NKD Mag - Issue #10 (April 2012) by NKD Mag

Issue #10

The Wonder Years

CO-CREATORS Ariella Mastroianni Catherine Powell EDITORS Lizy Goold Ariella Mastroianni Nicola Pring PHOTOGRAPHY Catherine Powell WRITERS Cody Delistraty Lizy Goold Katey Howitt Olga Khvan Stacy Magallon Nicole Mazza Christine O’Dea Catherine Powell LAYOUT DESIGN Catherine Powell

s r e n w o e h t from Every month we claim it can’t get any crazier for us here at Camp Naked, and every month we are proven wrong. The month of March brought us the launch of our first ever collaboration line of t-shirts with Jawbreaking Clothing, which we could not be more stoked about. You can check out the line at shopjawbreaking.com! Our collaboration with Jawbreaking does not stop there... we also found out we’ll be sponsoring the “Too Short To Name Tour” together this May featuring Phone Calls From Home, My Girl Friday, Glory Days and Mitchy C! The tour starts in Raleigh at RaleighPalooza and will end in Hamden, CT! Please come hang out with us! As always, we can’t say thank you enough for always supporting us and telling your friends about the magazine! We read and appreciate every single tweet :)

catherine & ariella

in this issue The Wonder Years Courtesy of Absolute Management

Frank Turner Courtesy of Epitaph Records

Alex Goot Courtesy of EMC Bowery

The Downtown Fiction Courtesy of Working Group MGMT

Transit Courtesy of Earshot Media

The Story So Far Courtesy of Earshot Media

Dave Days Courtesy of EMC Bowery

The All Ways Courtesy of The All Ways

Glamour Kills Clothing Courtesy of Glamour Kills

available now at shopjawbreaking.com

The Downtown Fiction

Transit

Frank Turner

The Wonder Years The All Ways

The Story So Far

D.I.Y. - Film Strip Bangles

Glamour Kills Clothing

Best Live Band

EVER Who we think kill it live!

Page 72 44

Alex Goot

Band Name

Dave Days

The Downtown Fiction Words: Nicole Mazza Photos: Catherine Powell

Eighth grader Cameron Leahy stands center stage surrounded by stadium seats filled with screaming kids. It’s his first show, his first performance and his first taste of the limelight and what’s to come in the future. More excited and running more on adrenaline than nerves, he belts out an original song. The crowd loves it. They demand more, and he wants nothing more than to play it for them. He sings “Minority,” a Green Day cover. “The guy was turning on the lights like ‘alright the show’s over’ and I was like ‘fuck that.’ We played the next song and by the end of that song he was like ‘it’s over’,” Cameron says, recalling that first show. “We were rebels since the beginning,” he adds. Except for a show in Indonesia, Cameron doesn’t think another show has ever topped that moment for him. The Downtown Fiction have come a long way since their first show. They’re sitting together on couches backstage in a dimly lit dressing room at Starland Ballroom in the middle-of-no-where, New Jersey. The bass line of a song radiates through the walls and the distant screams and cheers foreshadow what the band about to experience in a matter of minutes. One member fiddles with his cell phone, another drinks from a bottle of water as they prepare for the performance ahead of them. It’s immediate from the start that The Downtown Fiction are four very different guys who have come together under four very different circumstances. But Cameron insists their formation was typical.

Bassist David Pavluk was added to The Downtown Fiction’s lineup soon after meeting Cameron at a music venue. “I was working right out of high school and I didn’t want to go to college, I didn’t want to do anything else, I just wanted to play music so I was very lucky,” David says before Cameron chimes in. “That’s sort of what happens though, every band story,” Cameron says. “You just sort of randomly meet.” David nods in agreement. “It was just the right time.” Guitarist Wes Dimond joined the trio in November 2010 for a sold out show at The Gramercy Theatre in New York City. With barely any practice and label eyes on him, he was thrown in to the mix more than a little nervous. “I remember just sitting in the back hallway going over the guitar parts going ‘please don’t mess up’,” he tells me. “You did great,” Cameron adds encouragingly. “I’ve heard better,” David jokes. “I wasn’t even there and I’ve heard better,” Kyle adds for good measure with a laugh. The four banter like brothers. Drummer Kyle Rodger is the most recent a ddition to the lineup. He met the band through mutual friends, Arizona’s pop-rock band The Summer Set. “It was almost like we didn’t really have to ask [them] to be in the band,” David says, about Wes and Kyle joining. “Talk about cosmic. We didn’t really have to think about it. It just felt right,” Cameron says. “It’s funny how what’s meant to be is meant to be almost when it comes to this sort of stuff. The lineup sort of just worked out and we just feel really lucky.” 7

But luck has nothing to do with it. After a tough couple of years of lineup changes, struggles to gain momentum and fans on the road and without a lot of support in the beginning, it was their perseverance that made them absolutely positive that this was what they had to do, that this was their destiny. “No one’s going to tell you ‘Oh well, if you want something really predictable and something that will secure you financially then please, go join a rock band,’” Cameron says. “It’s like wanting to be a ninja when you’re little,” Kyle adds. Being told they had crazy dreams didn’t stop them. Not when they couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

