Substream Magazine Issue 48 Featuring Motion City Soundtrack

WHY BOTHER?

WAVVES STATE CHAMPS BEACH SLANG DEAFHEAVEN

Surviving screamo with

SILVERSTEIN & SENSES FAIL ALLISON WEISS

THERE'S A SONG FOR THAT

48 (NOVEMBER 2015) #

California dreamin'

The intersection of young adult books and alternative music

#48 Oct/Nov 2015 US $4.99 CAN $5.99

S U B S T R E A M # 4 8 ( N O V 1 5 ) M O T I O N C I T Y S O U N D T R A C K + B E A C H S L A N G • B E T T E R O F F • C O H E E D A N D C A M B R I A • D E A F H E AV E N • E M E RY • F OX I N G • H 2 O • T H E O B S E S S I V E S • S I LV E R S T E I N & S E N S E S FA I L • S TAT E C H A M P S • WAV V E S • A L L I S O N W E I S S • T H E W O N D E R Y E A R S

COHEED AND CAMBRIA THE TRUTH HURTS • THE WONDER YEARS SOUP’S ON

NOVEMBER 15

FEATURES ON THE COVER

MOTION CITY SOUNDTRACK

We spend a day with Minneapolis’ favorite sons to learn about the struggle that went into making their triumphant new album Panic Stations—and just how they continue to fight for relevancy in an increasingly cluttered musical landscape.

MOTION CITY SOUNDTRACK COVER & CONTENT PHOTOS: ANDREW WELLS

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28 FOXING

Foxing makes music so beautifully fragile, you almost don’t

want to know what inspired it.

32 BEACH SLANG 36 STATE CHAMPS 40 WAVVES 44 ALLISON WEISS

Punk’s not dead—it just lives in Philadelphia now.

Fresh off of opening for pop-punk giants All Time Low and 5

Seconds Of Summer, State Champs are ready for their close-up.

By the time you finish reading this sentence, Nathan Williams

will have probably written a new album’s worth of songs.

This singer/songwriter isn’t afraid of change, whether it’s in

her life or in her music.

photo by Leann Mueller

NOVEMBER 15

8 SUBSTREAM APPROVED: Better Off, Carousel Kings, Everything Ever, the Obsessives

ROW 12 FRONT CENTER: Touché Amoré

14 IDOBI: 16 RADIOU: TOUR 18 DIGITAL BUS YA books and alternative music

Emery

What was your band’s best Halloween costume?

& 20 THEN NOW THE 22 INSIDE ARTIST H2O

Claudio Sanchez of Coheed And Cambria and Dan Campbell of the Wonder Years

ON 26 BAND BAND Senses Fail & Silverstein

61 REVIEWS

Deafheaven, City And Colour, Mayday Parade and more

64 PARTING SHOT

The Hotelier

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EDITOR’S LETTER

PRESIDENT/CEO Jason McMahon jason@substreammagazine.com

EDITOR IN CHIEF

Scott Heisel scott@substreammagazine.com

EDITORIAL INTERN

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Greetings, Substreamers!

The first time I interviewed Motion City Soundtrack was November 22, 2002. At the time, the band was still unsigned, touring off of an early version of I Am The Movie, before it was reissued by Epitaph Records the following year. I remember standing outside in the bitter cold outside a coffee shop in my hometown of Rockford, Illinois, asking the guys admittedly terrible questions which they graciously answered while jumping up and down to stay warm.

The second time I interviewed Motion City Soundtrack was August 2, 2015, for this cover story. In the intervening 13 years, I watched a band full of unique personalities and incredible songs achieve far greater artistic and commercial peaks than they ever could have imagined—and, hopefully, I got a little better at interviewing than “So, how’s tour?” (Probably not, but a guy can dream.)

All right, it’s time for a high five, @scottheisel

B E T T E R O FF You’re never too young to set goals.

“We wanted to make guitars a big deal on this record.”

—LUKE GRAN

STORY: Michael Haskoor PHOTO: Ryan Green Nashville’s youthful new rock outfit Better Off swiftly stormed onto the pop-punk scene in 2013 with the release of their debut LP (I Think) I’m Leaving, which elicited comparisons to the likes of Brand New—but that’s not nearly where it all began.

Frontman Luke Granered had been a fan of the genre back as far as he can remember: “The first CD that I bought with my own money was Catalyst by New Found Glory, I remember that very distinctly,” says Granered. “I definitely grew up with the stuff that we get to be apart of now, which is awesome.”

Playing in a few other bands prior to Better Off’s formation, Granered has always been a proponent of this particular realm. “The first thing that catches me in any song would be melody—and that’s in any genre—so I think that’s the biggest thing for me,” the frontman admits. “There’s a lot of melody in there, but it still maintains a driving sound as opposed to whatever is played on the radio or anything like that, plus there’s a lot of room to be creative in that world.”

Now, the band has released their vivacious new sophomore LP Milk via Equal Vision Records, a label that has housed some of their own major influences. Produced by Saves The Day’s Arun Bali, the supremely mature album lays forth some heavy fuzz-oriented guitar tones and an impressive musical growth considering they’ve only been together for two years. “[Milk] is a little more collaborative than the first album,” says Granered.

“We spent a little more time picking ourselves apart, trying not to get into the same cycle of playing the same stuff over and over again. The goal of Better Off is to always write something that we think we’ll still enjoy when we’re 40, something that has a little longevity for us, personally. We also wanted to make guitars a big deal on this record, even if it isn’t noticeable to the listeners.”

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Speaking on his favorite track, Granered says he has two. “The two most personal songs to me on the record are ‘This Day Will Never End,’ which deals with looking back at the past and wondering if you could have done stuff better,” he offers, “and ‘A Lesson In Loving,’ which is about dealing with depression and anxiety and what caused it to become a problem in your life.”

Just in case you were wondering if Granered indeed likes peanut butter and jelly, given the album’s unique cover art: “Yes, I absolutely do like peanut butter and jelly and milk,” he says, laughing. “The album cover is actually an inside joke between me and a high school buddy who would bring disgusting peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to lunch every day. He kind of dared us to make our album cover a peanut butter and jelly sandwich thinking that we wouldn’t do it, and we just did it anyway. It ended up being awesome—at least we think so.” S

CAROUSEL KINGS “It’s cool to be this pop-punk band that flirts with danger.”

—CARMEN CARANGI

STORY: Jessica Klinner

PHOTO: Andrew Garland

Warped Tour is an event like no other. Filled with stages big and small, the music festival travels the country every summer, exposing music fans of all ages to a unique sampling of bands from hardcore to pop. Within the festival sits a stage that doesn’t get near enough attention. The Kevin Says stage doesn’t draw the largest crowds and the bands playing aren’t the most well known, but they are the future of Warped Tour—whether they realize it or not.

Warped newcomers Carousel Kings are part of this new generation of trailblazing bands coming up in the music scene.

Hailing from Pennsylvania, the four-piece band is no stranger to Warped, with their members growing up as attendees and playing one or two dates on the Ernie Ball stage during previous years.

“The Warped Tour community was the craziest and coolest and most inspiring family I’ve ever been around,” says guitarist Carmen Carangi. “Being able to do that every day, fully immersed in the vibe, was just really a dream come true.”

Carousel Kings’ love and support of Warped comes from years and years of attending the festival as fans and eventually landing a spot in the lineup. If it weren’t for a particular moment years ago at Warped Tour, Carangi might not have pursued a career in music.

“I remember seeing A Day To Remember and there was a wall of death. I laid down in the middle of the wall of death and got trampled,” he recalls. “It was somewhere in that moment that I realized I wanted to be in music and that kind of environment for the rest of my life.”

After deciding that a degree in mechanical engineering from Temple University was not an artistically satisfying pursuit, Carangi joined Carousel Kings, filling a void left by members who departed from the band after the release of their debut album, A Slice Of Heaven. His wall-of-death-induced epiphany came true, and Carangi jumped right into the band as if he had always

How to draw inspiration from a wall of death. been a part of the routine, trading in his textbooks for tour itineraries. This smooth transition came in part because of his love and support of the band prior to becoming a member. “I was the No. 1 fanboy. I would go to all the shows,” Carangi says, laughing.

While the band places themselves in the pop-punk category, they are heavily influenced by the metal scene in Pennsylvania, which gave rise to bands like Texas In July and August Burns Red. The influence of these bands can be heard in Carousel Kings’ latest release, Polarity, which features a deluxe edition of 2014’s Unity as well as an acoustic album called Duality. It’s a 30-song special release that showcases the spectrum of Carousel Kings’ musical talent.

“It’s cool to be this pop-punk band that flirts with danger,” Carangi says.

“We’ve got a good thing going, and we’re very grateful for it.” S

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E V E RY T H I N G E V E R Scrappy emo/pop-punks reissue debut, get van broken into, stay positive.

STORY: Greg Pratt PHOTO: Amber Orlino Things were looking good for Staten Island pop-punks Everything Ever earlier this year: The band had their 2014 debut, Solid Ground, reissued by Secret Audio Club in March. However, tragedy struck in August: just a few days before we caught up with them to talk shop, their van got broken into, resulting in a loss of approximately $6,000 worth of gear.

“We’re working with the cops on trying to track down who did it,” says bassist/ vocalist John Trotta. “Part of me was like, ‘It will never happen to us,’ and part of me was waiting for it to happen at any second. So many bands get ripped off these days. It’s sad to say this but it’s sort of like a rite of passage. Bands are getting ripped off left and right.”

The tunes on Solid Gold are so filled with good energy and a feeling of positivity that it just doesn’t feel right that this band should suffer such misfortune. But guitarist/ vocalist Andrew Paladino admits that even though it was very difficult for him at first, he’s keeping a positive spin on things.

“We do try to project positivity and have a good perspective about things,” says Paladino. “The reality is we had a van to get broken into and had a bunch of stuff that we were able to get so much amazing use out of. There’s so much more positive there; that’s why it’s sad, because there was so much positive that was taken away. So if you want to shift your perspective and look at that way, it could help.”

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“We do try to project positivity and have a good perspective about things. The reality is we had a van to get broken in to and had a bunch of stuff that we were able to get so much amazing use out of.”

—ANDREW PALADINO

Just days after the break-in, the band was already on their feet, scheduling benefit shows and looking toward the future. And what that future holds is good news for those who enjoy the sounds on the band’s debut (which finds the unlikely middle ground between Cap’n Jazz and Smoke Or Fire): The guys are working on an EP which should have five or six songs on it, they say. Although no release date is set yet, it’s something to look forward to, and for the band, the writing process has been therapeutic.

“As soon as [the break-in] happened, I was working on a song for the EP about my local deli on Staten Island, called ‘My Local Deli,’” says Paladino. “It recently got robbed twice in one week or something like that, and all of a sudden after I got robbed, a verse for that song totally wrote itself. It made the EP make even more sense for me and made that song more profound. So it had a very tangible benefit of songwriting, which is usually the case for traumatic things.” S

“The reason we come off as a band that’s in high school is purely because that was the setting we were in.”

—NICK BAIRATCHNYI

THE OBSESSIVES This emo duo is freshly graduated and learning the ropes, but their songs are far from sappy.

STORY: Cameron Carr PHOTO: Michael Andrade Nick Bairatchnyi and Jackson Mansfield are at the beach. Not together, but only a couple streets apart on coincidently similar family vacations. The two do everything together. Over the last few months, “everything” has included writing, recording and releasing their debut album as the Obsessives—they also found time to graduate high school.

The resulting full-length, Heck No, Nancy, flaunts twinkling guitars, dynamics that swell and crescendo, vocals that gently ponder then strain violently. Though live performances are limited to Bairatchnyi on vocals and guitar and Mansfield on drums, the two-piece format actually allows for increased collaboration between the band members.

“There isn’t one song one of us wrote all the way through,” says Bairatchnyi. Mansfield, a guitarist before picking up the drums, writes a significant portion of the music while Bairatchnyi takes full responsibility for the lyrics. Still, the two worked together to develop the themes of the album before Bairatchnyi put it into words.

Prominent among those themes is the band members’ transitional period as they leave high school behind.

Written throughout the group’s senior year, snapshots of that time period litter the album. Bairatchnyi cites a line from “Nodding Off (Fucked Fine)” as one of the most blatant references: “High school sucks when you’re stuck on someone who’s given up.”

“The reason that at surface level we come off as a band that’s in high school is purely because that was the setting we were in. So my references to high school, they all serve a purpose,” he explains. “People are like, ‘Oh, tales of high school heartbreak’—that’s not what [“Nodding Off” is] about. That song’s about problems with me and my dad.”

A listener could mistakenly interpret

[

Nancy as songs about girls and high school angst, but that’s not the case. The lyrics tell stories of a father that left the picture, friends you’ll never see again and the existential crisis of dissatisfaction all around you. “It’s like everyone wants to be something and they never quite meet their expectations,” summarizes Bairatchnyi.

At the same time, it would be wrong to forget that the Obsessives just graduated high school. These aren’t road-worn musicians that are hoping to avoid a 9-to-5 and hit it big; these are 18-year-old kids who chose touring over homecoming and graduation parties. These are young adults who still pack their lunches—for weeks at a time—to cut the cost of touring.

