Recently I was able to connect with Lily Meola for a Zoom interview to discuss her uplifting new single called “Without You.” I asked Lily about her music upbringing, how she stays motivated as an artist, how she measures success as well as her breakthrough single “Daydream,” and what next year has in store for her promising musical career.
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Recently I was able to schedule a Zoom call with lead vocalist Nathan Willett, of Cold War Kids, to discuss the band’s latest self-titled album that dropped today. In this interview, I asked Nathan about how the band goes about crafting a setlist at this point in their career, the key upcoming album anniversary plans, and Nathan offered some great nuggets of information about the band’s songwriting approach. Cold War Kids self-titled album can be purchased/streamed here.
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There’s a lot to be said when a band takes a hiatus, re-shuffles their lineup, or just takes a breather to reset their focus on their music. 152 is the first album by Taking Back Sunday in seven years (with their last effort coming in 2016’s Tidal Wave), and arguably their best one yet. The album anniversaries of Tell All Your Friends and the upcoming 20-year mark of Where You Want To Be may have had a hand in TBS re-focusing their attention on their songwriting craft. There is also something to be said of the magic that happens when lead vocalist Adam Lazzara and guitarist John Nolan get in a room together to pen songs. 152 is a career-spanning love letter to the legacy Taking Back Sunday have built over their eight-album tenure, and they show no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
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The debut LP by rock band Crossing I’s Dotting T’s is a grunge-filled love letter to bands like Deftones, Alice in Chains, and Stone Temple Pilots. I Used To Be has a variety of song types, and more often than not, it hits its intended target. When I last sat down with the lead vocalist from the band, I could tell that his core influences would likely bleed into the band’s debut album. From the soft-loud dynamic found on a Deftones-esque track, called “Far Away,” to the collaborative single with Have Mercy on “Cheap Beers & IOUs,” Crossing I’s Dotting T’s make a memorable first step in the music scene.
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The momentum that Boys Like Girls had going into their fourth studio album, Sunday At Foxwoods, was probably a bit more positive than the band could’ve expected. Having not released any music as a band since 2012, Boys Like Girls could’ve gone in a number of ways, creatively. The Night Game was keeping lead vocalist Martin Johnson busy with a project after Boys Like Girls went on a hiatus, and this 2023 version of the band feels like a marrying of styles and sounds between everything the band members have done (both as solo artists, and as a creative unit). Sunday At Foxwoods is a thrilling return to form for a band that found some early success with their self-titled debut, peaked commercially with Love Drunk (that had a key song feature with a young artist known as Taylor Swift), and they experienced some creative growing pains on Crazy World. The vinyl reissues of Boys Like Girls and Love Drunk seemed to reinvigorate fan interest in the band’s fourth studio album, known as Sunday At Foxwoods, that is kicking off the next phase of this talented pop-rock band.
After a brief, atmospheric introductory song on the title track, Boys Like Girls rock with veteran poise on “The Outside.” It features a stomping, anthemic chorus of, “It’s okay, it’s alright / Baby welcome to life on the outside / Sleep all day, ride all night / Yeah we’re living it up on the outside,” that reminds longtime fans of the band of the magic that happens when these four musicians get together to create music. While longtime lead guitarist Paul DiGiovanni is no longer a part of the band, Jamel Hawke does the band justice by taking over the reins on guitar.
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This past week, I was able to chat with Chase Tremaine to discuss his deluxe reissue of Accidental Days. The deluxe edition of the album has been re-released today on Bandcamp, and it features ten new bonus tracks, plus commentary on the ten main album songs. I continue to be impressed by Chase’s extensive work ethic, and I hope this track-by-track sheds some light on his creative process.