“I don’t feel like I would be good at anything else,” Cameron says. The others agree. “I know that I’m not good at anything else,” Kyle adds, seriously. Life on the road doesn’t come without it’s consequences. “I just never thought that I would be gone so much. I knew we’d do a lot of touring but I never realized that I had sort of lost my place at home. I’m just not even there anymore, you know?” David says about their lack of a home, which gains a nod of agreement from the others. “Now that we’re gone so long when we get home we have no friends. We have so many friends on the road and we are each other’s friends but who

is going to be such a good friend that they’re always going to be around when you’re gone for months?” Cameron says. “Nobody wants a friendship like that.” For anyone who isn’t familiar with being on the road a majority of the year, it’s a hard life to imagine. The disconnection between your family, your friends and the struggles of finding a balance between your career and a personal life. “What’s a personal life?” Cameron says jokingly, though in reality, it’s true. “You lose your idea of what a home is like. You’re always on the road, a new place. You forget about normal life. The only life you know exists in your van and your dressing room,” Cameron says. “It’s sort of strange because when you’re on tour and you’re moving so quickly and you’re driving in-between states within a night you sort of forget where you are. You know where you are, but it doesn’t feel different.” But Cameron is clear to remind me that’s just how it goes — the good comes with the bad. And now the Downtown Fiction are as stable and concrete as ever, and they’re focused on their music. “I feel like the older we get the more it becomes focused on the music,” Cameron says. It’s clear that the band have their eyes on the prize. “I think the initial fun of going crazy and partying is sort of, I mean it’s still around, but I think the more we’re touring and the more we’re owning our sound, it’s just more about being a good band.” 9

Typical as they may see themselves and their formation, that’s what makes them stand out from the rest. It’s not just a job for them but a love. Their dedication and passion for the music, for the band and for one another really shines through the moment they hit the stage an hour later to a sold out screaming crowd. From the first song of their set, “Out in the Streets,” to their last, the popular “I Just Wanna Run,” 12

it’s clear they’re not just on a stage performing — they’re lost in a different world. Music is what makes the most sense for these four. They’re immersed in their instruments, their voices and the audience. And with their latest EP “Pineapple” out, plans to tour throughout the year and all while working on a new record, we know we haven’t seen the last of them.

Transit Words: Olga Khvan Photos: Catherine Powell

“Today is a weird day,” says Transit guitarist and vocalist Tim Landers. We chat inside the Gramercy Theatre on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. “We played two shows that were both sold out in New York City. It’s just awesome,” he says with a chuckle, as if almost in disbelief.

the rest of the guys’ home state of Massachusetts, but in the scope of the band’s history, it has been a long and artistically evolutionary journey from their early days of practicing in their parents’ garages in Boston’s North Shore to where they are now.

The shows are part of the Glamour Kills Tour that has put Transit on the road with The Wonder Years, Polar Bear Club, The Story So Far, A Loss for Words and Into It. Over It. Like their tour mates, Transit have been categorized as a pop-punk band, but their music has undergone recent changes, progressively transforming into a more indie sound. “We are roped into [pop-punk] a lot and it’s cool because it’s this nice movement that we’ve seen happening over the past few years with a lot of our friends’ bands, and it’s not that we want to detach ourselves from it. It’s just musically, we don’t see ourselves like that,” Tim says.

“When I was younger, there was a really cool [music] scene in North Shore that kind of died out. There [are] no shows at the [Veterans of Foreign Wars] halls or anything anymore,” Tim says, recalling town-hopping to attend weekend shows with his friends while growing up.

The change in sound has been well received by fans. “It’s been cool lately because it seems like there [are] more people singing along to the new songs and that’s obviously what we want as a band because it’s our most current material. It’s the stuff that we want to play, the stuff we’re most psyched about,” Tim says. “That’s the direction we want to be going towards and pushing towards.” Physical distance-wise, today’s stop in New York City is not too far from Tim and 16

He also, however, recalls the lack of originality coming from the bands involved in this scene. “There were a lot of pop-punk bands that wanted to be like Blink-182 and there were a lot of metal core bands that wanted to sound like Poison the Well,” he says. All of Transit admire Blink-182, but unlike the local bands they grew up watching, they make it clear that their intention is not to simply imitate. “I think that the scene that I came from helped me try to be completely different from it,” Tim says. “It was a lot of cookie cutter stuff. We just wanted to do something that was different, that nobody had ever heard before. That was the whole idea behind Transit.” Putting Transit’s lineup together was no elaborate plan either. “It just happened,” says Tim, who attended Clark University for

a year and a semester, changing his major from pre-law to English to nursing before dropping out to fully pursue a music career. “I dropped out on the Dean’s List. It was pretty funny. They were kind of surprised,” he says. While Tim was at Clark, bassist P.J. Jefferson was at a state school just 20 minutes away. “I started playing with my friends just so we could cover Blink-182 songs and Ramones songs. They needed a bass player, so I learned how to play,” P.J. says. “Kind of,” he adds jokingly, instigating laughter from the rest of the band. “[It’s] not a very crazy story,” says lead vocalist Joe Boynton of the band’s formation. “They were looking for a singer and I was like, ‘I’ll do it. Why not?’” Rounding out the lineup is drummer Daniel Frazier and the most recent addition, guitarist Torre Cioffi, who just joined the band last year. It has been five years since Transit’s inception and the guys are feeling at their best. “All of us have gotten older and really matured as people and musically on the road with this band,” Tim says. Transit have taken a clear stance against imitation, but collaboration is a different story. They love to collaborate with their pop-punk friends, showing an enduring appreciation for the genre that they have strayed away from in recent years. Back in 2009 they released a split EP with