While many of their classmates go off to college or enter the traditional workforce, Bairatchnyi and Mansfield have chosen to take a gap year to see how far the band can go. “We are really looking forward to going to college and we’re very focused academically, but we really need to see what happens in this upcoming year,” says Bairatchnyi. “We let this band get in the way of all this normal stuff, so why not see it through?” S

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FRONTROWCENTER

TOUCHÈ AMORÈ Photo by Edouard Camus www.edouardcamus.com

there’s a song for that:

The Inte rse ctio n of You ng Adu lt Boo ks and Alte rna tive Mu sic

STORY: Sam Devotta

It’s a universally acknowledged truth that no matter how antisocial we might be in real life, we’re all looking for someone—or something—we can relate to. The teenage years are hard to navigate.

Emotions run high, and there’s usually a feeling of being misunderstood or something of an outcast. As alternative music fans, we already have our musical niche, so why not look for solidarity in fiction? What could be better for an isolated teen than to see themselves in a character? That’s where young adult novels come in. In the past few years, there’s been a pleasant influx of YA novels that feature alternative music junkies just like us.

But why alternative music and not, say, pop?

Pop fans are music fans too, after all. However, alternative music arguably has fewer boundaries; it’s not expected to hit the same marks as pop music, which allows the bands to say pretty much whatever they want. These are the songs that aren’t necessarily played on mainstream radio, but somehow they manage to get to the people who need to hear them. There are also a lot more subgenres that fall under the “alternative” umbrella, including rock, pop-punk, and indie—basically anything that’s not pop. So, if an author wants to reach out to a broader young adult audience, logically they should include music from across all spectrums.

Why namedrop a mainstream supergroup like One Direction when you can throw a bone to the underdog

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and let your protagonist gush over You Me At Six? I promise we’ll appreciate it.

Not only does YA make up a huge part of the book industry right now, it is also the only market actively breaching the gap and connecting with music-loving readers who spend all day plugged into their headphones, waiting to go home and obsess about music some more. Before young adult novels started to incorporate alternative music, fans like us were often left feeling disconnected from the protagonists. Instead we found kinship with the outcast secondary characters, who were shunned because they had a couple of extra piercings, a visible tattoo or liked My Chemical Romance. Now we have more options, more characters who listen to the same music as us, flail around at live shows, and spend ridiculous amounts of money on band merch.

Plus, with more YA novels being adapted for the big screen, an effort is being made to maintain the connection across the different forms of media.

The increased presence of alternative music on YA-friendly film soundtracks can be attributed to the success of the Twilight soundtrack: Muse, Paramore, Linkin Park—not what you would normally expect on a soundtrack for a movie based on a popular teen novel in 2008. Yet it’s one of the best-selling movie soundtracks, was nominated for two Grammys and helped pave the way for other alternative artists hoping to get a song into a movie. Take a look at the

soundtracks for the last two John Green-penned films and, while you’ll see big pop names like Ed Sheeran and Haim, you’ll also see Vance Joy, Vampire Weekend and Kodaline. Now all it takes is a wellplaced alternative song in a movie trailer and there will be an increase of teens and twentysomethings in the audience come opening night.

Books, on the other hand, don’t have a physical soundtrack. There’s a small niche for music fiction, but it’s something that needs to be nurtured and expanded. Not unlike alternative music or its subgenres, music fiction isn’t for everyone but it connects with those who need it most. Those fans, the readers, then spread the word, introducing the book to other people, essentially building a sense of community with their like-minded peers.

When readers stumble across a book that references one of their favorite songs or a band they admire it takes the experience to another level.

Suddenly, you’re right there with the character, hearing what they’re hearing, feeling what they’re feeling. Yvonne Prinz, co-founder of San Francisco’s Amoeba Music, injected her passion for records in her YA novel Vinyl Princess, making it easy for those of us who wax poetic about vinyl to relate to her spunky protagonist. Likewise, the titular character in Robin Benway’s Audrey, Wait! creates playlists including Taking Back Sunday and The Ramones, and we can’t help singing along with her. S

For more, please visit idobiradio.com

‘s history with Emery goes almost all the way back to the beginning. The week that The Weak’s End, Emery’s debut album, was released, they were a guest on RadioU’s morning show, The Riot. We called multiple times but the phone was busy and we mentioned it on the air. Suddenly Toby’s phone wasn’t busy any more. Why? His mom had been using dial-up internet to listen to our webstream and, as a result, the line was busy. After his mom heard us mention it on the air, she hung up so we could get through! Since then, Emery has released six full-lengths, gone on numerous world tours and started BadChristian, their own record label and podcast. Their guitarist, Matt Carter, took some time out from his busy schedule to talk to us about band and label life.

After years of working with labels, Emery decided to work with fans and make You Were Never Alone as a crowd-funded album. Did you feel like this changed your relationship with your fans?

MATT CARTER: It’s crazy because the relationship becomes so direct. You wind up inevitably with some really happy people and some people who are irritated by the delays or the pricing structure or the way things are worded. They don’t like the way some things “come across.” I think that’s all part of the deal. The real positive is that you actually wind up empathizing and learning about the fans’ point of view, and that’s a good thing.

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When you started Emery, did you ever think you’d be running your own record label?

No way. I always thought that the two things I would not want to do would be recording bands professionally and running a label. Now I record bands professionally and run a label. In both cases, I didn’t want to do it, because I strongly wanted to believe that the people who did those things were capable of magical things that I wasn’t capable of. Truthfully, I’m not that good at either one. It turns out there is no such thing as magic after all.

with

EMERY

“We are not gonna wait as long to make another record, that is for sure.”

—Matt Carter Even when things are going really well, most bands end up in some kind of conflict with their record label. As a band, what do you want from a label and as a label owner, how do you provide that to your bands?

Well our concept of a label is pretty different than any other one out there, and I really only use the term “label” because it’s easier to explain. We don’t own any masters or recordings. We make handshake deals with artists that we love and feel like we can get along with. All of our finances are updated and transparent every month, and we pay every artist every month. So by imagining the opposite of all the things I just listed, you can extrapolate what sucks about traditional labels that leads inevitably to conflict. BC Music probably won’t ever make much money. Since we don’t own any of the masters, we couldn’t even sell our company for a big payoff. We are just a co-op of wisdom and hard work that wants to share our resources, infrastructure and experience because it would be a waste not to. Also, hopefully, there will be some living wages and financial upside to doing it.

As far as what we expect from other bands: nothing, really. We just want them to have realistic expectations and want them to be willing to work alongside us until they don’t want to anymore. Then they can leave whenever they want. Seems pretty simple to me.

Its October, so we have to ask: Has Emery ever done anything for Halloween on tour?

Oh yeah, many times. It never goes well, though. We love dressing up and wearing costumes, but the audience always just wants you to wear skinny jeans and have cool hair, I think. Doing fun or goofy stuff is great fun for us, but sadly the crowd never seems to get it.

What is on the agenda for Emery in the next few months? Are you already planning next year?

We are not gonna wait as long to make another record, that is for sure. We don’t have the plans in place yet, but I badly want to start writing and jamming. I still enjoy that as much as ever—maybe more, because I’m much better at it now. S

You’ve got a successful band and record label, but that’s not all: You’ve got a podcast, also called BadChristian, that has a strong following. Podcasting is a space that is easy to enter but hard to make successful. What made you decide to start?

I’ve been primarily known for a set of 10 sad, heavy songs every couple of years for the last 10 years. That’s a bit weird and unbalanced, and I’d strongly like to be known more as a whole person and communicate other thoughts and ideas than what Emery’s music alone can do. Podcasting is one of the best ways to do that. We also have a desire to be present in and influencing changing cultures. It’s also super fun to push boundaries and create stuff. Podcasts are improvised and very fulfilling in a way that is very different from producing albums and playing the same music every night.

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WILSON This Wizard Of Oz costume set was suggested and provided by our good friend Jeff Engler. We were all given specific costumes to wear (whether we wanted to or not) for a performance and bingo contest on the 2014 Motörboat Cruise. This event was filled with debauchery and even a visit to the clinic for intravenous hydration therapy. The motivation? We still don’t know.

WHAT WAS YOUR BAND’S

BEST HALLOWEEN COSTUME?

JUNIOR of ONE-EYED DOLL Here at One-Eyed Doll, every day is Halloween! Some of our favorite costumes we’ve been before are the Pope, a viking, Santa Claus and, of course, a witch! One time Kimberly was a witch onstage and turned me into a frog. I had to play the whole show in this giant frog mask and couldn’t see anything. That was fun. We’ve also been jack-o’-lanterns, dragons, unicorns, aliens, ghouls and beasts. Sometimes after a show in May or June somewhere in the backwoods of Texas, we’ll go into a gas station at 3 a.m. still dressed up. Invariably the clerk will say, “What is it... Halloween?” with a chuckle. To which we’ll reply, “Is it?

Oh, so that’s why you’re wearing a hick costume.” Strangely, nothing bad has happened to us yet.

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TIM D’ONOFRIO of FROM ASHES TO NEW This wasn’t actually a From Ashes To New show, I was just filling in for our vocalist Chris Musser’s old band called Jacob’s Ladder back in the day. We actually played two Halloween shows in the same weekend that year. It was probably back in 2006. The first is hilarious because this was before Hellyeah even existed, I think. I convinced Musser to dress up like Chad Gray of Mudvayne, and I was in my obsessive Pantera stage, so it was just a funny coincidence that we were half of Hellyeah before there was Hellyeah. My good friend Zack “Sanchez” Graham had dressed up like Jim Root from Slipknot, as well.

The second was when Musser dressed up as Chad from Mudvayne in the “Dig” video again and I dressed up like Hunter S. Thompson from Fear In Loathing in Las Vegas. I even had my buddy Max dress up as my gonzo attorney to make it legit! It was a backyard bonfire show for one of Musser’s friends in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. There was no continuity for the costumes here, it was just a free for all. I remember I played that set with a cigarette holder in my mouth, and when I played drums back then, I would clench my jaw really hard so I broke the cigarette holder mid-set. A piece of it fell out and landed in my lap and because it was so dark and it hurt so bad, I thought I shattered my teeth!

“A NEW HOPE”

BRAND NEW SINGLE OUT NOW

When the past fails you, you look to the future;

just as A War Within, a band from southeast Mich igan is doing. A War Within was created from the remains of previous projects and groups of friends. A War Within brings a mix of modern metal core and throwbacks of yester day. When asked about their sound, as cliche as it may sound, said “we write songs that we want to hear and hopes fans will pick up on that.”

Having past experience with bands and the problems that come with being a part of the music scene, A War Within was created with the sole desire to make music their living . Being told countless times that you cant accomplish your dreams is a tough pill to swallow, if you’re willing to swallow it. Dropp ing out, self-destructive behaviors and devil worsh ip are some of the many things that parents and old friends have throw n around as discouragement to the band. However, A War Within is a persistent example of growth, strength and overcoming the odds to live out their dreams.

“We’re writing songs. We’re out here touring, playin g shows, hustling merch and grinding our lives away because we just want to make music.” Says vocalist Spencer Mayb e.

The band is going to be heading into an extensive touring schedule starting in 2016 in support of their upcoming self titled release coming early next year. You can grab a listen to their first single “A New Hope” at awwmusic.c om or grab it on I-tunes.

Pre-Orders for the self-titled full length album will launch early next year.

AWarWithinBand

AWarWithin

AWarWithinMusic

AWarWithinMusic

awwmusic.com

&

THEN N H2O 1997

By Toby Morse

ORIGINAL LINEUP Toby Morse (vocals) Rusty Pistachio (guitar) Eric Rice (bass) Max Capshaw (drums)

Tarina Doolittle

WHY WE STARTED

OUR FIRST TOUR VAN

THE FIRST SONG WE WROTE

I had a lot of stuff I wanted to say, and I loved watching my friends’ bands play all the time. I was a roadie for Sick Of It All at the time, too.

It was a Dodge van that Epitaph Records bought for us after we signed to their label in 1997.

OUR FIRST PRACTICE SPACE

The first song I ever wrote was called “My Love Is Real.” It was about my exgirlfriend who cheated on me and broke my heart. It’s actually on our debut album as a hidden track.

We opened up for the Lunachicks and Rancid at the Limelight in New York City way back in 1995, which was a pretty huge deal.

I actually have no idea what studio it was!

Ultra Sound Studios in Manhattan, maybe?

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OUR FIRST BIG SHOW

&

NOW 2015

By Adam Blake

photo by Chris Wrenn

CURRENT LINEUP Toby Morse (vocals) Rusty Pistachio (guitar) Colin McGinniss (live guitar) Adam Blake (bass) Todd Friend (drums)

WHY WE CONTINUE We still love it. There is a magical feeling to getting onstage and playing this music to a room full of excited people. We also believe very strongly that this band is a way for us to do “good works” in the world, so to speak.

A way that we can use our time on this Brendan Donahue planet to try and affect people in a positive way, to put smiles on people’s faces and make them want to sing and dance. It’s not like we’re curing cancer or anything, but in our own way, we think that the band is a great way we can brighten people’s lives a little bit.

OUR CURRENT PRACTICE SPACE Usually the first show of the tour is our practice. We have been playing a long time so we like to keep that fresh energy and excitement saved up until we go onstage. Plus we’re a bicoastal band, so regular practice is tough for us. This usually makes the first shows of the tour among the most fun for us and the audience.

That being said, with a new record about to come out, we are going to have to overhaul the set and add a lot of the new songs, so I’m sure we’ll do something like a conventional short-term rehearsal rental place for a week or so to knock the new songs into live shape.

