Real Friends & Knuckle Puck (w/ Bearings)

It’s a pop-punk double-header of stellar proportions, featuring co-headlining sets by Real Friends and Knuckle Puck at Empire Live in Albany. With support by Bearings.

###

“Just can’t stand the same damn endless routine/Cause it’s all gonna lead to a disposable life!”

This is the shout-sung chorus on “Gasoline,” the opening track from Chicago pop punk band Knuckle Puck’s upcoming EP Disposable Life. The five song EP, which comprises four originals and one cover, is a recommitment to the band’s founding sound—the tight, manicured, major-key chaos of ripping guitars, sprinting bass, airtight drums, and harmonized vocals—but it’s also a recommitment to an idea: that every day and moment has meaning, and every life has value.

Vocalist Joe Taylor describes the EP, which follows last year’s LP 2020, as a throwback to when the band first started. “It feels like we’re kind of rebooting Knuckle Puck,” says Taylor. “Making this music has been the most fun we’ve had in a really long time.”

That feeling is in part due to the break in working forced by the pandemic, but it’s also a product of a freer approach to writing and recording outside of label pressure. “It was fresh and exciting again,” says Taylor. “It was like ‘Oh man, this feels like it did in 2013.’ We captured some of that magic.”

The result is a record that Taylor says bridges the gap between KP sounds of past and present. The title, Disposable Life, nods to this stretch of time in its own way: what does it mean to lead a meaningful life?

“Nobody wants to live a life that is disposable,” says Taylor. “Everybody wants their life and their time to mean something, and I think in our daily lives, there’s a choice that can be made to do small things every day so that you really do feel like, ‘hey, my life has value.’”

The title and the record’s lyrics are partly a reframing of the average human experience. Modern culture has convinced us that a ‘normal’ life is unremarkable, but this paves over the beauty inherent in routine relations. “Everyone looks at their experience as like, ‘I want something more,’” explains Taylor. “But any conversation that you have with anybody, there are things that you can pull out, or walking somewhere and just looking around and being alive. There’s a lot of meaning to me in that, even if you go for a two-block walk.”

The songs on Disposable Life came from ideas Taylor workshopped with lead guitarist Kevin Maida. When the band gathered again post-pandemic restrictions, the goal was simple: write songs and finish them without any external end goal. Between December 2020 and February 2021, the band wrote and demoed four songs before recording in Crown Point, Indiana at longtime collaborator and producer Seth Henderson’s Always Be Genius Recording Studio. Vince Ratti (Circa Survive, The Wonder Years) mixed the EP and Kris Crummett (Dance Gavin Dance, Mayday Parade) mastered.

The record opens with “Gasoline,” a mid-tempo pop punk thunder clap that hammers home the record’s thesis on its chorus and plans for a radical new reality: “With every day spent in the shade, think I’ll watch it burn/Throw gasoline on an open flame,” calls Taylor.

Next is lead single “Levitate,” a song that Maida says is “for the KP fans who have stuck around over the last decade supporting this band, and for those who will continue to stick around.” It’s a blast-beat ripper with breakneck riffing and frenetic drum work as Taylor outruns his enemies on the chorus: “There used to be demons hanging over me/But now they can’t touch me/Don’t you see me levitating?”

Follow-up “In the Bag” is early-2000s radio-punk-rock bliss, with chiming guitar leads, a swaggering bass-led bridge, and a sun-drenched, wide-open-sky chorus: “The sound won’t drown me out cause I will not live for my secrets!” Taylor declares. “Lonely Island” punches in with a burst of drums and guitar, a hum of upbeat lead work, and Taylor’s vocals defiant and confident before allowing a hint of existentialism: “Could we buy back time with money if we try?”

The collection is capped off with a scorching, faithful cover of blink-182’s “Here’s Your Letter” from the trio’s 2003 untitled LP. “We’re always talking about that record when we’re working on music,” says Taylor. “We’ve always joked about covering ‘Here’s Your Letter.’ This time, we just did it.”

Disposable Life is a reintroduction to Knuckle Puck: it’s a celebration of the past decade of KP and a supercharged mission statement for the future. It’s a sharp inhale, a spring-loaded blast off the starting blocks after the tumult of the past two years. It’s a sign of good things yet to come.