Man Overboard and now, as part of the Glamour Kills Tour, they have collaborated on a split that involves all the participating bands covering each other. “[Splits are] a chance to do something that you could never be able to do on a record,” Tim says. “You can do something weird.” When it comes to their own songs, the band have a simple approach. “We just write songs. We don’t really try to sound like anything. We just write what we feel,” Tim says. “We just let what comes out come out.” Whatever label they may be given, the band are always eager for a chance to reach new audiences. “It’s fun to play to new faces,” Tim says. “It’s more intriguing to play to an audience of people who have no idea what they’re about to experience and just have no idea what they’re about to hear. It’s fun just to try and impress those people.” At the end of the day, this connection with people, whether it’s with fans who have been there from the very beginning or complete strangers, is very much at the core of what seems to motivate the guys of Transit to do what they do. “We always just want to play to people. We don’t care if they like our band, we don’t care if they’ve ever heard us before,” Tim says. “We just want to be playing in front of people and trying to turn some heads and make stuff happen.” 19

Frank Turner Words: Stacy Magallon Photos: Catherine Powell

I’m sitting across from Frank Turner at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn, N.Y. Frank is a handsome, tattooed man who has a lot on his mind. Dressed in jeans and a brown hoodie, the 6-foot-3 Englishman comes off as a little intimidating. After learning about his past in various hardcore acts, I automatically assume he’s a big, tough guy up until he proves he’s being quite kindhearted, much like his softer folk-punk sound. “I feel comfortable that I’m not scamming anybody in the way that I make my living,” Frank says. “And, I’m making people happy, hopefully.” 22

Frank was born in the Middle East and raised on the English countryside. He fell in love with metal and punk music — Iron Maiden, specifically — at a very young age. Once he started playing in bands, the lifestyle of touring came along naturally. “It was something I did during school holidays, and then gradually, the gaps between tours became holidays, rather than tours being holidays,” he says. On his current month-long U.S. tour, Frank has been hopping between different acts in the industry, supporting the Dropkick Murphys and Social Distortion all while scheduling solo shows when time permits. Because of the time he’s spent in the U.S., he admits that certain parts of him love

America more than his homeland of England. “I love American culture, geography and politics. It very much appeals to me,” he says. “And I like American people. It’s really funny —there’s a sort of cultural trope in the U.K. that American people are rude, which is so laughably inaccurate to me. American people have way better manners than English people.” No matter what country he’s in, Frank’s life includes running back and forth between different tedious chores, e-mailing, accounting, announcing shows, blogging, counting and selling merchandise and restringing guitars. While he admits that he would like to sleep and relax more often, he makes sure to mention that he’s not whining about his busy schedule at all. “I don’t mean to complain about my life for two reasons. First of all, I have the best fucking job in the world. I’m incredibly lucky,” he says, shifting into his seat. “I would never complain about it, but also, I live this way by choice.” What I found most intriguing about Frank were his good intentions as a musician. At every mention of his music, he made the effort to smile at his work. His main goal is to increase human happiness in any means possible, and this goal only motivates him to work harder in every way. As an artist who is inspired by his own life, Frank admits to not being good at incorporating fiction into his music. “I don’t like the idea of there being a difference

between who I am off stage and on stage,” Frank shares. “Honesty is the quality I value most in art.” Even as a musician with a complex lifestyle, Frank likes to spend his free time in a simple way. “I generally do absolutely nothing on an off day because we don’t get many of them,” Frank says. “What I like to do is essentially sort of hibernate. I like to stay in my bunk, read, watch DVDs, eat a massive steak, drink a bottle of wine, then go to bed about half past eight in the evening.” But at the end of the day, Frank’s lifestyle is not as average as every other person’s. He’s constantly on the move — from the intimate 250-person Knitting Factory, to performing at Wembley Arena, a massive, 12,500-capacity performance arena in Northern London on April 13. Frank has one word to describe how he feels about this major transition. “Schizophrenic,” he says, laughing. However, schizophrenic is the last thing he feels about this milestone in his career. Jumping around between venue sizes is nothing new for Frank, and he believes that the constant shift between audiences keeps him on his toes. “A show like this will keep me fresh and alive for a show like Wembley. If you’re constantly changing up what you’re doing, it’s good.” That’s not the only thing Frank is changing up. He’s no stranger in keeping an open mind when it comes to music — his previous position was in post-hardcore band, 23

Million Dead. Aside from producing his own music, he is currently working on an ongoing side project titled Low Brow with band mate, Matt Nasir, and Million Dead drummer, Ben Dawson. “It’s fun, noisy, extreme and deeply offensive,” he says, smiling. He refers to the project as “creatively liberating” because of the abnormalities they’ve written about. “It’s very surrealist, over the top, and weird. We’ve got songs about tapeworm uprisings, stillborn unicorns, and just odd stuff. It’s twisted, and not cuddly-friendly music. Hopefully it upsets some people.” Frank will be back on American soil this upcoming fall. In addition to that, he plans to release a new record in January of 2013. “In the UK, if you’ve got the right

radio stations and magazines behind you, you can basically break the UK in about a week. You do a 10-day tour, you become massive, and that’s it. What I like about America is that you can’t do that here because it’s just physically too big,” he says. “If you want to get anywhere here, you just have to fucking shut up, knuckle down, get on the road and tour. You need to have miles under your belt to achieve anything.” Despite this major difference between the U.S. and the kingdom across the pond, Frank sees no major conflict. As far as he concerned, hitting the road is what he loves doing, and he’s got no problem with that. 27

The All Ways

Words: Katey Howitt // Photos: Catherine Powell 28

Despite a wide range of backgrounds, the boys of The All Ways have fused their musical experiences in the hopes of creating a newer and fresher sound, drawing major influence from the poppunk scene, metal and progressive rock. When Austin Massirman and Ron Geffen decided to start The All Ways, driven by the need to create and the overwhelming talent in the music industry today, they began writing, recording and touring, but faced the same trials that any start-up band faces in their formative years. “I was really close minded,” Austin admits, discussing his dislike of metal and hardcore music. His allegiance was pledged to pop-punk and his scene was clear-cut. Austin entered performance as an actor, but when he dabbled in musical theater, he discovered that while his heart was in the music, it wasn’t in the theater.