OUR CURRENT TOUR VAN Well, we don’t own a band vehicle so we rent. We prefer touring on buses, but then again, who doesn’t! But mostly we travel in sprinter vans, usually with bunks or one big sleeping area in a loft and regular seating. A lot of bands use them, and occasionally you find remnants from the previous occupants.

I remember we once took a bus right after the Wailers had been on it. I’m not gonna say what we found on there, but I’m sure you guys can imagine what it might have been...

THE NEWEST SONG WE’VE WRITTEN The last song we finished for our new record, Use Your Voice was “True Romance.”

Musically, I wasn’t even sure it was a good fit for H2O and in fact, I actually didn’t even send it to Toby when I sent him the demos we had recorded. It got mentioned in an email exchange under its original working title, “Sundown,” and Toby said he wanted to hear it so it was sent to him to check out and he heard the potential straight away. Lyrically he wanted to have a song to his wife on the record, and the music was a perfect fit for that. Our producer Chad Gilbert had a great idea for the echo effect on the chorus and some great melodic and dynamic ideas, and when we tracked the music it felt great. Our engineer Paul Miner also added some unconventional instrumentation to the outro chorus and the song had a really strong feel to it. Lyrically and vocally, the song far exceeded my hopes for it and I really feel like it had us end the recording session on a high.

THE BIGGEST CHANGE BETWEEN THEN AND NOW Two decades is a long time, and we have all grown up a lot. I would say the biggest thing is that we now have families and more established home lives, so we pick our tours more wisely. We’re viewing this a marathon, not a sprint, and we are very conscious to give ourselves enough time off to not burn out and for us to still be enthused and excited to hit the road again. So long as we keep that mindset, I could see us doing this forever. S

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PHOTO: LeAnn Mueller

I N S I D ETH E A RTI ST

C O H E E D A N D C A M B R I A’ S

CLAUDIO SANCHEZ INTERVIEW: Mischa Pearlman

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For seven albums, Coheed And Cambria’s music has been focused on The Amory Wars, a narrative conceived by frontman Claudio Sanchez and which took both the form of comic books and records.

With their eighth full-length, however, the band has produced their first album outside of that concept. Rather, The Color Of The Sun is a collection of songs inspired by, and written about, Sanchez’s personal life—specifically moving to Brooklyn, the destruction of his house in rural New York and the birth of his first child Atlas, all of which has significantly changed who and what Coheed And Cambria is, and how Sanchez operated as a songwriter.

You’re probably already fed up with questions about why The Color Before The Sun is autobiographical, so let me ask you if that was always the plan, or if it was something that just arose out of the circumstances you found yourself in, with the place in Brooklyn, the baby, and all that stuff?

Yeah, I think it was accidental. When I was writing the record, at the time I was living in this Brooklyn apartment—my wife and I were traveling around just trying to find our place to become parents—and being there, I had this sense of exposure that I wasn’t normally accustomed to. It’s very uncomfortable to write in a situation like that, and I think for a while that spilled into the songwriting, but while I was writing this material I didn’t necessarily know that I was writing a record. I was in a panic that I wasn’t accomplishing anything in my situation. After about a year-anda-half and all of the things we endured there, between myself losing my identity and the anticipation of fatherhood and the destruction of our country home—all that leaked into what became the record.

When I first looked at the 10 songs, I was like, “This doesn’t look like a Coheed record, it’s more like a solo album.” But that’s when I realized with Coheed that I have this idea of no limitations—and we shouldn’t have to feel so tied down every time we make a record that we have to do this other thing. And becoming a father and moving into that next step of my life feels like a new beginning, so I thought why not try to do that artistically?

Was it nice to let loose and write something that had nothing to do with The Amory Wars?

I guess so, but it didn’t feel that good. When I was writing it, I was so perplexed I didn’t have any sense of accomplishment. I didn’t see the forest through the trees. I didn’t see that a record was getting written. I just panicked! It sort of presented itself as “Here are these 10 songs that encapsulate the emotions and experiences that I’ve had in the last year,” and that’s when it felt freeing. But the writing process—I think even more so than when we have the concept—felt almost imprisoning. Because I was in that apartment and I could not see myself artistically in there and I went down this hole that I just had to climb out of and I was having a really hard time.

It’s interesting, because a lot of people go to New York to explore their creativity and soak up the influence of the city, and it was obviously the opposite for you. Was that a surprise?

It was. I mean, I’m from a suburban town maybe 35-45 minutes north of Manhattan.

So for me as a suburban kid, New York City is Oz. I can see it from the bridge in my hometown, and there’s a sense that there’s this place of wonderment. And when I got there, it was amazing. It’s totally inspiring.

I just think that there’s so much inspiration that it’s really hard to weed it all out. For me, I like to walk and take in the people and the energy, and I found myself doing that more so there than in any place in the world. I think I became addicted to it, and so it was

hard to get back to the apartment and work, because I felt so exposed. I’m a pretty shy, reclusive individual. I can perform in front of thousands of people, but when my stuff is out there in the world before it should be, when I know my neighbors can hear me singing, it makes me feel very uncomfortable and very insecure. I just felt like, “Here I am taking in all this inspiration and I get back to my workplace and I can’t let it out as best as I can.” But, like I said, that’s what was so frustrating—that I was doing it. And maybe I needed that premature exposure from the idea that my neighbors could hear me and that’s what allowed me to expose myself a little bit more.

Did you also feel more vulnerable writing about your actual life, as opposed to having the concept of the Amory Wars narrative to mask it?

A little bit. But all of the Coheed records are very much rooted in a real setting. I created the concept in 1998 because, as a singer, I was afraid. I’m an insecure dude.

I didn’t want people judging my music because of my personality. So I created a concept with the power of suggestion to get the focus off of me, like, ”Here’s this thing you can draw your attention to and I can feel somewhat disconnected from it and my feelings won’t get hurt when you judge this.” And I think it took this growth, myself becoming a father—I mean, I’m 37 years old now—it’s taken this long for me to become comfortable in my skin as the guy that fronts this band. I’ve always been singing from the heart, narrative and all. It’s just now I’ve decided that this is the right time to remove the mask. S

I’m a pretty shy, reclusive individual. I can perform in front of thousands of people, but when I know my neighbors can hear me singing, it makes me feel very insecure.”

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INSI D ETH E A RTI ST

THE WONDER YEARS’

DAN

CAMPBELL INTERVIEW: Heather Glock

With the release of their fifth album, No Closer To Heaven, in September, the Wonder Years have certainly blown past the line of what is considered “pop-punk.” The band has been pushing these boundaries for years, but here they finally flourished within their individuality. We had the pleasure of catching up with frontman Dan Campbell on the muses of No Closer To Heaven.

Stained glass normally displays saints and symbolic motifs. What can you tell me about this relevancy to the cover art of No Closer To Heaven?

Would you say that this is another concept album, or is this record a clean break?

DAN CAMPBELL: I spoke to my friend [professional artist] Mike C, who is a chameleon of styles. I called him and said, “You know how you told me that you can do everything? Well, how about Picasso?” Literally, 40 minutes later he texts me, “Something like this?” and he sent over the picture he doodled on a napkin while having dinner with his daughter, and I was like, “That’s it. That’s the album cover.”

As far as imagery, we wanted to take lyrics from songs and put them in there. For example, we reference “Cigarettes & Saints” with the line, “I’m sure there ain’t a heaven/ But that don’t mean I don’t like to picture you there/I’ll bet you’re bumming cigarettes off saints.” That is the most heaviest reference of all, but there is also from “You In January” with, “Goddamn you look holy/Hit from behind with light/You’re a painting of a saint.”

It is a concept record. This whole album is about how we all fuck up and fucking up is okay. We may never be perfect and that is also all right, but we shouldn’t stop striving for perfection. With any path that you are taking in life, with anything that you are looking to do, or even the purpose of a relationship. You don’t just give up and take it as it is for the time being. You don’t stop trying.

The idea is as we try to do things to better ourselves and to better the world, we may fall short of that. Falling short is okay as long as we continue to strive forward.

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The idea is as we try to do things to better ourselves and to better the world, we may fall short of that. Falling short is okay as long as we continue to strive forward.”

Does the title of “Stained Glass Ceilings” reference to the church term of not being able to break past a certain hierarchy?

It was more of a view on a personal level. Not a student of mine, but where I taught an after-school program, a student was shot and killed by their cousin in an apartment. Subsequent to that, I was robbed at gunpoint and the officer who [responded] told me to buy a gun. To me, I was understanding about how little he seemed to value life. In the macro sense, it was looking at systemic racism.

With writing this song and touching on those topics, what was it like bouncing those emotions off of letlive. frontman Jason Butler’s energy?

Jason and I were talking after Mike Brown was shot and were discussing systemic racism. Jason has a really interesting viewpoint, because he grew up in Inglewood and he is half-black. He has a different understanding of it than I can ever have. I thought that was really important to bring in his view of these things. As a white man in America, all I can ever be is an ally. All I can do is lend a voice, but it is not about me and it is not my conversation. I can be used to amplify the conversation, which is why in the song I am not attempting to provide any answers, because I don’t have them. I thought it was more important to raise those topics and make them available. While we are writing about these social issues, the whole point is that Wonder Years songs are retelling of personal things. This song touches on those personal stories, but it also opens up on broader social issues. I thought Jason’s voice as a person—not just his singing voice—was most important to be heard on this song. Not to mention he annihilated that part!

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This record expands on what defines the Wonder Years both as a whole and individually. What does it mean for you to press against the boundaries of generalization?

The whole idea for each new album is to take what we’ve done before and to build off of that, to expand the idea.

We don’t want to be what we are told what we are. We want to expand our perception and the fans’ perception.

As a lyricist, I wanted to tackle personal issues and what makes a Wonder Years song and build from there to focus on broader issues. S

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BAND ON BAND:

SENSES FAIL & BUDDY NIELSEN SILVERSTEIN Interviewed by Shane Told

It’s been more than a decade since Silverstein and Senses Fail each released their debut full-lengths, When Broken Is Easily Fixed and Let It Enfold You, respectively. In that time, hundreds of pretenders to the emotional hardcore throne have come and gone, victims of flat irons and tight jeans taking precedence over good songs. But these two bands have continued to not only survive but thrive, putting out some of their most vital albums of their career—both Silverstein’s I Am Alive In Everything I Touch and Senses Fail’s Pull The Thorns From Your Heart are two of 2015’s finest releases. On the eve of their co-headlining tour, we asked each band’s vocalist to pick the other’s brain.

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How was the 10-year anniversary tour of Let It Enfold You? It was great! I was pretty hesitant on the whole idea. Thinking about it, as it was approaching I wasn’t sure if it made sense to even do the tour because none of the same members are in the band anymore. It almost feels at times that this is really a different band than the one that made Let It Enfold You–and in many ways it is–but it is still songs that I had a part in writing, so it will always be attached to Senses Fail and myself.

With your recent coming out and talking so honestly and candidly about your past, how has that changed you?

I feel very liberated and like a much more open and whole individual. Carrying around a piece of your personality without ever being able to feel comfortable with it creates more a lot of weight and also very distorted interactions with people.

Constantly walking into any relationship knowing that there is a whole piece of your being that you cannot express changes the way in which you can be truly honest with people. I think there were some people that didn’t understand, but part of the process is to educate people on what sexual fluidity is.

How cool is it for you that some members of your band were in bands that inspired you, like Strike Anywhere and Poison The Well?

It’s awesome! We’ve had a lot of people come in and out of the band, and they each leave their mark. I’ve learned so much about songwriting and music because I’ve been lucky enough to be make music with

so many different viewpoints. If you had told me that this would be the case when we started, I wouldn’t have believed you.

Senses Fail has changed musically but also lyrically throughout the years.

Do you think the nature of what you’re trying to say has affected the musical vibe or are they mutually exclusive?

The change in music started around the same time I decided to change the message. It was sort of an overall change of what the band was going to be. Once our main songwriter Garrett [Zablocki] left, it was an opportunity to really go in any direction we wanted. When you have one person writing songs, it is super-safe and easy, the process is streamlined and you stay very much inside the box because of their interests and limits. Without that fencing, we were free to really explore what else is out there, and it only made sense that the new version of Senses Fail carry with it a different lyrical approach.

Without getting sober, meditation and coming out, none of this would have changed—I would still be singing songs about alcohol and depression.

What advice would you give to a band member that is struggling with being open with their sexuality?

Find other people who have walked the path and can help give a voice to your insecurities and fear. There are really good resources like the Trevor Project and It Gets Better—these non-profits can help connect people in places that lack the local infrastructure to support the LGBTQ community.

If you could be any ice cream flavor, what would you be?

I’d want to be something classic, but something that sometimes people momentarily forget about. Like strawberry: Have you had strawberry ice cream lately? Probably not, but if they ran out of all the flashy new favorites at BaskinRobbins, you’d get strawberry and be like, “Holy fuck, I forgot how awesome this was... Real chunks of strawberries? Are you kidding me?”

Given how much the industry and the world has changed since both our bands began, do you think it is easier or harder to be in a band today?

I don’t know if it’s easier or harder, but it’s way fucking weirder. For us, it was simple: Get a band together, practice your ass off, play locally, record a demo, try to get a little following going and then try to grow that fanbase. That’s it. Now there’s all the social media stuff, YouTube is a huge thing even for finding band members, it’s so complicated with streaming and downloading now, and bands need videos practically before they have songs. It’s easier because you can get music directly to people all over the world, but it’s harder to get people to care. But I think no matter what era a band comes from, if they write truly great songs and meaningful lyrics they should be able to maintain their success. Once people truly love a song they always will. Those songs will be passed down to other generations and be loved again.