###

For as much as the world has changed since Real Friends first emerged in 2010, the band’s mission hasn’t. The Illinois quintet continue to bleed without apology and write songs that make it okay to feel everything: the ups, the downs, and anything else in between. Rather than shy away from emotion, the group run right towards it with distortion cranked and hearts opened, tightening their careful distillation of pop and punk on each subsequent release. When the band—Dave Knox [lead guitar], Kyle Fasel [bass], Eric Haines [rhythm guitar], and Brian Blake [drums]—welcomed vocalist Cody Muraro in 2020, the goal stayed the same as they crafted new music for Pure Noise Records.

“It’s really still the same mission,” affirms Kyle. “We write songs you can connect to. We want those songs to be a part of your life as much as they’re a part of our lives. This band is everything to me. We’re all so invested in every aspect of this that we couldn’t stop. I’m more grateful than ever for Real Friends.”

A diehard audience might be even more grateful. Real Friends have forged and strengthened a deep connection with fans over the years. The group’s 2014 full-length debut, Maybe This Place Is the Same and We’re Just Changing, marked a turning point. Rock Sound named it one of the “Top 50 Albums of the Year.” 2016’s The Home Inside My Head maintained this momentum with further acclaim and sold-out shows. In 2018, Composure incited applause from Music Connection, Alternative Press, Substream Magazine, New Noise, and Billboard who described it as “raw.” To date, they’ve also amassed over 100 million streams and counting.

During 2020, the band amicably parted ways with their original vocalist. They continued to look ahead, auditioning singers until Cody came into the picture.

“We all felt the conviction in his voice,” Kyle goes on. “That was what distinguished him the most. Emotion is a signature element of Real Friends. That came through right away, but he also brought some grit of his own.”

“We share influences and come from a very similar place where music is a massive part of our lives,” adds Cody. “It was such a good fit, because of that. Everything clicked. When they called me, they were all on the line, so I thought, ‘Something’s going to happen’. They asked me to be the singer of the band. I took the job. A month later, I was down in L.A. recording music with them.”
Signing to Pure Noise Records, they co-wrote with Andrew Wade [A Day To Remember] and recorded with longtime producer Mike Green. Now, they ignite this next chapter with “Nervous Wreck.” On the track, anxious guitars toss and turn underneath confessional verses before crashing into a catchy chorus.

“It was inspired by feeling like you’re stuck in a way,” Kyle reveals. “When you’re around other people, you don’t really feel like yourself. When you’re by yourself, you feel isolated and like a nervous wreck all the time.”

On its heels, “Storyteller” threads a clean guitar melody around tense vocals, culminating on a scream, “You’re a liar.”

“It’s inspired by a couple of different situations where someone tells you one thing, but you find out it’s not the truth,” he goes on. “They’re telling these stories over and over again.”
In the end, you can rely on Real Friends.

“When you listen to this, I hope it still sounds like Real Friends,” Kyle leaves off. “We’re moving in the same direction, and we have a common vision. The spirit is still there.”

For as much as the world has changed since Real Friends first emerged in 2010, the band’s mission hasn’t. The Illinois quintet continue to bleed without apology and write songs that make it okay to feel everything: the ups, the downs, and anything else in between. Rather than shy away from emotion, the group run right towards it with distortion cranked and hearts opened, tightening their careful distillation of pop and punk on each subsequent release. When the band—Dave Knox [lead guitar], Kyle Fasel [bass], Eric Haines [rhythm guitar], and Brian Blake [drums]—welcomed vocalist Cody Muraro in 2020, the goal stayed the same as they crafted new music for Pure Noise Records.

Over the years, Real Friends have forged and strengthened a deep connection with fans. The group’s 2014 full-length debut, Maybe This Place Is the Same and We’re Just Changing, marked a turning point. Rock Sound named it one of the “Top 50 Albums of the Year.” 2016’s The Home Inside My Head maintained this momentum with further acclaim and sold out shows. In 2018, Composure incited applause from Music Connection, Alternative Press, Substream Magazine, New Noise, and Billboard who described it as “raw.” To date, they’ve also amassed over 100 million streams and counting. In 2021, they turned the page on a new chapter with the singles “Nervous Wreck” and “Storyteller.”