“Is that yours?”

This question, posed by D.C. indie-soul band Oh He Dead’s singer-guitarist Andy Valenti to his fellow guitarist Alex Salser, could be about any number of things in their Northeast D.C. rehearsal space. But instead of an object, what’s piqued Valenti’s interest is a groove-based guitar lick that Salser is repeating intently, recording it with his iPhone balanced on his right knee.

“It’s mine,” Salser replies assuredly. Meanwhile, Oh He Dead’s lead singer Cynthia ‘C.J.’ Johnson has kicked off her shoes, curled up on the couch, and is casually singing a melody to counteract the lick. Closing her eyes and slowly bobbing her head, the notes seem to be coming to her unnaturally fast. But given Oh He Dead’s accelerated career trajectory during the last year, that new songs are coming at a rapid pace should come as no surprise.

First came their video for “Lonely Sometimes,” which they released in April as their entry into NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Contest. They didn’t win, but the video racked up more than 50,000 views. Next was the release of their first full-length, self-titled LP in late November, coinciding with a sold-out album release show at Pearl Street Warehouse. Their Spotify streams for the year have amounted to more than 300,000 spins.

Pretty impressive considering this group morphed from a Valenti/Johnson folk duo to a five-piece only recently, just finalizing their current line-up in February of this year. According to Valenti, this duo- to-quintet evolution happened in part thanks to their musical influences.

“Both of us really like full band sounds,” says Valenti of himself and Johnson. “We get down on rock bands. We’d always drive around to gigs and listen to classic rock or Weezer or System of a Down. We would headbang to System of a Down regularly.”

Finding additional members came naturally since Valenti and Johnson were already circulating heavily in the D.C. music scene. Bassist John Daise and drummer Adam Ashforth were playing in Alex Vans and the Hideaway, a band Valenti produced before it disbanded. The final piece of the puzzle, Salser, fell into place after Valenti and Johnson met him at a songwriter showcase at Black Cat where both of their folk duos performed. “He didn’t even get to the bottom step off the stage before we accosted him,” says Valenti with a laugh. “Once we got the pieces in place, it expanded our musical palette pretty dramatically.”

With Johnson’s natural rasp (heavily reminiscent of one of her idols, Stevie Nicks), in-the-pocket grooves laid down by Daise and Ashforth, and the give-and-take guitar play between Valenti and Salser (à la Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and Nels Cline), an entire lineage of roots rock bands—from The Rolling Stones to Alabama Shakes—shows itself in Oh He Dead’s material. What’s most striking about their songs, however, is the amount of space these musicians allow in their arrangements. They seem to already know this early in their career that what you don’t play is as important as what you do, something songwriters and producers decades into their craft find difficult to conquer.

“We wanted the songs to be very dynamic,” explains Salser. “We were trying to replicate what it would feel like to be at a live concert seeing us.” With this in mind, the band took the 30-40 musical ideas that Valenti and Johnson had compiled over the years, added Daise, Ashforth, and Salser to the mix, then slowly peeled back the musical layers until they reached a finalized Oh He Dead song.

“Doing less is, I feel, a sign of musical maturity,” says Valenti. “Which is a funny thing because you’re not playing as much but you’re recognizing and honoring the value of the individual parts.” If the two new songs they played during their rehearsal, “California” and “Tell Me,” are any indication of the state of their songwriting process (which includes writing weekends at various cabins in Virginia and West Virginia), their future sounds to be a prosperous one.

As music industry figures are starting to express their interest in Oh He Dead, the band has set their sights on several goals for 2020 (including one for most artists, D.C. or otherwise: selling out the 9:30 Club), as well as expanding their reach nationwide.

“We’re really proud of what we’ve been building in D.C.,” says Valenti. “We sold out Pearl Street Warehouse and we want to start playing similar sized rooms in other cities and just build it brick by brick.… It feels like there’s a little bit of magic to this group.”

Oh He Dead plays Pearl Street Warehouse on Dec. 31 with special guest Color Palette. 9 p.m. Tickets $30-$35.