SHANE TOLD Interviewed by Buddy Nielsen

At this point in your career, given that amount and longevity of your success, what inspires you to continue?

When we started the band, it was to prove I could sing this style and I could be a standalone frontman. Throughout the years there’s been other challenges that have come and gone, like proving I could write a concept album. But certain things like seeing the world, inspiring other people through our music and trying to write great songs, those are always there and push me every day. People sometimes ask if I’m ever bored: There’s so much going on, I could never be bored.

How did you survive Victory Records?

Victory never interfered creatively, and they knew how to sell albums. The things we butted heads on the business side we kept on the business side and didn’t think it was important to send a laundry list of complaints to our fans or the media. There’s a mutual respect between our band and Tony and all the great employees there.

They gave us our start and that still means a lot.

When it is all said and done, what do you want Silverstein to be remembered for?

Great songs, consistency and not being a band full of assholes. We care about our relationships in the industry and the scene and want to not only be respected but known for being respectful as well.

And we probably know more about beer, coffee and vegan food than any other band out there. S

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DEALER'S CHOICE The members of FOXING fought past nervous breakdowns and protracted writer’s block to complete their new album, and then used those wounds to explore both hope and desolation through Dealer, their latest set of atmospheric, entrancing beauty.

STORY: Brian Shultz PHOTO: Mitchell Wojcik

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Foxing should have been riding high come last Thanksgiving. The five-piece from St. Louis, Missouri—frontman Conor Murphy, bassist/ vocalist Josh Coll, guitarists Ricky Sampson and Eric Hudson and drummer Jon Hellwig—was a month removed from a tour with Brand New, currently between legs of supporting Modern Baseball’s fall headliner, and doing West Coast dates with the similarly post-rock-influenced Gates. But even with the short holiday break looming the next day, at least one of the band’s members had internal strife coming to a head.

“I was crumbling from the inside out,” Coll admits from his lodging in Norwich, England, during a second conversation with Substream. (The first was a few days earlier at a youth hostel in Berlin, Germany, a Skype phone call fraught with disconnections from the shaky Wi-Fi and constantly slamming doors in the background.) It’s late August and the band is supporting Tigers Jaw in Europe. “I hit a point where we got to Los Angeles, I got out of the van and just started walking. For four hours. I didn’t even help load in. I just woke up that day and didn’t want to be alive. I didn’t know why. It was just a weird thing.”

Coll is vague as to exactly what transpired that day, or what was discussed between him and the band then, but the loneliness and exhaustion of touring sixand-a-half months out of that year had clearly hit home. “I got to a point where I was not communicating properly to the band and allowed myself to get stressed out,” he says. “I deal with depression as it is. I hit a really, really low point and they were frustrated. I think the others had been going through that, maybe a bit more silently and at different times, but I think it was happening to all of us and we were very unhappy. We weren’t talking. Once we [did], it was really dark.

It was very humbling, and there was a lot of vulnerability between the five of us and a lot of anger we weren’t really dealing with, and a lot of that started pouring out.”

The band was also “dreading” the upcoming month they’d booked at a cabin just outside Stowe, Vermont, that following February to write Dealer after struggling with writer’s block as long as their first album, 2013’s The Albatross, had been out. “We were very nervous,” he admits, “because we were going into this place isolated for a month and we’re gonna fucking kill each other after going through all this stuff. We really didn’t feel good about the place that we were in, and we hit that low point in California, and it was really low. But from there we started building up.”

By the time they traveled northeast to Vermont for that cabin stay, they were in a better place, and the resulting month was productive despite circumstances: They never saw the snow-covered ground outside, and save one Ben & Jerry’s factory tour, only left the cabin for weekly grocery store trips to Sam’s Club, which took two-and-a-half hours each way.

“We didn’t really have downtime,” Murphy recalls. “We spent most of our waking hours writing. We were also super-focused and had a vision for what we wanted the record to be, and we were all determined to make the best of our time there.”

“It felt like there were stakes involved,” Coll adds. “Our label [Triple Crown Records] helped facilitate us being at that cabin, [so] we didn’t want to let them down in that regard. We wanted to have something to show for it.”

This is the first time we’ve ever felt like we could write completely honestly, and we felt like we needed to. We identified the darkest parts of our lives and tried to focus on those things as, ‘Well, this is a confession.’

The whole album is a confession.”

—CONOR MURPHY

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I was crumbling from the inside out.

I woke up one day and didn't want to be alive."

—Josh Coll

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There the band managed to finally work out the songs that would ultimately be tracked with producer Matt Bayles and become their second album, Dealer, which blends delicately woven, atmospheric sounds into moody chamber-rock pieces with Sigur Rós-like craftsmanship, maintaining a bravely balladic pacing with careful restraint and minor emotional detonations. Gently integrated programming influenced by ’80s John Carpenter soundtracks provide synthesized orchestral moments, and Murphy’s vocal range is better than ever. Opener “Weave” is instantly gratifying, with an Appleseed Cast-esque midsection and a beautiful falsetto climax, offset ambitiously by the dark tension that immediately follows on “The Magdalene.” “Indica” musically nods to Brand New’s “Jesus” while hinting at possible episodic trauma, and though few bands yearn better, “Redwoods” is an

PHOTOS: Jay Maude

especially strong display of how affecting their quiet, vulnerable desperation can be

Murphy and Coll shared lyric-writing duties as they’d done in the past, and both approached their craft with more confidence and openness than ever. “I was a lot more comfortable writing with not just Josh, but everybody in the band, to the point where I was able to talk to them about things I’ve never been able to talk about,” Murphy says. “Things that were extremely personal and fucked up for me.

I think the same can be said for Josh with different situations, but this is the first time we’ve ever felt like we could write completely honestly, and we felt like we needed to. Both of us identified the darkest parts of our lives, the darkest stories from our lives, and we tried to focus on those things as, ‘Well, this is a confession.’ The whole album is kind of a confession.”

Murphy is a little more reticent in

conversation with Substream to confess just what those “personal and fucked up” things are, but subtly points to Dealer as himself exposing it in his own way. “A lot of what I was writing [about deals with] sex, sexuality and religion,” he describes.

“A lot of Catholic guilt kind of stuff. It’s certain situations that are really, really dark for me. I’ve been trying to figure out how to talk about that publicly in some way, but at the time, I just don’t know how I could, because it took me so long just to talk to the guys in my band about it.”

“When people talk about how honest and clear they feel The Albatross is,” Coll elaborates, drawing contrast, “I feel like a lot of Conor’s songs are that way. Conor at the time was really honed in, writing more of the accessible things and I was writing maybe a little more vague and poetic.

[This time] I just really, really felt like I needed to own it. Be more forthcoming

or forthright, and more open, and really own [my] voice. Be willing to put it down on paper. It doesn’t mean you have to reveal every aspect of yourself to people.

You don’t owe the audience your entire self, and I think there are parts you still need for yourself, but how can it fit within these songs if I’m not willing to actually address those issues?” It’s nearly 1 a.m. local time in Norwich, often when people reach nocturnal vulnerability, but Coll manages to conclude with a restrained, reasoned stance on such a state. “For me it was about knowing when it’s okay to reveal parts of yourself to this thing.” S

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When things are too polished and shiny and happy, on some level that’s manufactured, because it’s just not realistic.

On the other end, when everything is always dark and totally terrible, that’s also a manufactured image.

So how about we just do something totally honest?”

–JAMES ALEX

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AMERICAN GRAFFITI Philadelphia quartet BEACH SLANG has quickly become one of “those bands” that fans talk about in hushed reverence— when they’re not screaming along to James Alex’s lapelgrabbing lyrics, that is.

James Alex, vocalist/guitarist for Philadelphia-based melodic punk band Beach Slang, was so humbled by a recent crowd’s reaction to one of his new songs that he stopped the band mid-song and jumped into the audience to show his appreciation.

“We played the first verse of the new song and people were singing along with everything they had,” gushes Alex, referring to “Bad Art & Weirdo Ideas,” the first song released from the band’s debut full-length, The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us. “I stopped us after that first verse to go give people in the audience hugs because I was just so happy.”

STORY: Jason Schreurs // PHOTOS: Andrew Wells

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The response to the band’s debut album so far has been a relief for Alex.

Expectations were building after the band’s two EPs from 2014 were heralded as some of the best melodic punk since the glory days of Jawbreaker, a band that Beach Slang has been compared to almost perpetually since they formed.

“When you make a couple of EPs that connect with people on that level, there’s a little bit of worry about the things you do after that. You wonder if people want to freeze time and those will be the things they are attached to, and future stuff might have a rockier road in breaking through,” says Alex. “So to just see that first punch of things being okay with the new stuff was really, really nice and wildly comforting.”

Things “being okay” with the new album is a vast understatement. The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us, the band’s full-length debut on Polyvinyl, shows the four-piece reaching out in welcome directions that their two EPs from last year, Cheap Thrills On A Dead End Street and Who Would Ever Want Something So Broken?, only hinted at. According to Alex, writing a fulllength was exactly what the band needed after the two four-song EPs. “We had been waiting to do this,” he explains. “The EPs felt so short that just when we started getting into recording, it was over already. So there was something cool about being able to make something that lasted long enough to swim around a bit, and have some movement and dynamic range to it.”

With the recording of a full-length came the chance for Beach Slang to push into new territory, and that meant Alex digging deeper into his record collection and bringing in some other influences.

“There are things I’ve been listening to a lot that I didn’t explore on the shorter EPs, things like the Jesus And Mary Chain or Swervedriver. A lot of those shoegaze or Britpop bands—I adore that stuff,” he says. “With the earlier stuff, we just pushed the pedal down and went, but I wanted to spread this band out in a way that’s still true to me as a writer, so it can have growth and different feels to it, and I think that was accomplished on this first LP.” Often compared to the aforementioned Jawbreaker and another one of Alex’s big influences, the Replacements, Beach Slang was formed out of connections from drummer JP Flexner, who knew Alex and bassist Ed McNulty separately, and set up the band like a “little rock ’n’ roll cupid,” jokes Alex. Flexner knew that Alex, also a member of longtime Pennsylvanian punks Weston, was writing songs at home that were rooted in loud, three-chord punk, but had a defined element of texture and history to them.

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“I knew what I was chasing from the beginning,” says the frontman. “I wanted to write songs and make music that if I reached into my record collection, it would sound like one of those records that I held dear. So we got together and the first thing we played was ‘Filthy Luck’, and it immediately sounded like Beach Slang.”

Alex is the sort of lyricist that grabs you with every line, similar to his songwriting idols Blake Schwarzenbach and Paul Westerberg, with that hint of moody darkness peeking out from behind the hopefulness. It’s been that perfect balance of light and dark that’s found the honest lyrical spot that many have latched onto.

“When things are too polished and shiny and happy, on some level that’s manufactured, because it’s just not realistic. On the other end, when everything is always dark and totally terrible, that’s also a manufactured image,” explains Alex. “So how about we just do something totally honest? I get kicked and knocked down, and those days are rough, but then there are days that I get up and hang out with my friends, and those days are awesome. That’s what living is; being alive. Remember the knockdowns and celebrate the get-ups, and that’s super-important because it celebrates the honesty of being a person.

And that’s what I wanted this band to be.”

Sneaking up and becoming one of “those bands” has happened quickly and naturally for Beach Slang. Just a few

short years after their formation, the band is now in a “state of perpetual motion,” according to Alex, and they’ve already reached the point where fans are following the band on tour and even getting tattoos of their song lyrics.

“That’s been the most humbling part of this,” he enthuses.

“Before I picked up a guitar, I wanted to be a writer. And I still want to be a writer. Words are the most important things to me.

So when something like that happens, and when people send me photographs of these tattoos with my lyrics, it really flips my wig, and in the most beautiful way.”

“Humble” is a word that fits well with Alex and Beach Slang.

He and his bandmates, rounded out by second guitarist Ruben Gallego, have stayed on the same level as their fans, and Alex has no desire to become a punk rock figurehead. The band is about friendships and connections, and that won’t change, even if their debut full-length fully gets the recognition it deserves.

“Every time I meet someone who’s into this band, they’re just the sweetest people in the world, and it’s amazing that the little songs I’m writing are connecting with the people I want to be friends with,” says Alex. “One of the big things we get from venues and promoters is that our band draws the nicest people, and I’m always like, ‘Right on! That’s fantastic!’ If a gathering of really nice people is at Beach Slang shows, I love it.”

Although Alex half-jokes that with Beach Slang, he is really just trying to write “soundtracks to John Hughes films,” he says there’s a prominent difference between this band and others he’s played with in the past.

“There’s a hunger to this band that I haven’t had in quite a while,” he admits. “Musically, it’s probably the first thing I’ve really felt confident in. That whole approach of having no guard up and writing straight from the gut, I never really did that before. There was always some level of trying to keep myself safe. But with Beach Slang, I wanted to do it a certain way, and these guys respect the notion of tearing my goofy little heart out and spilling these songs. We feed each other in all the right ways, and that’s a special magic.” S

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STRAIGHT OUTTA ALBANY

In just two short years, pop-punk troupe STATE CHAMPS went from basement shows to playing in arenas. How’d they do it?

By staying true to themselves.

