NickyThom.Com

Pop-Punk

I’ve been meaning to make a statement about this sooner, but more often than not I find it’s best if I let my thoughts swim around in my head for awhile before I decide to spit them out. It keeps me from saying stupid things too fast and I would strongly recommend it to most people. 

It’s Wednesday, August 10th and we have been recording the second half of the new HTL record in Bethpage, NY for the past 2 1/2 weeks with the all-amazing Mike Sapone. In theory we were supposed to be done with tracking last Friday, but here we are the following Wednesday; finally finishing up recording so we can head home to Ohio to think about what we’ve done.

 It’s funny, because the way this band’s career has gone, we’ve never had a record with the same members or situation. Every record has been recorded in a tumultuous time, and every record has turned out different because of it.  This new album will be no different.  We’ve worked with two VERY different producers on songs that were written to be VERY different and written at a time when our band was stretched to the breaking point. No matter what we were going through, the end result is the same; a record we were proud of.

We recorded “Stick-up” quickly, with a slew of really old and really new songs and immediately hit the road. We got placed in the category of pop-punk in the vein of NFG, Saves the Day, etc and that was beautiful because it was all we needed to be. We had an amazing time touring with our favorite bands, lost a member, and had to regroup ourselves.

Fast forward to “Skip School”, which was a record that we did for the very fact that we loved being a band. Songs were written about it and I was thrown into the position of singing with the mindset of “If this doesn’t work that’s fine, we gave it our best and that’s what’s important.”

Amazingly, we ended up pulling that shit off(whether some of you agree or not) and got to see the world touring, doing what we love and even gained a new member that actually added to our band. Through conditions beyond our control and some touring rosters, as well as a cd cover(which at the time was different from what other bands were doing) I feel that we got put into this genre of “neon pop punk”. During this touring cycle we saw this new genre of “pop-punk” slowly rise. More and more bands started sounding alike and it seemed to just get cheesier and cheesier. It was a fad; pure and simple. Fads come and go and this one was/is no different. Bands copy each other(which incidentally, could be taken as a compliment), stick to the guidelines of this new scene and, as most trends go, run it into the fucking ground. 

Pop-punk is a genre that has SO MANY different faces now. When Blink took off and people called them pop-punk, Green Day and Screeching Weasel fans were up in arms saying “That’s not pop-punk!”. When NFG and Saves the Day were blowing up, Decedents and NOFX fans said the same. It doesn’t end, it’s the same with every generation, one declaring the new version as impure and inferior to “the originals”.

Hit the Lights has always been known as a “pop-punk” band. Whatever way you put it, whether it’s neo-pop-punk, old school, new school - we have a label and that’s fine. Pop-punk is a genre that has shaped me, made me the musician and made us the band we are today. There is no reason in denying that we have been a pop-punk band, it’s totally cool. The thing that most bands end up encountering is; “When do we grow up?”.

Why does a band need to grow up? Why do they need to change if people obviously liked them for what they were? I feel that a lot of bands change because 1. They are on a label that won’t let them record until they find a more “accessible” sound and, in return, make a record in which they try to hard NOT to be themselves 2. Get fed-up with being pigeon-holed into a genre and try too hard fighting off what they are to their fans, or 3. They just get tired of making the same music while there are so many other styles that they love now. They grow out of the music that they listened to years ago. It happens to EVERYONE.

Now why am I bringing this all up? I mean, obviously I’m making a statement like this to defend the new HTL record because it’s different, right? Not exactly. Through everything this band has been through in the past year and a half of writing new songs, I don’t think that this record in any way is NOT an HTL record. It is. But I have noticed that a lot of people make comments on how they can’t wait for a new HTL record because they need more “good pop-punk”, and honestly, that’s not what this record is. It’s not a “feel good pop-punk album”. This album has hills and valleys, no “break-downs” and no ultra fast drums beats. Here it is: It’s a DARK fucking record. We wrote tirelessly, we were exposed to a lot of shitty situations and pulled through knowing that our fans deserved a great HTL record. We’re all growing up as people and as musicians. We’ve seen the fickleness that comes with our scene; the little girls who just want swoopy-haired douche posters on their wall(No offense to all you swoopy-heads, if you have a great head of hair, flaunt it by all means). The kids who hop from one band wagon to the next. While in some aspects we have been a part of it, I really believe that we have smart fans that are real and really appreciate us for not just our music, but the energy and honesty of our band. That, in general, is why this album needed to happen. We have to grow up and out of shells, and in the 7 years that we have been a band, we should absolutely expect that from our fans as well. I’m sure some fans will be upset that we’re not “Dropping the Girl” or “Body Bagging” like we used to, but honestly, if you’re super into that, I can name you 20 bands right now that can do it just as well as we did. That is in no way is hating on the genre or the scene, I’m just making the observation that “Hey, don’t you think that there are enough bands holding it down with this sound”? 

It was high time for us to grow, and not in a douchy, self righteous way. In a REAL way. In an HONEST way that we have always done with this band. This record is another milestone. A marker in our history- from what we were to what we will become. If people aren’t into it, that’s totally cool too. I think that having to wait as long as we did to release a new album, you the fans don’t deserve anything less. We grow up, we move on, we change and hopefully, we become more than what we started out as. That’s definitely what we are doing with this album. What is “pop-punk” and what is not? I don’t fucking care. IT DOESN’T MATTER. Putting yourself in a box isn’t what music is about. That’s what a shitty industry wants and we don’t want to be a part of it. We’ve dabbled in that and it ain’t pretty.

That being said, I don’t want to scare any of you. This record is awesome, I’m so excited for everyone to hear it. I just had to put my thoughts out there. The new record is heavy, groovy, raw, angry and spacey. It’ll break down walls and hopefully won’t put up any for our fans. It’s us. A little older, a little wiser(yeah, fucking right) but still us.

Alright, we all good? Enough talk, let’s eat.