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How does one begin to encapsulate the meteoric rise of lead vocalist Nate Ruess’s career? Like most stories, you start at the very beginning. The Format (Nate Ruess and multi-instrumentalist Sam Means) formed in February 2002, and while their friendship goes as far back as grade school, their band chemistry was felt almost immediately. That electric-charged feeling of when a group of talented musicians come together to make art was felt far and wide in The Format. I first got wind of this band when they opened up for Jimmy Eat World and Paramore, and I found their charming mix of emo, pop, and Beach Boys-esque melodies to be immediately infectious. The Format was signed to Elektra Records for what would become their debut LP, Interventions + Lullabies, and much like many other major label artists during this period of time, the merging of record companies led to conflicts on whom the executives found worth pushing on radio, MTV, etc. The Format were ultimately left on the outside looking in when Warner Brothers (and finally Atlantic Records) had the rights to the band’s music. “The First Single” was the only song to be promoted during this album cycle, and it would remain a staple in the band’s set until their breakup in 2008.
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You know a band means something to you when you can remember your first time hearing them.
The first time I heard Mansions, I was a junior in high school working at our local supermarket. About once a week, my older brother (forever shaman of my music tastes) would load up whatever he was listening to on my iPod so I would have new music for bus rides and the lunch breaks where I’d step outside and smoke cigarettes bought for me by a friend. To this day, the songs I associate with that first job – and much of my junior and senior years of high school – are Mansions’, a band skilled at capturing the whirlwind of youthful emotions I was experiencing at the time.
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The latest single from synth-rock band, PHNTMS, is a great blast of new wave energy, paired with vibrant guest vocals from April Rose Gabrielli. “Lost On Your Love” features the trademark picturesque guitar playing from Adam Jessamine, in a style similar to bands like The 1975 and The Aces, and he commands the song throughout the inner-workings on the synth-laden track. Gabrielli is a nice choice for guest vocals on this single that is lyrically based on the feeling of falling head over heels in love, and the bliss that comes with it.
PHNTMS continue to expand their great repertoire on their latest release, and show no signs of slowing down anytime soon. While the band has largely been releasing singles to keep interest high in their brand of synth-rock, I would personally love to see how they would package a few songs together in a cohesive work of art in the form of an album, or at least an EP. For now, songs like “Lost On Your Love” remind us of why bands like PHNTMS are a rare breed.
The latest musical offering from pop/rock band, A Story Told, is an electric-charged adrenaline ride of breathtaking hooks, pop breakdowns, and intricate storytelling in the lyrics to have lasting value. Mundane Magic is the fourth studio album from the Charleston, West Virginia band that is blossoming at just the right moment in their career. “Mundane Magic is the best way that I could possibly sum up this musical journey that the three of us have been on for years,” says vocalist Alex Chaney. “A friend once told me that the industry is a pendulum. You leave relevancy as quickly as you find it. I’m unapologetically proud to say our biggest strength is our consistency and commitment to truly being ourselves through our music and deeply committing to each part of the machine that makes us, us.” With a crisp musical delivery similar to bands like Bad Suns, The Cab, and Grayscale, A Story Told are making sure this album cycle is a memorable one.
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It’s February 2023, 3:08 PM. Phone buzzes. Unknown number. Local area code.
”Tate, this still you?”
I’m thinking, “I can ignore this, right?” I almost always ignore these. But there’s something in the familiarity of the phrasing that picks at a scab in my brain. A small circle of people in my life have ever called me Tate. Most of them were from my childhood neighborhood. None of whom I’ve spoken to in over a decade. The silence between us is not due to any real falling out but a byproduct of the stretching of time that turns brothers into strangers.
It’s September 1997, 6:45 AM. I’m 14 years old and panicking. I’m about to start my first year of high school, and I am fucking terrified. Middle school was rough. And standing there alone in my parent’s basement has my skin feeling like a hand-me-down Halloween costume. Who am I? Who the ever-living-fuck am I? I walk to the bus stop. It’s raining. I have no music in my ears. Up to this point in my life, music has been something that happened around me. My parents played music in the background, friends showed me some grunge and metal records; I heard pop music on the radio. But I was a passive passenger to the sounds that washed over me. A hook searching for bait in a world rapidly changing before my childhood eyes.