STORY: Geoff Burns LIVE PHOTOS: Elliott Ingham

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10:30 a.m. on a Friday morning and Tyler Szalkowski is just waking up from a night’s sleep. He clears his throat before speaking into the phone. “It’s a culmination of the last two years of our lives,” Szalkowski begins. The 23-year-old guitarist is referring to his band State Champs about to release their second full-length Around The World And Back in just a few weeks.

The Albany, New York, pop-punk quintet released their debut album The Finer Things in 2013, which debuted at No. 131 on the Billboard 200. After that, the band’s touring schedule became heavier and the support became larger. The continued support led the band to release an acoustic EP The Acoustic Things in 2014, which included five remakes of songs from The Finer Things plus two new songs and allowed fans to hear another side to lead vocalist Derek DiScanio’s talented lyrical skills.

For many people in their early 20s, like Szalkowski, life isn’t always full of answered questions. More so, it’s a matter of taking it one day at a time.

“Life in your early 20s isn’t exactly the easiest,” Szalkowski continues, shaking loose the cobwebs from the previous night.

“You’re still finding out who you are. There are times where you’ll be the happiest you’ve ever been, and times where you’ve been the saddest you’ve ever been. There are a lot of tracks [on Around The World And Back] that deal with the emotional roller coaster [of] being away from home so much.”

The conversation dives into the guitarist explaining how Around The World And Back deals with transitioning into adulthood and the post-college experience.

He makes the connection between the time in his life where his friends were returning home from college and trying to readjust to living at home to how State Champs’ new album is about finding yourself and your own happiness.

“We’re maturing, [our] music is maturing—I know every band always [says] that, but it’s just true,” Szalkowski says.

“If you look at our first record compared to this one, you can see the growth.”

While much success followed after the release of The Finer Things, Szalkowski said pressure going into the writing for Around The World And Back wasn’t a factor for the band. There wasn’t a set schedule of where to meet and at exactly what

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time to sit down and try to write material. It was a matter of feeling comfortable and not worrying about needing to write a song just because other people would be there waiting to hear it. It was about finding the right time and place to create something they believed in.

The band found time to write new songs during downtime while constantly touring, including a specific occasion during a few days off during a tour and sitting in a room and hammering out a handful of songs. “It was very random pieces of time where we were like, ‘Let’s write a song right now. I have, like, two hours right now. I’ll totally just riff,’” the guitarist recalls.

While the band knew there would be pressure going into their second album, they didn’t let the stress get to them. If anything, it motivated the band: After receiving positive praise with The Finer Things, State Champs had more time in the studio for their second album and were better prepared.

“We were kind of like, ‘Okay, this is totally different now,’” Szalkowski recalls. “‘We have to set a standard now and we have to not only meet that standard of how The Finer Things was, we have to defeat it and we have to do better than The Finer Things.’”

More time was spent in the studio for Around The World And Back then for any previous State Champs release. The band was able to work on more chorus melodies, lyrical content and had a longer amount of time for overall production, where The Finer Things was completed in a few short weeks. “It let us dive in even deeper than we thought we could,” Szalkowski says.

After finishing the album earlier this year, State Champs embarked on their two biggest tours to date, first supporting All Time Low in America and then being selected to open for 5 Seconds Of Summer’s Australian arena tour. After performing to such huge crowds, it only caused Szalkowski and his band to appreciate the kind of music State Champs plays even more.

“We got to chat with the 5 Seconds boys about a lot of stuff, like how they got to where they’re at,” Szalkowski says. “Who doesn’t want to play sold-out arenas everyday? I personally love our brand of music. We’re not too edgy, but we could turn around and do a Counterparts tour or something, which is something I really like

about our band. [Talking to 5SOS] definitely influenced the way I know about the ins and outs on that level. It’s the experience that helps me understand different levels of the industry on the business side.”

The guitarist continues speaking about trying to figure out who you are in your early 20s. He says each member in the band came from their local hardcore scene while growing up, and playing music was a source they needed to connect through to get rid of their bad vibes the had. If the music State Champs creates can help in any way to make people feel a sense of belonging, that’s all Szalkowski needs to know to feel content.

Playing guitar at this very moment in his life for State Champs is exactly where the musician finds his inner self and where he belongs. At 23, the only thing that matters is what you believe in, and for Szalkowski, State Champs is exactly it. He says Around The World And Back is something he is excited about and the feelings the record contains regarding life, in general, is something hopefully many people can relate to.

“There are definitely those moments where it’s like everyone second-guesses themselves everyday,” Szalkowski reasons.

“I believe right now I should be playing guitar in this band. We just play songs, and people find comfort in them and a sense of belonging. It’s really cool how we can bring people together. Stuff like that really helps you remember why you do it.” S

PHOTO: Sandra Markovic

We’re maturing, our music is maturing

—I know every band always says that, but it’s just true.”

—TYLER SZALKOWSKI

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From surprisingly successful side projects to record label headaches, Nathan Williams has had his fair share of ups and downs in 2015. But the WAVVES frontman wouldn’t have it any other way.

STORY: Michael Haskoor // PHOTOS: Alexandra Gavillet

Nathan Williams hasn’t always been everyone’s favorite musical personality, but his past might very well be to blame. “I went to a private Christian school when I was in sixth and seventh grade in Virginia, and I don’t know, that school just really fucked me up,” the Wavves frontman admits. “Maybe it helped me to write songs because I was fucked up.” Either way, his music certainly speaks for itself.

Bearing a heavy psych and surf-rock sound, Wavves’ tunes are fuzzy, aggressive, jovial and catchy all at the same time.

Where did the band’s current sound develop from? “Probably being born in LA and living in a commune in Malibu when I was younger [and] going to high school in San Diego,” says Williams. “I was just kind of always around that vibe.”

With his sometimes-belligerent vocals, lo-fi instrumentals and punk rock edge, there’s one thing that helps to keep the melodies in check: “I think that’s just my ear,” he says. “My ear

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has always gravitated more towards the melody in a song that I write and more importantly in the songs I listen to, which is probably why it is that way.”

He’s been influenced by a multitude of bands, both old and new, some of which you’d be surprised to hear.

“The songs that initially attracted me to music when I was a young kid were from the Beach Boys and the Beatles and Fleetwood Mac—even the Doobie Brothers and Chicago, just bands with good melodies and harmonies,” Williams proclaims. “I think that’s what I always want to hear in my songs so I try to include it when I’m writing one.” Interestingly enough, he has also drawn from bands like Animal Collective. “I really like them a lot; I recorded a song for King Of The Beach called ‘Baseball Cards’ and [Animal Collective] was kind of the original idea for that one, that’s what we were trying to give off.”

As there is a new opinion-based genre named nearly every day, Wavves has sometimes been categorized as brat punk. “I’ve heard that a lot and I’m not entirely sure why; maybe it’s the vocal delivery?” Williams wonders. “But I don’t know; there are so many genres

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and subgenres that are coined now, especially because of the internet, that I don’t even know who I am as a person anymore. Yeah, I try not to think about it too much. Sometimes it gets annoying to hear ‘slacker’ or ‘brat punk,’ but in the end it doesn’t really matter.”

Wavves’ new album, V, immediately follows a collaborative LP with Cloud Nothings, No Life For Me, released on Williams’ own label Ghost Ramp earlier this year that was warmly received by fans of both acts. “I think the fact that [Cloud Nothings frontman] Dylan [Baldi] was just open minded and willing to fly out there was just what made it work,” he explains, “just to try and see if we could write songs and if they would come out any good. That’s half the battle.”

This wasn’t Williams’ first brush with collaboration, however; Wavves previously worked with Fucked Up on “Destroy” for 2011’s Life Sux EP while recording in Toronto. “They were in Toronto at the time, so we just sent demos back and forth,” he says. “We had been friends and had talked about doing something for a long time. [Frontman] Damian [Abraham] and I have

actually been talking lately. He wants to cover a bunch of NOFX songs with me, so that’s our next outing together.”

Between his collaborative record with Cloud Nothings and his ongoing side projects Spirit Club and Sweet Valley, Williams has become nothing if not incredibly prolific.

Still, he downplays his talent. “I don’t know if [these albums are] coming easier or not—I’m just in a studio more often,” he says. “[Wavves] had a year break from touring, so I’ve just been recording every single day. I think that’s probably more to do with it than there all of a sudden being a bolt of lightning that hit me and I can now write good songs.”

He can slough it off, but V is loaded with good songs—it’s pop-punk in its purest, grittiest sense, with buzzsaw guitars and Williams’ snotty vocals coexisting in perfect harmony with gloriously lo-fi production. Still, V did not see its release without a few obstacles. Williams and his label, Warner Bros., did not see eye-to-eye on many things, including the release of first single “Way Too Much.”

“Basically what had happened was that we had a release date for the song that we had all agreed upon and [Warner Bros.] had already come in and changed a couple of things in the studio which I didn’t like,” Williams begins. “I had already said it was coming out, so now it was this issue where I was telling fans that they’re going to get new stuff and I’m going back on my word. So the second or third time it leaked, journalists had already written about it and it was already out in a sense, but they wanted to pull it again. That was one of my main issues with them. There’s nothing in our contract that said they would say when and where I released the songs.

It seems to be that we’re on better terms at this point. I know I’m probably not their favorite artist on their label, though.”

There were also some speed bumps with the album’s eclectic artwork. “I don’t draw the artwork, but I do help conceptualize it,” Williams explains. “It was actually a tarot card that I had and I just sent a picture of it. We had the art approved originally, and then Warner decided last minute that we couldn’t use the art, which was another issue we had with them. I sent the picture to my friend Mike Jones who’s done a lot of artwork for me in the past, and he redrew it.”

Now that Williams has navigated through the murky waters of the music industry and successfully released V, there’s really only one question left to ask: Since releasing Wavves’ 2011 single “I Wanna Meet Dave Grohl,” has he ever gotten to meet the iconic Foo Fighters frontman?

“No! That bastard,” he says with a laugh. “I’d still like to meet Dave Grohl, though—that would be cool.” S

There are so many genres and subgenres that are coined now, especially because of the internet,

that I don’t even know who I am as a person anymore.”

—NATHAN WILLIAMS

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Following a cross-country move, singer/songwriter ALLISON WEISS set out to reinvent herself—and made the album of her career in the process.

STORY: Anthony Glaser // PHOTOS: Andrew Wells

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“These songs all tell stories of losing somebody and getting them back— which I feel like, in real life, is not a realistic situation.”

Allison Weiss spends her free Taco Bell gift cards on iced coffee. She has 100 individual cards, or at least she did at the start of her summer tour. The fast food chain sponsored her for “Feed The Beat,” an annual program that supplies selected touring artists with $500 worth of food and drinks. Ten years ago, back when she built a website and used YouTube and MySpace to promote herself, Weiss was innovative and ambitious, and her songs dealt with heartbreak. She’s the same today, only now she receives free coffee.

Weiss released her third full-length, New Love, on Oct. 2, and while it’s stylistically very different from her previous work, there’s consistency in its purpose for her. “Ever since I was a teenager, my processing of my feelings has always been completely entwined with writing music,” says Weiss. “I don’t think I ever worked through something without thinking about it in terms of the song. That’s just how I function.”

Her writing habits evolved, becoming more routine as release cycles gained momentum.

But early on, she collected songs from scattered writing sessions, as a lack of resources often delayed planned recording. Weiss nonetheless

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assumed every responsibility, and she discovered tools for advancing her solo career. She eventually graduated from the do-it-yourself route, but the route was crucial to her previous releases. In 2009, she used Kickstarter to fund her debut full-length, …Was Right All Along, which generated enough interest to allow her to return to the platform two years later.

2013’s Say What You Mean, released on No Sleep Records, was the culmination of a lengthy process that started with a fundraising goal, where she accumulated enough of a budget to record a pair of companion records: Sideways Sessions (an entirely Americana version of Say What You Mean) and The Teenage Years (updated re-recordings of songs Weiss had written on an acoustic guitar in her early days). But none of that would’ve happened without pizza dates in New York, Skype calls and private performances—Weiss’ promised rewards to fans who donated to the project in the higher tiers.

Weiss completed Say What You Mean prior to landing on No Sleep, which also released 2014’s Remember When EP, but her more recent signing to Los Angeles-based label SideOneDummy granted her the freedom to record a full album without having to face financial obligations herself. Weiss had recorded only a handful of

new demos when SideOneDummy approached her, but the label expressed immediate interest, and Weiss entered the studio to—for the first time—record an LP as a signed artist.

The transition paralleled her relocation from Brooklyn to Los Angeles near the end of 2013.

“The actual moving part was really tough, because physically moving all of your life from one side of the country to another is the most stressful thing you can do,” she says. But upon establishing a routine, the Georgia-born Weiss quickly adjusted, finding comfort in the change of pace that came with leaving the East Coast.

“I’m a pretty high-strung person. I deal with a lot of anxiety and stuff like that,” she admits. “Some of my favorite memories happened in New York, but I really, really love being able to relax in California.”

The experience inspired “Golden Coast,” a song written over the course of more than a year. “I was sort of writing that song before I left [Brooklyn],” says Weiss, who consulted her old notes when she and her fiancee settled in Los Angeles. “I was scrolling through a document on the computer [that contains] a million lyrics, and I came across that one, and I was like, ‘Ah, this still resonates with me. I want to make this happen.’”

California became her recording locale as

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well, which, coupled with SideOneDummy’s pull, involved new and exciting personnel. “I don’t know if I would’ve had the opportunity to work with Forrest [Kline] and Brad [Hale] if it hadn’t been for the folks at SideOneDummy putting me in contact with them and working it all out,” the singer says.

