,” said Kourtni Diva, lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter. “I wanted this experience to just be fun. At the end of the day, I wanted it to be us, I wanted us to be laughing and I wanted us to have a good time. That was the main goal, even if we had nothing to show for it.”

They came out of the experience with more than just memories. On Thursday, Not Your Ex Lover will celebrate the release of “The Hiatus Sessions,” a five-song EP that establishes the quartet as a promising new force in the local rock scene. In just over 16 minutes, Diva and her mates — lead guitarist/vocalist Julia Canales, drummer Kiki Castro and bassist/vocalist Alyssa “Reya” Reyes — convincingly fuse four lifetimes of influences and come out sounding like what happens when grunge-y guitars, an earth-moving rhythm section, pop-punk, just plain pop, ’60s soul, surf-rock, love, heartbreak, resentment and memorable melodies collide.

All-female Central Oregon grunge-pop group Not Your Ex Lover formed in 2022.

“I am constantly feeling and writing those feelings down, and after 2020, I really let myself have permission to be hurt and to not be afraid to tell my truth,” Diva said. “I used to be really afraid of being like, ‘I don’t want to write a breakup song because I don’t want to hurt his feelings.’ I’m not really afraid of that anymore.”

Getting together

Not Your Ex Lover formed a few years ago after Diva posted to Instagram, seeking people interested in helping fulfill her longtime dream of being in an “all-girl” band.

Reyes was the first to message her, followed shortly by Castro. Those three jammed for a bit before finding Canales — a more seasoned musician than the other three — to round out their lineup and solidify their sound.

“Reya was like, ‘Yo, I’ve never touched a bass before in my life, but I will walk down to the music store and buy one,’” Diva said with a laugh. “We liked not having much experience. It was kind of cool because none of us really knew what we were doing.”

Here, Castro chimes in: “It still feels like we don’t know what we’re doing, and that’s OK.”

It is OK, because what Not Your Ex Lover lacks in experience, it makes up for in both spirit and togetherness — key elements in any successful band. Indeed, the four women are more than just a band. They’re a good-times squad, a set of sounding boards, a sisterhood, a support system for each other and more.

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“I’m a busy person and, you know, we all need an outlet and a release. The band is definitely that for me,” Castro said. “But also, I’ve never had a group of girlfriends like this before, and I didn’t know what I’ve been missing all this time. I just feel like these girls are so magical.”

Going full force

For Reyes, Not Your Ex Lover feels like the first time she has gone “full force” into her own creativity after a lifetime of stifling it with self-judgment.

“As we’ve done more band stuff and put ourselves out there, there have been people who have come out of the woodwork to support us, no strings attached, in a way that I have never witnessed before,” she said. “It’s been really cool to see what happens when you open yourself up to existing in community with other people.”

Maybe that’s the best word to describe Not Your Ex Lover: Community. In a short time, these four Latina women have not only created their own super-cool sound-world, they’ve brought others into the fold as well.

And with tours to California and Boise’s Treefort Music Fest on the horizon, they’re ready to start spreading the word well beyond Central Oregon.

“One of the goals of our band is to inspire women to pick up a musical instrument, or if they’ve ever wanted to sing, to just do it,” Diva said. “I’ve wanted to do this since I was 12, but I was scared because this is a male-dominated industry. It took me a while to find these women, but now I hope that when people — women specifically — see us, they’re like, ‘Wow, I can do that.’”

If You Go

What: Not Your Ex Lover

EP release show

When: 6 p.m. Thursday, March 7

Where: The Ale Apothecary, 30160 SW Century Drive, Bend

Cost: Free

Contact: notyourexlover.com

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