Second stop, a few kids I know jump on.
”Hey, Tate, have you met Ryan?”
Friendships formed through the collective trauma that is high school tend to have a weightier feel as we get older. Reminiscing on them is like the smell of pencil shavings, graphite and wood clipping the air, pulling us back to a simpler time. A nostalgic breeze where youth was the possibility of forever; that’s why we chase its intoxicating scent.
Over the next few months, Ryan and I will bond over girls, late-night phone calls, and navigating this torturous linoleum hell. He has an effortless cool that I admire and a confidence I try to fake. Our personalities play off each other well. We become fast friends while our neighborhood group reconnects. Most days after school, we are in the park trading insults and arguing over pop culture, or downstairs, alternating between shooting pool and fighting over the video game controllers. Our pubescent faces stuffed with everything my teenage metabolism would race to process. I never had any friends later on like the ones I had during those days. (Jesus, does anyone?)
One afternoon, Ryan will leave his CD binder at my house. That night, I’ll slide a grey album cosplaying as a six shooter’s cylinder out from a sleeve backed by a bull’s giant testicles and hit play. Never again will I walk to the bus without music. That’s the night I discovered Blink-182. And nothing’s been quite the same ever since.
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Recently I was able to schedule a Zoom call to connect with Story of the Year members, Dan Marsala (vocals) and Ryan Phillips (guitar), to discuss their memories of recording and writing the now 20-year old album Page Avenue. I also asked the band members about other album anniversaries coming up, including In The Wake of Determination, and their plans for celebrating these key milestones. The band is currently touring in support of the 20th anniversary of Page Avenue, and they have released several merch items on their webstore to celebrate.
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The Philadelphia-based punk rockers, The Menzingers, are showing no signs of slowing down on their great seventh studio album called Some Of It Was True. Produced by Brad Cook (Bon Iver, the War on Drugs, Waxahatchee), the album feels as reinvigorated as the band themselves, and highlights the band’s songwriting improvements from moving away from more introspective songs to more worldly issues that affect the lives of everyone around us. While their last record, Hello Exile, was drenched in the cloud of COVID quarantines, Some Of It Was True finds The Menzingers reaching outside of their usual comfort zone of writing by expanding upon the ideas they’ve tinkered with over their storied career, and quite possibly, creating their most fully-realized work of art to date. This album was recorded at the legendary Sonic Ranch in the heart of El Paso, Texas, and this foursome utilized the strengths of producer Brad Cook to create a record that not only moves the needle of creativity further down the line for The Menzingers, but also makes for an ultra-memorable statement as one of the best albums of 2023.
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The latest EP from Kentucky two-piece pop rock band, As Good As It Gets, called Some Fantastic, is a love letter to the pop-punk bands we all grew up with like Weezer, Green Day and The Starting Line. While As Good As It Gets wear these influences proudly on their sleeves, Some Fantastic offers up some glimmers of a direction the band can take as they continue to develop their sound. Having formed in 2001, and releasing 3 EPs and 3 LPs during that period of time, As Good As It Gets are coming to terms for what works well for them, and they hone in on those elements on this record.
”Keep The Lights On” is a brash, pop-punk rocker that is in the same vein of punk rock bands like The Homeless Gospel Choir and Gob, while “Pushing Papers” finds the two-piece band adding in some well-placed piano/keys to expand upon their sound. The lyrical material covers the pitfalls of working a 9 to 5 job, and trying to make ends meet, all the while looking for those key parts of inspiration in their true love: music.
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The start of a new album cycle is always a thrilling process. Barely Civil have kicked things off on the right foot with their newest single, “Coasting, Mostly” that has a punk rock spirit, and highlights a more emotive side of the band. While their last record, I’ll Figure This Out, focused largely on the soft/loud dynamic in their sound that became popular during the emo boom of the 00’s, the latest single found here reignites the passion for this scene of music.
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