“Those two are some of the most talented musicians I know.”

Kline and Hale—of Hellogoodbye and Now, Now, respectively—recorded New Love at Kline’s home studio in Long Beach, and they produced the album as well. Weiss also recruited touring band member Peter Recine, who spent a day recording guitars alongside Kline. Hale, meanwhile, programmed the electronics and played all of the drums.

New Love itself reveals the group’s direct, pop-oriented framework, with songs that aren’t nearly as guitar-driven as Weiss’ past work. But the album is equally a product of her eclectic pop influences, which range from the GoGo’s’ 1982 album Vacation to modern Top 40 radio hits.

“These songs all tell stories of losing somebody and getting them back—which I feel like, in real life, is not a realistic situation,” says Weiss, citing the music that struck an emotional chord with her on “Back To Me” in particular. “You hear a pop song, and you think, ‘Oh, man.

That song’s for me. I’m gonna win back my ex.’” Weiss also admits to being fond of contemporary country, although Florida Georgia Line is “a little too ‘bro country’” for her.

Despite those influences, New Love is more a distant, once removed cousin of Taylor Swift than it is an imitation of her. The album is wholly Allison Weiss, with her shy, sensitive and kindhearted demeanor on full display. But her humor is there as well, and she sings about crying at a party to “whatever’s on the radio,” of pursuing a motorcycle hobby to get over an ex and of relating to everyone who’s ever had feelings they can’t explain.

The album closes with a re-recorded version of “The Same,” a song originally written for the third volume of The Gayest Compilation Ever Made, a compilation benefiting the LGBTQ organization Everyone Is Gay. The organizers encouraged Weiss and the other participating artists to contribute a song relating to the experience of being gay.

“With ‘The Same,’ I really chose to focus less on the sexuality issue of it and more on the fact that everybody’s got shit that they’re dealing with,” says Weiss. “The more people I meet, the more I learn that we’re all kind of fucked up in our own way and worrying about everything and overthinking stuff too much. I thought that was a pretty universal feeling, whether a person is gay, or straight, or bi, or whatever.”

To Allison Weiss, songwriting is a personal, confessional outlet, but hers also has an effective reach.

“They say you should always talk to people if you’re going through stuff, and I feel like my way of talking to people about it is putting it into a song and then getting onstage and playing it in front of them,” she says. “It also helps I hear from other people who have listened to the songs, and they can relate. It can make a person feel a lot less alone to know that somebody else is singing the same thing.” S

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DON'T PANIC

MOTION CITY SOUNDTRACK has a new album, a new drummer and a new outlook on the music industry—luckily, the one thing that hasn’t changed is the level of honesty in their music.

STORY: Scott Heisel // PHOTOS: Andrew Wells

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There comes a point in every band’s career where you want to be anywhere but in Indianapolis. That’s not meant to be a diss on the Circle City; it’s just that, like many other moderately sized cities across America, it’s considered a B market— a place that booking agents route tours that have already played all of the major markets in America, or when there are no other options left for your band. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it typically means that you’ve been on the road for far too long when you’re in Indianapolis.

Right now, Motion City Soundtrack is definitely in Indianapolis.

The Minneapolis-based pop-rock quintet has been on the road for much of 2015, having massive touring success with a 10th anniversary trek celebrating their sophomore album Commit This To Memory, first through North America in January and February, then to Europe and the U.K. in May, then back through America in July and August. Add in a handful of Warped Tour dates in June (including the “Road To Warped” show in far-off Alaska), and MCS has visited 66 percent of the country by the time they roll into Indianapolis in early August for the final day of the CTTM tour in the U.S. (the Australian leg of the Commit This To Memory tour will begin shortly after this gig is in the books). So maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that the band is, to put it politely, dragging serious ass.

“We’ve been joking that this tour is actually The Sixth Sense and that I’m actually dead,” remarks bassist Matt Taylor, swatting away a fly, as the band commandeers a large table inside a local Starbucks down the street from the band’s tour bus, which is parked outside the night’s venue, Deluxe (a small room inside the much larger Old National Centre complex). All five members of Motion City Soundtrack—Taylor, frontman Justin Pierre, guitarist Josh Cain, keyboardist Jesse Johnson and new drummer Claudio Rivera—are decked out in various shades of black, consuming various combinations of caffeine and sugar in order to shake off the cobwebs from the previous night. It’s already past 1 p.m., and it is clearly the last day of tour.

“We wanted to put the record out earlier [this year] and then I went out and had a baby,” Pierre, a new father, cracks. “So it was kind of like, ‘Let’s do this,’ which was the Commit This To Memory anniversary tour. At first it was kind of chaotic trying to figure out what we were going to do for the next few months, but it’s been a lot of fun.”

That new album, Panic Stations, has actually been done for quite some time—the band recorded it with producer John Agnello (Sonic Youth, the Hold Steady) over a two-week span in the summer of 2014, more than a year before its eventual mid-September 2015 release date on Epitaph Records. But its genesis dates back even further—specifically to March 2013, when the band’s drummer of 11 years, Tony Thaxton, turned in his resignation.

“My first knee-jerk reaction was once Tony left, I was like, ‘We have to write an album immediately and put it out,’” remembers Cain. “We started writing immediately and it was fun, but then it slowed way down.”

“At one point we were going to try and record at the end of 2013 and that didn’t work out, and then we were trying to record at the beginning of 2014 and that didn’t work out, and then someone said, ‘You should write more songs,’” Pierre recalls.

The band scrapped a set of pre-production demos they had laid down with Mike Sapone (Brand New, Taking Back Sunday) and went back to the drawing board, including a trip to Los Angeles where band members stayed with Epitaph head honcho Brett Gurewitz to woodshed songs. (“‘Over It Now’ was written at his house,” says Pierre.) This resulted in the quietest year of the band’s existence—Motion City played a scant eight shows in 2014.

“It was not the brightest business decision,” Cain says.

“It was not the best personal decision for me, either,” confesses Taylor.

For a band with the word “motion” in their name—whose incessant touring schedule was a big part of why Thaxton departed the band—2014 was a strange year for MCS: The members became stationary for the first time in a long time. Each man dealt with the unexpected downtime differently; Johnson even got a bartending gig at a friend’s restaurant in Brooklyn just to keep himself busy.

“It came out of me losing my mind having nothing to do,” the 38-year-old synth op says. “All my friends had jobs, and when they got off work they wanted to hang with their girlfriend or boyfriend, so I was spending eight hours a day talking to my cat.” (Johnson has since moved to LA and has no problem telling anyone who will listen how much he hated Brooklyn, where he spent much of the past decade.)

It’s no exaggeration to say that taking a year away from the touring grind can effectively kill a band’s career, something of which Cain is entirely too cognizant.

“Our biggest thing we fight is that people don’t even know we’re still a band, which blows my mind,” the 39-year-old guitarist begins. “The age of information has changed so much that now we live in this noise-ridden digital information time. There’s no central

Our biggest thing we fight is that people don’t even know we’re still a band, which blows my mind.”

—JOSH CAIN

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place. And even if you go somewhere to get that information, it’s not necessarily coming to you. I’m not complaining about it, because it’s cool—I love all the chaos we have. [But recently] Matt was at a bar drinking a beer and overheard a waitress saying she didn’t know we still existed. Something like, ‘They’re still a band?’”

“She said it to the person next to me,” Taylor recalls. “She had no idea who I was. I was like a fly on the wall.”

“We’re normal guys,” says Johnson. “We’re not doing a lot of things that create news on the internet. There’s all these bands that have these things happening, where someone said this or that, or they’re feuding with this band. We just try to treat everybody equally and be nice to people.”

So what’s the solution to have continued relevancy?

“We need to be dickheads!” exclaims Cain with a laugh.

“Our last resort is calling out Drake,” Taylor deadpans.

Given that Motion City’s year of dormancy was partially borne out of Thaxton leaving, did anyone in the band see it coming—and more importantly, could it have been prevented?

“Oh, we all knew. It was obvious,” Cain says.

“Had it been a surprise, out-of-nowhere phone call, I would’ve been devastated,” admits Taylor. “But I shared a hotel room with him for two years prior. I just knew it was coming. He never said, ‘Eh, I’m outta here,’ but he’s my best friend. I could see he wasn’t happy.”

While no member was happy to see Thaxton go, it affected Taylor the most. The two grew up together in Richmond, Virginia, playing in bands together since they were teenagers; when Thaxton joined Motion City in early 2002, Taylor wasn’t far behind, being invited into the fold a few months later. When Thaxton made his decision to leave the band, the only person he called was Taylor. Given the pair’s history, did Taylor try to talk him out of it?

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“He was at his breaking point and was very upset,” the 36-year-old bassist recalls. “And I was like, ‘This is what you need.’ It was like a relationship.

If the two people in the relationship aren’t happy with themselves, they shouldn’t be together. Same concept.”

“He and I both went through our own things and treated each other terribly because we didn’t understand what the other person was going through,” admits Pierre.

“I thought he was just an asshole, but I didn’t realize he was going through some serious shit, but he also didn’t open up about it. Back in the day when I was drunk all the time, our roles were kind of reversed.”

“I think it gave us a little gift to allow us to see where our darkness was as people in this situation, like how we were interacting as a band, and maybe allow us to relieve our stress with each other,” Cain concludes. “Like, ‘Oh, if he’s having such a bad time, maybe it’s okay for me to talk about if I’m having a bad time.’ You’ve got dudes in a band—dudes aren’t the best. We don’t talk about our feelings very much.

I think we openly talked a lot more at that point about what was going on.”

Any chance of lingering animosity between Thaxton and MCS was extinguished earlier this year when he joined the band onstage to play “My Favorite Accident” at the Anaheim, California, stop of the Commit This To Memory tour. He currently lives in LA where he hosts a Christmas-themed podcast, Feliz Navipod, and plays drums in a band called the Pride Of Erie PA, among other ventures.

Tony Thaxton’s departure wasn’t the first hurdle Motion City Soundtrack has had to overcome in their 18-year existence, though. While much has been written about Justin Pierre’s battle with drugs and alcohol in the past decade, one could argue that a bigger problem he and his bandmates have had to overcome is solving how to transition their passion into their career without losing either.

“When we started playing music, it’s because it’s what we loved to do and what we knew how to do—we didn’t really excel at anything else,” Pierre says. “At some point, it became the job we did for a living.”

“That was really a hard change for me, because it became about data and information,” says Cain. “The Even If It Kills Me days were all about numbers and trajectory instead of the creative process.

As the band got big, we weren’t ready to be that band. Justin was not ready to be the lead singer of a band, be the guy who all the attention is focused on. I don’t think we were as ready as people as we are now.

I think Justin has now finally become the ‘lead singer guy’ in a good way.”

“Over time, I detached from myself in a weird way, going through my own shit and getting sober,” Pierre elaborates.

“Then I was high on being sober. Then I fell into a weird depression, but then I got out of that around 2012 [when I took over the band’s social media accounts].

I started hearing stories about how our music has helped people. It was overwhelming in a good way that through whatever we’re doing, without even thinking about it, we’ve helped people with our music. It was mind-blowing.” (Pierre says he now spends roughly four hours a day replying to fans online.)

Though they’ve been a band in some form since 1997, most people’s familiarity with Motion City Soundtrack starts with 2005’s Mark Hoppus-produced Commit This To Memory, still their highest-selling album, and the surrounding tours with platinum-selling artists like Blink-182, Fall Out Boy and the All-American Rejects.

However, all three of those groups took considerable amounts of time off in the past decade, whereas MCS never quite achieved the level of commercial success to be able to afford to do so. Still, one reason Motion City Soundtrack continues to retain relevancy is their well-attended live shows, thanks to the band’s most popular work being considered by fans as “honest music,” instead of manufactured and focus-grouped for maximum popularity. This severely limits the amount

[

of bands Motion City can look up to, as the glass ceiling sent many of their one-time contemporaries tumbling back down to the ground. How do you keep that level of honesty in your music when phoning it in just seems easier?

“There’s not a lot of bands who have done what we’ve been doing. We’re in a weird class,” says Cain. “We’re in that ‘played Warped Tour the most times’ era where it’s us and a handful of bands.

But I feel like a resurgence of what we really were is happening now. I feel we can stay relevant in the fact that we are still doing that thing we are a part of: Dirty, fast, happy, emotional rock songs are coming back as a thing, and we’ve just been here doing it.”

“I feel like MCS could play with Sorority Noise or the Menzingers or the Front Bottoms,” says Johnson. “It’s really cool seeing these newer bands, and in a way seeing how we felt: They’re writing honest music and they’re having a good time doing it and they’re excited about what they’re doing. That is something we have tried to maintain the entire time.”

That honesty is borne out of Pierre’s willingness to be true to himself over anything else. “All I ever wanted to do was be like Superchunk or Fugazi or Pavement—the bands I liked as a kid,” the 39-year-old frontman says. “Those are still my favorite bands. I strive to be that awesome and I fail miserably.

But that’s always been the goal: to write cool shit. The songs I like listening to is the type of music I’m trying to write.

Contemporaries—I don’t even know what that is.”

The band seems comfortable in the fact that they will likely never have a gold or platinum record on the wall, but that doesn’t mean Panic Stations is their final missive. “We’re not done yet,” Cain confidently states. “I think we got more music in us. There’s always a chance [at commercial success]. We may just make that song happen randomly. We’re deep in our career, but you never know. Look at fun., look at Nate [Ruess]: He was making music forever, and then [“We Are Young”] happened. It’s awesome, and it gives hope.”