“I really don’t like playing a character, I would rather be myself,”

he says. So he enrolled in vocal lessons and started pushing himself closer to success as a musician. He and Ron were struggling to solidify a sound and a line-up as they were conflicted in genre and writing. Ron arrived at music from quite a different angle. “I was a jock. It was weird,” he says of his middle school self. Then he bought himself a guitar and taught himself to play. Sports hit the back burner and by the end of ninth grade he made a decision. “No more sports, only music,” he says. The All Ways was born out of Ron and Austin’s mutual need for expression and the sense of purpose they found in their music. Even so, they struggled in solidifying a sound and a line-up. Austin was doing most of the writing, and had trouble opening up to a new genre. The music was only influenced by the music Austin listened to. Then the guys found Andre Jevnik and Pat Heraghty. Andre began playing drums at age seven and came with a long list influences, including heavy metal group Mötley Crüe. “I was a big progressive kid, so I practiced ten hours a day,” he says proudly. Andre’s talent is undeniable, but he’s worked hard for it. The Always has benefited from the decisive and signature beat Andre adds 29

to their pieces, which provides the basis for a new wave electro-pop-esque sound. The fourth member, Pat, decided to pick up the bass when he decided he wanted to join a band. “I knew a drummer and a guitarist, so I learned bass,” he says. This choice was another stroke of luck for the guys of The All Ways. His family wasn’t entirely musical, only his father plays an instrument — bagpipes. “But I knew how to play bass before he knew how to play bagpipes,” Pat says.

With this final addition just over two years ago, the band took off, straying away from its pop-punk origins to begin experimenting with their current sound. They say they were looking for electro-rock, but wanted to make it sound mature. They wanted to maximize on the best of all the genres they were influenced by. The writing process has become a lot less Austin-centric, with the four throwing in all their ideas instead of playing a single idea. If Ron comes in with a new riff, they build a song off of it. “We all just build a song up, but

it’s usually Ron with the main idea. Ninety percent of the time,” Austin says. Pat and Andre agree. They all write their own parts though, and the diverse fusion is what makes The All Ways sound so unique. “We make the sound as we go,” Andre explains. With each new song, their process changes drastically — the recorded song is always a culmination of their converging musical identities. They aren’t that band where every song sounds the same, even when they’re trying.

It’s this sense of humor about the music industry and acknowledgment of what they’re trying to do that keeps The All Ways going. It’s also what makes them fun to listen to. After only two years they’ve gotten to a place it takes other bands twice as long to get to. Sitting on the steps of Webster Hall in New York City and looking perfectly at home.

THE WONDER YEARS Written by Lizy Goold Photographed by Catherine Powell

“I was six when [Green Day’s album] ‘Dookie’ came out, I think, and there’s that line in [the song] “Basket Case” where he says ‘I went to a shrink to analyze my dreams, she says it’s lack of sex that’s bringing me down. I went to a whore, he said my life’s a bore,’ etc. etc.,” recalls Dan “Soupy” Campbell, vocalist of The Wonder Years. Campbell is standing in small closet-like room backstage at the Gramercy Theater after the first of two sold-out headlining shows in New York City describing how important music was to him as a child. “In my head I assimilated shrink and whore, both people who help you and I just thought they were the same thing. And I was at the beach and my Grandma said something like ‘She needs a shrink’ and I said ‘Yeah Grandma, or a whore!’ You don’t always grasp it right away, but I was on it from when I was a kid.” Being raised on punk rock music from birth really shaped Soupy’s ethic and view on life. His father, who was also in attendance at this show at the Gramercy Theater, was a rocker. “When I was riding around in the car with him, Nirvana was just breaking, so it was that kind of stuff,” Soupy explains. “A lot of people were like ‘my parents would listen to The Rolling Stones’. I still don’t think I’ve heard a whole Rolling Stones record in my life. My mom was into the poppy side of things, and as a kid you love that.” He attributes his continued “do it yourself” ethic a lot to his upbringing in Lansdale, Pa., a town northwest of Philadelphia. Soupy was born to young parents in this fairly wealthy area. Soupy’s family lived in a wealthy part

of Lansdale, though they were middle class. In comparison, to his friends he was lower middle class. “Not that we were in any way poor, in direct comparison my friends could have anything that they wanted, and we lived tighter to it,” says Soupy. “I think [that] developed a lot of the ethics that I now carry and the reason that the band is able to be successful.” As a teenager his peers started playing music because they wanted to be like the bands playing in stadiums at the time, bands like Blink-182. But there was a big gap between starting a band and playing shows. The question was how to get from having a bass guitar to actually playing in the stadiums. 35

Luckily for Soupy the Lansdale music scene was burgeoning and supported bands like The Wonder Years who did everything themselves, which played to his DIY ethic. There were shows every weekend at Knights of Columbus halls and touring bands would skip Philadelphia just to play Lansdale. “I didn’t have to get good enough to play a stadium, I just had to get good enough to play that Knights of Columbus hall,” Soupy says. “That was the first step. There was a chance to do it and do it in a way that was plausible and viable.”