Pierre reminds everyone gathered at the table that the Flaming Lips’ breakthrough hit, “She Don’t Use Jelly,” was on that band’s sixth album, further pushing Cain’s point that it could happen to anyone, any time. He fails to mention, however, that Panic Stations is Motion City Soundtrack’s sixth album.

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The band heads back to the venue for soundcheck, the sound of thumping drums and wobbly bass echoing off the basement venue’s ornate walls and ceiling. In a few hours, the 500-capacity room will be nearly full, with hundreds of MCS fans either re-living their teenage memories or creating some new ones, but now, the room sits in half-darkness as the band works out the kinks to a cover of Nirvana’s “Breed,” which they will close their encore with later that night in an end-of-tour jam alongside members of opening acts the Spill Canvas and Sorority Noise. It’s at this moment when an onlooker can see what makes Motion City Soundtrack special: They run through “Breed” over and over, pausing to work out guitar solos and get the chorus lyrics in the right order. Many bands would just run through a show-closing, one-time-only cover once and hope for the best, but not Motion City: These guys are professionals. Whether they’re playing a festival in front of 10,000 people or playing in a small room to a few hundred fans at the conclusion of roughly a half-year of touring, Motion City Soundtrack always gives it their all, even if people would understand if they didn’t.

Later in the afternoon, the band hosts a VIP meet-and-greet for those who paid an additional fee. In other markets earlier in the tour, this has resulted in dozens of fans eager to get closer to one of their favorite bands; in Indianapolis, 13 people show up.

But those 13 people are pumped to sing along with MCS as they perform acoustic renditions of “Everything Is Alright” and “L.G. FUAD,” then chat each member up as they sign autographs and pose for photos. These VIP packages are a relatively new thing for the band, even though it’s already old hat for many current Warped Tour headliners who have figured out how to get every possible dollar from their fanbase before they age out of caring about popscreamo. It’s not entirely clear if Motion City is comfortable with this, but it’s the way the industry is going, so they’re not left with much of a choice.

“The musical climate changes every freakin’ month,” laments Johnson. “We started at a time where people bought records. We’ve always tried to just figure it out. That’s part of the job of being a musician. You just have to figure it out.”

Their meet-and-greet obligations completed, Pierre, Cain and Rivera head off to find dinner together—all three have been on some form of low-carb diet for the past few years, with outstanding results—eventually settling on a local burger joint called Punch Burger. Gigantic hamburgers are ordered (some over one pound in weight) and the conversation turns to Pierre’s struggle with depression, a topic he explores on Panic Stations’ “It’s A Pleasure To Meet You.”

“The bridge [to ‘It’s A Pleasure To Meet You’] kind of scared me when I wrote it,” the singer admits. “I used to drive around late at night and listen to music and drinking soda and taking ephedrine. I would stay up for days on end, meeting people and having conversations with them. Our first couple albums, I was

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in whatever I was talking about, but as I’ve drawn my life together, I can write about things I did when I was younger with having the vantage point of distance, which I think a more accurate way of observing what went down. The idea is just to be able to look at yourself 10 years down the road and say, ‘Oh, it’s nice to meet this person who I always assumed was there, just buried beneath an eating disorder or alcoholism.’ Time is the key factor, having to hack away all those layers.

“I think a lot people think there is a cure for things, that there is a be all, end all magic wand that can be waved,” he continues. “And in my experience, that isn’t the case. It’s a slow, trudging through whatever to get better. And in the end, the difference between where I was 10 years ago and where I am now is that I don’t have all the excess baggage holding me under. Now I can tackle life’s simple problems or hardships with absolute clarity. It’s still a struggle. It’s always a fuckin’ struggle. But it’s a lot easier now than if I was that person from 10 years ago.”

A lot of Pierre’s depression issues have gone hand in hand with his ongoing quest for sobriety. In 2007, he spent time in Fairview, a facility in Minneapolis he describes as a “prison of rehab centers,” after consulting with Brett Gurewitz— himself a recovering addict. “I needed to go to the place that scared me,” Pierre admits. “That was the first decision I made against the easy way

out. I took the hard way out, and it was the best thing. From that point on, I started making hard decisions that were not fun and not easy.”

Throughout the next three years, Pierre would commit to sobriety for six to nine months at a time, typically relapsing by drinking a six-pack of beer in one sitting. “Then I’d feel like shit the next day and be sober for six more months,” he says.

His final relapse—Jan. 2, 2010, just a few weeks before the release of My Dinosaur Life—ended in him dumping the majority of the six-pack down the drain. This date is etched—some might say committed—to Pierre’s memory as a new beginning. Since then, Pierre married his longtime girlfriend Lindsay in 2012; the couple had their first child, a girl, earlier this year.

As the trio finishes their meals and begins the walk back to the venue, Pierre remarks, “I’m 100 percent happy compared to where I was, but that doesn’t mean I can’t write very sad, depressing songs. It’s not like one day I was magically cured. I want to be cured and I want to be sober and I want everything to be fucking great now. And it’s not like that. It takes a lot of time and energy to get better.”

“If you want to get up off the floor, you have to teach yourself how to get up off the floor,” Cain offers.

“That may take several years to do,” Pierre responds. “If there is anything I see in the words and stories on this album, I’ve gotten better at getting up off the floor quicker than I used to. But I’ve been working at it.”

The musical climate changes every freakin’ month. We started at a time where people bought records. We’ve always tried to just figure it out.

That’s part of the job of being a musician.

You just have to figure it out.”

—JESSE JOHNSON

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While Justin Pierre’s sobriety has played a huge role in Motion City Soundtrack’s new focus, another big contribution was the addition of Claudio Rivera, former drummer of Saves The Day. (Full disclosure: Many years ago, I ran a record label which released an album by Rivera’s old band, Somerset.) Rivera had spent numerous years serving as Tony Thaxton’s drum tech, so when the throne opened up, he was the logical choice. Living in Minneapolis allowed for Rivera to get together more frequently with Pierre and Cain for jam sessions, helping generate momentum and motivation at times when there was little of either.

Rivera is especially popular on social media, having more than twice as many Twitter followers as every other member of MCS minus Pierre, though it’s not because of his musical affiliations—the bushyhaired drummer is incredibly outspoken about politics and social justice, frequently pushing progressive issues in a way that could be described as occasionally scorched-earth in nature. (His Facebook debates with Bayside frontman Anthony Raneri are the stuff of legend.) Coming into an established band like Motion City Soundtrack, who has remained about as publicly neutral on significant political issues as possible, was Rivera planning on toning down his rhetoric?

“I never try to speak for the band, but personally, I feel it’s our duty to tell the people who wouldn’t normally know about issues about what’s going on,”

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he says. “There’s a concept of trying to stay neutral, and Desmond Tutu said, ‘If you’re neutral in the face of oppression, you’ve sided with the oppressors.’ I agree with that. That rocks the boat a little bit, and when the boat is sailing comfortably with a mortgage and a happy life and everything, it’s really hard to rock that boat.”

“It’s not that the band has a neutral view, it’s just not—we have plenty of other vehicles for those things,” Cain responds, as the trio stands outside their tour bus in the hot sun. “Our band’s music isn’t one of those vehicles, nor is our public social media for that. I mean, I’ll tell the world who I’m voting for, on a personal level.

And I’ll put my views on Facebook—my personal Facebook. That’s where it ends.”

“That reminds me of the Dixie Chicks documentary,” Rivera counters.

“Dixie Chicks weren’t a political band, they don’t write political songs, but they themselves were outspoken and they got criticized for it. Would people criticize us for being outspoken?”

“Yeah, very much so, yes,” Cain says, exasperated. “It’s not that I’m a stand-on-the-sidelines kind of guy, not at all. [But] we’re not Fugazi. That’s not our band. It feels a little disingenuous to get onstage and be anti-government—we’re not that band. ‘Let’s get fucked up and die, yeah! This song’s about spaceships!’”

“I do try to keep things to what I care about and know about, and that’s feelings,” Pierre chimes in. “I think if everybody treats each other with mutual respect, in spite of your age, race, sex, income, whatever it is—just fucking be kind to one another.”

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As the last of the Spill Canvas’ gear is cleared from the small stage and Motion City Soundtrack’s instruments are checked one last time, the PA pumps out classic songs from the early 2000s by Jimmy Eat World, Fall Out Boy and others, serving as a subliminal time machine to get everyone in the mood for a nostalgia-driven set from the evening’s headliner. Right in the middle of the Monsters Of Emo playlist, however, three unfamiliar songs are pumped out in quick succession, though with the chatter among the crowd at a consistently dull roar, it’s tough to tell if anyone realizes they’re hearing three tracks off Panic Stations more than six weeks before its release—then, it’s back to the sonic comfort food of what was essentially the Warped Tour’s mainstage ca. 2005.

It wasn’t done intentionally, but Panic Stations could probably serve as an unofficial sequel to Commit This To Memory. If CTTM is Pierre documenting his struggle with addiction as it happened, Panic Stations is the older, wiser Pierre reflecting on his troubles and slowly working to correct them. Musically, the album draws from all facets of MCS’s catalog; Johnson and Rivera’s favorite song is “Heavy Boots” (“It’s fast and punky, and I’m a fast, punky guy,” the 33-year-old drummer says with a smirk); Taylor loves “I Can Feel You,” comparing it to Commit This To Memory’s “Make Out Kids” and labeling it “quirky and fun”; Cain leans toward “Gravity,” commenting on how cool he finds the choruses; and Pierre earmarks “It’s A Pleasure To Meet You” as his top track. The album sounds exciting without feeling cloying, mature without losing its youthfulness. It could be every Motion City Soundtrack fan’s new favorite album— the trick is getting them to listen to it.

As stage time draws near, the members of Motion City Soundtrack gather backstage to limber up and discuss some lastminute setlist changes. The crowd gets antsy, starting a soccerstyle chant of “Mo-tion Ci-ty!” followed by five claps that echoes throughout the backstage tunnels. I turn to Josh Cain and remark, “See? You’re still popular.”

“No,” he counters. “We’re relevant.” S

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I’m 100 percent happy compared to where I was, but that doesn’t mean I can’t write very sad, depressing songs. It’s not like one day I was magically cured. I want to be cured and I want to be sober and I want everything to be fucking great now.

And it’s not like that.

It takes a lot of time and energy to get better.”

—JUSTIN PIERRE

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LEAD REVIEW Kristen Coffer

DEAFHEAVEN “A

multiverse of fuchsia and violet surrenders to blackness now,” sings Deafheaven vocalist George Clarke in a not-sosubtle but nonetheless effective signaling of the band’s drearier new direction. (The opening track of the band’s 2011 debut Roads To Judah was titled “Violet,” and the themes and imagery of 2013’s Sunbather evoked bright, cloudless days.) New Bermuda, the Los Angeles post-black metal band’s third full-length, restricts their color palette to a degree, but it isn’t a reinvention of Deafheaven (despite their recent expansion from trio back to five-piece). In the end, it’s not even a darker side of them. It’s a reassembling of the band’s better parts.

New Bermuda is more direct and more concise than Sunbather. While the former is 13 minutes shorter in length than the latter, it reaches at least an equal number of payoffs.

Those payoffs are a product of the album’s

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BANQUETS 10

Banquets are hanging it up with Spit At The Sun, poised to be their final album. They’re going out with a decent bang, though, as they continue to wield soaring, accessible, melodic punk with a singer who isn’t afraid to sing, putting them in the company of recent bygones like the Loved Ones and Daytrader. While this material is bested by the strong half they contributed to a split LP last year with Nightmares For A Week, this is definitely the best of their three full-lengths they’ve cooked up on their own. Though it gets a little musically bogged down in its mid-tempo pacing, it’s not without its highlights, from the driving, Hot Water Music-esque guitars of opener “Forecaster” and quiet drop and insistent hook of “Stop Signs In A Ghost Town” to the forceful momentum of closer “I’ve Got a Scheme,” while ruminating on life, relationships and clear communication. —Brian Shultz

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New Bermuda ANTI- (anti.com)

TOP TRACK: “Luna”

extended main track list (five songs instead of four), sure, but the absence of separate interludes shows smarter sequencing as well.

While Sunbather had the occasional segment of meandering background noise, New Bermuda prefers immediacy to atmosphere. “Brought To The Water” ends with an isolated piano part, and the plodding “Baby Blue” samples an interstate travel advisory with audible rainfall behind it, but neither deviation detracts from the band’s constant progressions. Those deviations are simply much shorter and less frequent than Sunbather’s interludes, so they accentuate the main tracks without any heavy-handed clutter.

New Bermuda is so substantive that a 10-minute track like “Luna” feels as though it passes in half the time. The song doesn’t waver in (blast)beats per minute until several minutes in, but it showcases numerous compelling chord changes along the way to Deafheaven’s usual

Spit At The Sun BLACK NUMBERS (theblacknumbers.com) TOP TRACK: “Stop Signs In A Ghost Town”

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R E V I E WS

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climactic mid-tempo finale (an end-of-song pattern that has yet to wear out its welcome).