Soupy has maintained his DIY attitude from the beginning. Soupy booked all of their early shows at low cost and inexpensive community venues like Veterans of Foreign War halls, and because of this the band was able to start touring. He would book a show in his town and have bands come, then reciprocate the favor when that band booked a show in their town. Touring expanded out of that, all based on the DIY ethic he learned going to punk shows in their hometown.

The band tried to tour as much as possible while in college. Five of the six of them were able to finish school. They would try and tour around their break schedules, but no record label had interest in a band that at best could tour three months out of the year. “You can’t sell records that way, you can’t monetize the band touring,” Soupy says. “So it was back to that DIY ethic, I booked the tours, we managed ourselves. Our friend Chris [Hansen, No Sleep Records founder] was in an apartment trying to do it, we would brainstorm. But kids didn’t get it, not immediately.”

After their first seven-inch, “We Won’t Be Pathetic Forever,” came out, they picked up some speed and began to tour more. They were no longer begging people to stay for them, fans were actually coming out just to see them. In January 2010 they released their debut album, “The Upsides.” They were able to expand their fan base by touring with bands similar to themselves like Energy and A Loss For Words. There was no marketing budget for “The Upsides,” so they really had to work on promoting it themselves. 37

The band had scavenger hunts where people would write, “I’m not sad anymore,” a lyric, on cardboard signs and tape them up around different cities around the country. The website AbsolutePunk would then advertise that if you found the sign you could hear a new song from the band. “It was about creativity and grassroots DIY,” Soupy says. Due to this buzz they had created, they started to get attention from labels and get calls for tours. Even though the band now has a booking agent, a label and a manager, they still try to do a lot of things themselves. Their friends help them with everything — they print their merchandise, manager their tours, sell their merchandise, do their photo shoots and their artwork. “We are still as heavily involved as we can

“I wake up every day and The Wonder Years is a full time job. No one answers our emails for

possibly be,” Soupy says.

us, we answer our emails. We can’t respond to everybody, but I read everything. I spend hours from last.fm to

Tumblr to Twitter, reading it all. If kids really want to hear ‘And Now I’m Nothing’ we try and put it in the set.” Soupy tries to do things for the fans that keep it new and interesting, even going as far as creating a mascot for the band. “It dawned on me really suddenly outside of a Red Robin,” Soupy says. “I was thinking you know what no one has? A mascot. What if we had a mascot?” So he pitched it to their label, Hopeless Records, as not just being a mascot but also as their marketing budget and artwork for the album. Hopeless loved the idea and their mascot Hank the Pigeon was born. Traditional promotional methods, like print ads were expensive, and seemed like the wrong type of exposure for The Wonder Years. To avoid being just another overlooked page in a magazine, Hank was an alternative to get their name out there. The mascot was at Warped Tour, it appeared all around the country where people, even if they didn’t now what it was, wanted pictures taken with it. People who found Hank in their respective cities got a special color of a seven-inch that no one else could get. Hank evolved from a marketing tool to something that has a following and even a Twitter account. The band also tries new things when it comes to vinyl, a format that, according to Soupy, is never cost effective for a label to put out. “It was something we wanted to do and we wanted every one of them

to be special in their own way,” Soupy says. ”For ‘Suburbia [I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothing],’ a record about our hometown, I took a Polaroid camera and drove around for two days and took 50 pictures of the 50 most important spaces to us in our hometown. I hand labeled all of them, hand numbered all of them, and then I used spray adhesive. Now 50 people have copies of the records with one of the polaroids attached.” Suburbia was the number one selling vinyl the week it came out, tied with the band Touché Amore. The Wonder Years also have done quite a few splits, with bands like Distances, Fallen from the Sky, Stay Ahead of the Weather, their most recent six-inch selling 600 copies in six hours. Their split with Distances was themed on travel and friends — their 42

side based on Philadelphia, Distances on England. “The promotion for the record, was postcards, we gave you a postcard,” Soupy says. ”We asked that you mail it to a friend to tell them that you miss them, but it also had all the information for the record. The record release copies, 30 of them, were in sealed seven-by-seven envelopes, screen printed to look as if they had been mailed there with an address, return address, stamped and hand numbered.” Soupy and The Wonder Years have put out two successful albums, toured extensively, sold out two New York City shows in one day and yet have still managed to stay grounded through it. “It’s all about making it special,” Soupy says. “[It’s about] making it worthwhile for someone.”

Alex Goot

Words: Cody Delistraty | Photos: Catherine Powell

The New York City date of the DigiTour draws a long line of excited teenagers that wrapped around the block on East 23rd Street. The gods of the newly established YouTube music scene have descended upon The Gramercy Theatre, and these burgeoning musicians, who are usually restricted to interactions with their fans through virtual comments and “likes” are looking forward to playing for a live audience. In the bustling, ill-lit basement where the performers are relaxing before their show, there is a palpable excitement and 44

a constant, friendly chatter. While many of the well-known musicians, from Dave Days to Alex Goot — who each have over a half million subscribers on YouTube — have toured extensively, they hold a natural bond with their fellow musicians who have taken similar, YouTube-fueled paths to success. Alex Gut, the piano popster from Poughkeepsie, N.Y., who goes by Alex Goot to avoid any potential auditory displeasure, is battling a cold on his first day of the tour and consequently has to

cancel his last two days. Clad in a “Fight Club” t-shirt and sleek, black Calvin Klein glasses, the 24-year-old is nonetheless still beaming and charismatic, exuding maturity and an adolescent innocence that connects well with his fans. As one of the most subscribed to artists on YouTube with over 76 million total views since joining in 2007, his genuine ease with his growing success reveals a performer whose biggest goal is simple: to do what he loves. “I don’t particularly want to be the biggest artist in the world, I just like making music,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “And here, I am, playing a show today. As long as I can continue doing that, I will.” Yet, the nonchalant optimist has a well-thought-out method to gaining popularity. On YouTube, he’s known for his covers of top pop artists from Katy Perry to Oasis, but he’s recently begun creating music of his own. By racking up hits when people search for big-name artists and stumble upon his covers, he’s gained a loyal fan base that grows with each new hit cover he releases. From there he can release original songs to a solidified group of fans that’s clamoring for anything that stars Alex. “It was always my plan to get eyes on the project with cover songs, and people searching for Lil’ Wayne or whatever, they’ll find me,” he says. “I do cover, cover, cover, cover, and then throw in an original, like ‘Hey guys, I write songs too.’”