Then there’s Clarke, whose vocals have never been more stellar. He enunciates with confidence and a theatrical swagger but also shows an emotional depth within his perpetually harsh screams. “Sitting quietly in scorching reimagined suburbia,” he repeats at the end of “Luna.” He yearns, vaguely but desperately all the same. That’s paired with an immense guitar outro (bolstered by Jack Shirley’s excellent production) that would make Envy proud. The effect is as seemingly earth shattering as the short text conversation Clarke shared on Sunbather’s “Dream House.”

Deafheaven refined ideas they had for one of 2013’s best albums, but they were careful, and it worked to their benefit. New Bermuda is consistently beautiful and always captivating.

—Anthony Glaser

DRUG CHURCH 10

Hit Your Head NO SLEEP (nosleeprecords.com) TOP TRACK: “Aleister”

Sometimes, it’s hard to believe Drug Church even exists. The band is comprised of a singer from a weird art-rock collective and four dudes who previously played pop-punk, and somehow it clicks into this chaotic explosion of grungy pop songs filtered through Flipper’s Generic that’s leaps and bounds better than any of the members’ other projects. Nothing about Hit Your Head makes any sense, and that’s why it’s so fucking great: Patrick Kindlon hoarsely yells about turning apples into bongs (“Drunk Tank”), punching through drywall (“Hit Your Head, Greedy”) and payday loans (“Banco Popular”) with nary an adjustment in his tone, while his band delivers riffs so crunchy, it’s making Tom Capone jealous. (And that bass tone—oh, that bass tone!) The album only slows for its closing number, “What,” a spoken-word number with Kindlon sharing a story of bottoming out that feels so real, it’s hard to assume it’s anything but nonfiction. Hit Your Head is one of 2015’s most perplexing—and unabashedly awesome—albums. —Scott Heisel

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HIGHLIGHT REVIEW 7

10

CITY AND COLOUR

If I Should Go Before You DINE ALONE (dinealonerecords.com) TOP TRACK: “Blood” Since 2013’s The Hurry And The Harm, Dallas Green has stayed busy, recording acoustic versions of Alexisonfire songs with Wade MacNeil for their boxset, preparing for their live farewell and adding a female foil to his natural style with P!nk in You+Me. With so many dabbles into a similar sound, it leaves us to wonder if the City And Colour well has run dry. Well, it hasn’t: “Blood” is a eerie, brooding opus, while opener “Woman” foreshadows the tone of the album that comes via a lengthy mix of ambiance and throwback. At times it’s too retro—the middle run of “Killing Time,” “Wasted Love” and “Runaway” sound closer to the world’s proudest bar band than anything boldly new—but with steady songwriting and strong efforts in new genres (the country of “Map Of The World” and “Friends”), fans who trust Green’s lyricism have something to love. —Dan Bogosian

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10

FIT FOR AN AUTOPSY

Absolute Hope Absolute Hell EONE/GOOD FIGHT (eonemusic.com) Top Track: “Murder In The First” Guitarist Will Putney sums it up nicely: Fit For An Autopsy’s Absolute Hope Absolute Hell is “a new and fresh approach to aggressive music, not a half-hour of blast beats and breakdowns.”

Fit for An Autopsy’s newest album features 11 hard-hitting tracks that are as well written as they are ruthless. Kicking off with the title track, the LP grabs you by the seat of your pants right from the start. The song boasts evil riffs matched by dark drumwork and topped off with enraging and provocative vocal stylings, all set to a mid-paced tempo that gives the band their signature intimidating ambiance. The title track sets the stage, with the next 10 following suit. “Murder In The First” packs a mosh-worthy breakdown and “Mask Maker” features black metal-inspired instrumentation, adding a creeping depth that will make your hair stand up on the back of your neck. By merging intricate composition, sheer aggression and an affinity for the unexpected, Absolute Hope Absolute Hell is poised to be one of 2015’s greatest deathcore albums. —Daniella Kohan

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6

FOR TODAY 10

Wake NUCLEAR BLAST (nuclearblast.com) TOP TRACK: “Broken Lens”

With their debut release under the helm of Nuclear Blast, Christian metalcore outfit For Today comes out swinging on their sixth studio effort Wake. Since their debut release Ekklesia in 2008, the group has gone through a slight shifting in style, cutting back on the guitar chugs and having vocalist Mattie Montgomery give listeners a clean chorus to sing along. With the shifting in style, some of that pure musicianship and intricacy that longtime fans fell in love with suffered, producing a sound that listeners can’t fully sink their teeth into on a melodic standpoint. The album does possess some moments of brilliance in “Broken Lens” and “Deserter.” Wake is fairly accessible in the sense of having a ballad (“Bitter Roots”) and songs with softer components (“Flooded Earth”). However, other areas feel as if For Today lost track of their roots. —Eric Spitz

HEAD NORTH/MICROWAVE 10

Split EP BAD TIMING/SIDEONEDUMMY (sideonedummy.com) TOP TRACK: Microwave’s “but not often,”

A successful split usually features bands that are two sides of the same coin, but none blend together as smoothly as Head North and Microwave do.

The two indie-skate-punk bands seem to have the “required emo intro that flows into a lip-biting, guitar-heavy ending” vibe down to a science. Both groups have vocalists with range from soft to gravelly, but the variety of guitarwork is what makes this split a must-listen. Even with only six songs, the emotional lyrics packs a grungy punch. The split is a roller coaster of tempos with Head North’s “The Bells” (the most active track) leading into “Red Wood,” Microwave’s “Thinking Of You” and “but not often,” as the melody-heavy songs with ever-changing guitar tones. For fans of electric and acoustic guitar builds as well as melodic and thrashy vocals, this split has a little something for everyone. —Bridjet Mendyuk

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Alysse Gafkjen

8

6

THE GARDEN 10

Haha EPITAPH/BURGER (epitaph.com) TOP TRACK: “Vexation”

The Garden is a difficult-to-categorize duo of identical twin punks-turned-models making utterly ridiculous music.

Mixing garage-rock energy, goth-style apathy, surf-ready grooves and dancefloor synths, the closest description would probably be electro surf-goth. Haha takes an I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude as it covers everything from drum ’n’ bass beats (“Jesters Game”) to chanty surf-punk (“Red Green Yellow”) to songs about duck-duck-goose (“I’ll Stop By Tomorrow Night”). The alternations between eerie synth pads and in-your-face rock on “Crystal Clear” and the barroom piano-punk of “Egg” are successful experimentations, but the club-anthem attempt “We Be Grindin’” and the nasally “Cloak” fail to find their mark. Truth be told, much of the genre-bending yields lackluster results and the Garden often sounds their best when they stick to dark surf-punk on tracks like “Vexation” and “Cells Stay Clean.” —Cameron Carr

LOMA PRIETA 10

Self Portrait DEATHWISH INC. (deathwishinc.com) TOP TRACK: “Love”

Loma Prieta dashes away expectations created from their 2013 split with peers Raein on their fifth full-length, Self Portrait. It gets back to the classic screamo sound they were previously tackling just as well, progressing it and messing with its tropes to pleasing effect. Sure, there’s caustic, scratchy yelps and screams and, occasionally, cleaner though unsettling vocals (the Saddest Landscape-esque “Nostalgia”) over alternately heavy, twinkly and pulsing guitars. But nothing is predictable and the urgency is palpable, from the dynamic twists and turns of fuzzy tension on opener “Love” to astonishing major-key stretches in “Roadside Cross” and “More Perfect,” both of which still fit in quality bursts of dizzying abrasion. With brilliant hints of their European contemporaries, thoughts on mortality as a persistent metaphor and actuality, and an intensely challenging musical backdrop that still allows Loma Prieta to harness poetic, raw emotion, Self Portrait delivers on many levels. —Brian Shultz

HIGHLIGHT REVIEW MAYDAY PARADE Black Lines FEARLESS (fearlessrecords.com) TOP TRACK: “One Of Them Will Destroy The Other” For years now, Mayday Parade has made recognizable pop-rock songs brimming with quotable lyrics, catchy choruses and dual vocals. With their fifth full-length, Black Lines, the Tallahassee, Florida, quintet offers their most experimental sound to date, void of the expected dual-vocal approach. That’s right—for the first time in Mayday history, it’s all Derek Sanders. But where they lack in vocal diversity, the band makes up in instrumentation, banging out some of the loudest and most aggressive tracks in their 10-year history. The album’s opening track, “One Of Them Will Destroy The Other,” which features guest vocals by Real Friends frontman Dan Lambton, is quick and heavy, leaving listeners stunned until the chorus hits and relapses into the classic Mayday sound. For an album well along in the band’s discography, it’s full of firsts. Black Lines introduces a new, reinvented version of Mayday Parade, one that declares they’re not burned out or backing down. —Jessica Klinner Jonathan Weiner

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MARITIME 10

Magnetic Cities/Maps Of Bones DANGERBIRD (dangerbirdrecords.com)

9

NIGHT BIRDS 10

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Mutiny at Muscle Beach FAT WRECK CHORDS (fatwreck.com)

TOP TRACK: “Collar Bones”

TOP TRACK: “Life Is Not Amusement For Me”

There’s a warmly appreciated consistency to the work of Maritime.

The Milwaukee-based quartet isn’t pushing any new musical agendas on their fifth full-length, but the band really doesn’t need to, especially when the group has a leader as good as Davey Von Bohlen. The veteran songwriter teases at new wave (“Satellite Love”) and power pop (“Drinking Peru”) while gently pursuing his agenda for heart-on-sleeve sentiments and a pulsating, energetic sound that seeks to embrace and soothe listeners. Outside of its toothsome title, the album won’t throw any curveballs at you, which is a quality that can be frustrating or appeasing depending on your musical needs. Anyone seeking an innovative reinvention by Maritime are going to be let down. The rest of us who love hummable hooks, effusive guitar tones and drummer Dan Didier’s sturdy drive will remain as satisfied as ever. —Robert Ham

Crafted by the most exhilarating melodic hardcore band to come out of New Jersey within the past decade, Night Birds’ Mutiny At Muscle Beach is the Fat Wreck Chords release you’ve been clamoring for. Opening track “(I’m) Wired” erupts with an assertive fortitude that blends so well with Brian Gorsegner’s screeching vocals, a combination that could easily onset an audio seizure. In fact, the band’s fluttering guitar solos and jittery tonality saturate the entire album. The brilliantly noisy “Golden Age Of TV” and energetic “Off The Grid” illuminate the record’s core; “Miskatonic Stomp” is an instrumental ballad reminiscent of 1970s hardcore with a surf-punk edge; lead single “Left In The Middle” provides the most melodic comfort, quickly offset by its gloriously whiny lyricism. Mutiny At Muscle Beach sees the debut of drummer Darick Sater, enhancing its nuclear intensity enough to make you want to trash an entire room of valuables. —Michael Haskoor

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SAM RUSSO 10

Greyhound Dreams RED SCARE INDUSTRIES (redscare.net) TOP TRACK: “Small Town Shoes”

Punk-guy-doing-acoustic doesn’t always work, but, man, Sam Russo knocks it out of the park every time. Right up there with Rocky Votolato’s best work, Russo utilizes mainly just his acoustic guitar and wonderfully scratchy voice on this 10-track album, to much success: Check out the wonderfully wistful “Eye Candy,” which features some powerful additional female vocals, and the incredibly moving “Crayfish Tales” to see what Russo is capable of. And what he’s capable of is bringing tears to your punk-rock eyes, like it or not; the great “Small Town Shoes” has sad guitar like Counting Crows and twang like your old man’s old country, and not once does it sound forced or cloying—and it hits hard. But the best part of Russo’s delivery is that the hit doesn’t knock you down, it just makes you stagger around for a bit before getting back to your day feeling better than ever. —Greg Pratt

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PETAL 10

Shame RUN FOR COVER (runforcoverrecords.com) TOP TRACK: “Shame”

After a few years in the making, Petal— led by singer/songwriter Kiley Lotz and backed by Brianna Collins and Ben Walsh of Tigers Jaw—brings an extremely soft, inspiring debut album, Shame. The 12-song release carries a coffee-shop vibe through Lotz’s vocal performance and simple guitar chords. “Camera Lens” opens the album perfectly in setting a soft, serious tone, while the next track, “Tommy,” is more upbeat. “Chandelier Thief” carries with it a hint of Tigers Jaw, thanks to Lotz’s backing band. But it’s tracks like “Feel,” “Silly Heart” and the titel track that really demonstrate exactly where Lotz will be taking Petal in the future with its delicate honesty. For a debut album, there are definitely aspects Shame brings to the table that will make people want more, and it’s clear Petal will succeed. —Geoff Burns

SEAWAY 10

Colour Blind PURE NOISE (purenoise.net) TOP TRACK: “Slam”

Since their emergence into the alternative music scene four years ago, the pop-punks in Toronto’s Seaway has garnered attention as one of the genre’s more commendable, yet underappreciated, acts. Though their lyrics border on schmaltzy at times, the band firmly rooted themselves in genuine, relatable emotion on 2013’s Hoser. However, on their Pure Noise debut Colour Blind, one should go into the record anticipating a more confident Seaway; a wiser Seaway; a Seaway capable of greater things. The soft strum-turned-energetic groove of opener “Slam,” self-depreciating sneer of “Airhead” and get-up-and-go attitude of “Growing Stale” are among the record’s highlights. Sure, the cheese is still there, and often distracts from the record’s more poignant moments—but with a bright new aesthetic and a few twists and turns thrown in, Colour Blind undoubtedly feels like where Seaway needs to be. —Landon Defever

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by Andrew Wells // killingacamera.com

The Hotelier

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