As an artist who’s still best known through YouTube and social media sites, his videos for both covers and originals are important for winning fans, and he imbues them with a simplicity that speaks to the aspiring creative. In some of his music videos, it’s just Alex and a microphone. While other videos star a pretty girl or put him in less isolated locales like a bowling alley or a parking lot, the videos still seem to convey the sense that they’re doable on a low budget and without fancy equipment. In a generation where entertaining creation and virtual acclaim from peers are paramount aspirations, his videos remain unpretentious reminders that success can be as simple as a nice voice and a video camera. The Internet has also opened up possibilities for Alex that wouldn’t have been possible for a pop star even two decades ago. Reluctant about signing with a label that could potentially take away some of his creative independence, Alex doesn’t feel that he currently needs a company to professionally market him. “I want to be in a position where the label — whatever label I’m talking to — needs me, and they can offer me something that benefits both of us, and it’s a fair deal,” he says. “Until then, I don’t need them. I’m already able to tour the world, play for fans basically around the world and sell my music and get new fans.” 45

His music has gotten some attention from record labels, and he’s been asked to come in for meetings. So far though, he has declined, instead waiting for that elusive win-win deal where he can make money and retain the majority of his creative license.

singles, the songs that catch on. I try to write all my songs with that in mind.”

It’s not a wonder he’s already gotten calls from some labels, as his music has a radioready quality that has the potential to become extremely popular.

The DigiTour is a place where singles reign supreme, where the fickle tweenage fans demand only the catchiest and bubbliest music. It’s also a tour that marks the first big appearance for many of the younger artists, but for the more seasoned artists, like Alex, it’s a stepping-stone to a record deal and recognition outside of YouTube.

Alex’s music, inspired by short pop melodies that he makes up and then crafts songs around, is fueled by a desire for creating the perfect single – a song that he would like to listen to over and over again.

When asked whether he desires more public recognition, Alex responds, “I want my music to get out there, but getting mobbed in a parking lot doesn’t really sound too attractive to me.”

“I’m kind of a poser fan I guess for a lot of bands, I know the singles they’re playing – that’s all I know,” he says. “I’ve always loved

With a wry smile, he adds, “But, I’d like to experience it once before my life has concluded.” 49

The Story So Far

Words: Tanya Traner Photos: Catherine Powell

Kelen Capener, bassist of The Story So Far, wants you to know one thing about his band – they are just normal guys. After releasing their debut full-length album, “Under Dirt and Soil” in June 2011, Kelen says things have taken off for the group in ways no one expected. This notoriety, he finds, has some fans putting the band on a pedestal. “When people see you and what you’re doing they generalize your life, as if you have the best life,” he says. “At the moment, I live in a basement and I go to school. My life isn’t glamorous.” 52

Things are actually moving so quickly for the band that Kelen currently isn’t part of the action. He’s an economics major at Brigham Young University in Utah, and he’s made the decision to finish the semester instead of going on the Glamour Kills Tour with his band mates. “I’m committed to school and my housing contract. I can’t pull out,” he says. I’m here and that’s just the way it is.” Kelen admits it’s hard not being able to tour, but sacrifices have to be made. He thinks it’s a smart decision to finish school and get a degree. He can almost see the end, with only two semesters left before

graduation. Kelen has a lot of thinking and planning ahead of him however, as there may be a time when he has to make the decision between school and music. “Does the joy I get from playing music outweigh finishing out school?” he asks. If a tour were to come along with a band that Kelen really idolizes, he says he will take the opportunity because they don’t come often, but for now school is his priority. He doesn’t know where the future will take him or how long the band’s success will continue. The life expectancy of a band is not a guaranteed thing, he says, and there are few bands that will actually be performing for the rest of their lives. He says that people don’t invest in one band like they used to, partially because of over-saturation. There’s so much music and it’s so readily available that it’s almost impossible for fans to attach to one group.

While he is still in school however, Kelen tries to maintain his life outside of the band. Kelen was an RA at the beginning of his college career in California, something he says fans probably wouldn’t expect. His favorite part of the job was the interesting scenarios he would encounter with students. Once, a group of RAs were

Kelen is far from the band even when they’re not touring because they’re based in California. They use the Internet, he says, to communicate and send ideas, and plan to write songs while he is home this summer. “We all, together, create the whole that you hear,” Kelen says. “It’s really a group process and that’s a good thing because no one can say they carry all the weight in this band.” 53

called to a student’s dorm for what they thought was a simple alcohol violation. After documenting all of the alcohol in the residence, they discovered the student was breeding hundreds of tarantulas in his closet. “Getting into someone’s living space, seeing who they really are – That’s something that you don’t see very often,” he says. Like Kelen, the other members of The Story So Far are not defined by their music. They have many interests outside of the band that people don’t get to see. “Our band is different in a way because we are such good friends. We started as friends. We would just hang out and play music.” Their hang outs also included piling into a car, heading down to a local park, and once included chopping down a tree just for fun. The band also stray from the “partying and girls” image that a lot of bands are grouped into, Kelen says. “We didn’t get into this because of an image. We liked playing music. It’s just us having fun with our friends.” Kelen, who doesn’t drink, says that kind of lifestyle seems unfulfilling, but he doesn’t tell anyone else how to live their own lives. His preferences aren’t the same as others. He says that he is all about good nature and good vibes. 54

It might seem like these guys have their heads on straight and are destined for success, but Kelen says they are too young to know if they have done it all right. They still make mistakes, and he doesn’t know when the growth the band is experiencing will stop. “Just because we can gather people together, it doesn’t matter how many people know about us. It doesn’t make us any bigger or better than anyone else. It’s so hard to press that into people’s minds.” The Story So Far are just normal guys who have the pleasure of doing what they love in front of hundreds of fans. They are humble and appreciate each day they are able to continue, because tomorrow is not promised to anyone. Kelen leaves me with the same simple quote from the teacher who inspired him to become an economics major. “Do what you love before anything else.”

D.I.Y. Film Bangle by Christine Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Dea

Remember when your parents used to photograph all your soccer games in first grade? I guarantee those strips of film are still sitting in an envelope somewhere in your house. Why not put them to good use and wear your memories around your wrist?

All you need to get started are a few strips of film, double sided tape (or glue), and almost any kind of string (hemp, cording, etc.). 56

STEP ONE: Measure with a ruler or tape measure the circumference of your wrist, as well as the thickest part around your hand. This is to make sure that the bangle will fit. I find that 8.3” is the average circumference for these bracelets.

STEP TWO: Use double-sided tape or glue to attach the film strips together to make the bangle’s basic shape. Try to use reliable and steady materials to do this because the film is already fragile to begin with. STEP THREE: Line up the holes on the edges of the film so that you can string through them easily. STEP FOUR: Now the fun part! Measure at least 2030” of cording (depending on what kind of wrapping you want to do) for the bangle, and create your own designs and patterns as you string in, out, and around the holes around the film strips. Use different colors and lengths to make the bracelet as unique as you can. Tip: Bright colors work best because the film strips tend to be dark.

STEP FIVE: Tie or hot glue the strings at the end to finish the bracelet’s cording. STEP SIX: Take your memories with you in a fashionable way and enjoy your very own DIY Film Strip Bangle! 57

GLAMOUR KILLS Words & Photos by Catherine Powell

I’m lost. Or at least, I think I am. I’m somewhere in SoHo, five floors up in a sea of white hallways looking for suite 509. The signs aren’t helpful and I’m about to give up when I see a large, metal door at the end of the hallway that reads “GLMR KLLS” in big, black letters. Found it. As I walk in I’m immediately greeted by the staff, and I follow their pointing to the clear-windowed office at the far side of the room where Marky Capicotto, the founder of Glamour Kills Clothing, sits waiting. Originally from the Poughkeepsie, N.Y. area, Marky started the now very 60

successful company by “dumb luck.” He was 18, attending community college in his hometown and not entirely sure what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He applied to a number of art schools and was

accepted to the School of Visual Arts in New York City right around the same time he started Glamour Kills. “I thought I could see where [Glamour Kills] went and always do school later,” Marky explains. Later hasn’t happened yet. Growing up, Marky was very involved in designing for his friends’ bands. Whether it was t-shirts, CDs or flyers, Marky was always the go-to guy. Through that, he started to get more design jobs from larger bands like Fall Out Boy, Plain White T’s and Panic! at the Disco. He soon realized the merchandise companies that were

hiring him were not paying a fair price for his hard work. “I thought to myself ‘I can do this by myself,’ and then said ‘Screw it’ and did it,” Marky says, laughing. He delivered pizzas to fund his new company and saved up enough money to print four designs. He took his

creations to The Bamboozle Festival in New Jersey. He used the money from that to fund his next set of designs, and the pattern continues to this day. Now, Marky can’t see himself doing anything else. “I live and breathe Glamour Kills,” he says with a slight chuckle. “I get to be my own boss, work with my friends, meet

awesome people. Why would I want to do anything else?” He ponders becoming a New York City taxi driver when he’s 60, but laughs the idea off rather quickly. When the company was starting out Marky had all the details thought up — except a name. “But I knew I wanted the flying pig logo,” he says, laughing. “Glamour Kills” was the result of a brainstorm session with a group of friends. “Someone said 61

‘Glamour something’, someone else said ‘Kills something,’ and it just clicked,” he says. Marky’s friends have always been the backbone of Glamour Kills, even from the early days. His sister is currently his general manager, and he’s known other members of the company for over five years. His childhood best friend, Chris, handles media. “Honestly, everyone here feels like family,” Marky says. “Every Friday we do a company flip-cup game.” “Music definitely inspires everything I do,” Marky explains, moving back to the topic of his designs. From a young age Marky has been attending shows, supporting 64

bands he loves and managing small local bands. He learned how to create websites, take photos and print shirts by working with different bands, and the early success of Glamour Kills can be attributed to his prior experience and knowledge. “We are a music company,” he stresses. The company often collaborates with different bands and band members. In addition to the music-inspired shirts, a lot of Marky’s designs are random ideas that have been sitting in his head for years. “Why not put pizza on a shirt,” he asks. As strange as it may seem, it works for Glamour Kills.

“A lot of our shirts also have a positive message,” he explains, leaning back in his chair. “That’s the other aspect of my art.” When Glamour Kills started taking off and gaining more recognition, Marky felt that he had a social responsibility to inspire kids. He wants to spread his positive outlook on life to the company’s supporters. “Instead of putting ‘fuck you’ on a shirt, we put like, ‘be happy,’” he says, laughing. “The clothes are light, simple and fun, which is what Glamour Kills is.” When the company first started, Marky was a huge fan of pop-punk music, and the majority of his customers were fans of the scene as well. Marky’s friendship with All Time Low, one of GK’s first sponsored bands, lead to a Boys Like Girls introduction, which lead to exposure to Boys Like Girls’ fans. Though the majority of artists Glamour Kills works with are pop-punk bands, the company is beginning to branch out and work with hip-hop and straight rock artists. “I don’t want Glamour Kills to be pigeonholed in one music scene,” Marky explains.

Currently, Glamour Kills is working on a new band collaboration line, as well as working with some artists they haven’t worked with before. They’re also in talks with headphone companies and other “cool stuff,” as Marky says. The line has come a long way since the early days in Marky’s basement — shirts can now be found in Zumiez and Urban Outfitters stores across the country. When asked where he sees Glamour Kills going in the future, Marky laughs and says, “Hopefully not in debt.”

DAVE DAYS Words: Olga Khvan Photos: Catherine Powell

Dave Days was just a 17-year-old kid when he uploaded the first video onto his newly created YouTube account in 2007. Although he was an aspiring singer and songwriter at the time, he originally used the website for comedic purposes. “I didn’t go on YouTube to post music,” he says. “[It] was just to be silly and stupid. I’d make a lot of videos just talking to the camera. I’d make a lot of videos making fun of people on YouTube just because I thought YouTube was so ridiculous.”. Fast-forward four years. Dave, now 20, is fully pursuing a musical career and his number of YouTube subscribers totals over a million. On the one hand, he is still just a kid. As we talk in the downstairs area of the Gramercy Theatre in New York City, where he is playing as part of the lineup for DigiTour, which brings together YouTube musicians, he jokes around and talks about making friends with his tour mates. “I’m just doing this for fun and it’s awesome. It’s my first time touring, so it’s a good experience,” he says. “We just go on a bus and show up. There’s no responsibility.” With his long side swept bangs and green polo shirt, Dave may look like a regular kid, but when the conversation turns to his navigation of the music industry and future plans, he displays a sense of prudence and maturity. He lacks a record deal, but enjoys this independence, which gives him full control over production, and his “underground famous”status. “Business-wise, 68

I’d definitely like to stay independent and really invest in myself and even start my own little record company and a clothing line,” he says. “I have plans in my head. It’s [because of] my crazy mind.”

The oldest uploads on Dave’s account include parodies and covers of songs by popular artists like Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. As the number of his subscribers increased, however, Dave gained the

confidence to share something different and more personal with the world. “I was too scared to even post my original [music]. I was like, ‘No one’s going to like this,’ so I’d just make silly songs or do covers,” he says. “Eventually I was like, 69

‘Alright, I might as well just put this out there,’ and I put out original music.” Dave’s decision to change up his video content was well received by his rising fan base, allowing him to focus on his hopes of becoming a musician and demonstrating the rise of a new self-made entertainer type. Since posting his first video in 2007, Dave has released a number of parody albums and EPs, but his most recent EP is his most serious musical effort to date. Released just a few weeks ago, “We’re Just Kids” is a pop-punk effort that contains only original music. Alongside touring and releasing new music, Dave has also dabbled in television, appearing on Disney Channel’s sketch comedy series “So Random!” last year. Despite these new projects, he still makes sure to keep up with the YouTube account and other social media that propelled him to fame. “I’d love to keep posting [videos], even do some kind of on-schedule thing every week. I’d like to play live more, keep up Twitter and Facebook,” he says. According to Dave, starting out on YouTube provides artists not only with a sense of control over their material, but also membership to a close-knit community of other self-made musicians and the possibility of collaborations like DigiTour, which this year puts him on the road with DeStorm, Ricky Ficarelli & Wellington,

Alex Goot, Asher Monroe, Nice Peter and The Key of Awesome. “It’s cool just being able to hang out with them and see them working and trying to be the best they can be,” says Dave enthusiastically, contributing to the lively atmosphere of the room, where guitar chords can be heard interspersed with the chatter of other DigiTour artists being interviewed by the press. Dave sees DigiTour as a stepping-stone for bigger opportunities. He has hopes of opening for bands that he looks up to, like Blink-182 and All Time Low. “I kind of want to do the same thing for people [as these bands did for me]. Try to get them into guitar and learn and inspire other people,” he says. This aspiration to connect with more people comes alongside other goals that include playing more and becoming what he considers “a serious artist.” “It’s mainly about making the best music possible, deep down,” Dave says. Although he is eager to add legitimacy to his name in the music industry, Dave isn’t planning on cutting ties with YouTube and is grateful for the doors that it has opened for him. “YouTube definitely changed everything. The fact that you can make money off YouTube is ridiculous. I feel really lucky. It’s definitely opened my eyes and I realized you can make career if you just capitalize on the Internet,” says Dave. “It’s definitely a crazy new world.” 71

BEST LIVE BAND

Who the staff thinks has the best live show out there!

THE AVETT BROTHERS

Not often do you hear a band that sounds better live than recorded. Might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but this band is overloaded with talent from each and every member. Tanya

AUGUSTANA

Dan Layus has terrific vocals and the band’s live style makes the show so unique. They are one of those bands who sound so amazing live that their recorded albums don’t always do their talent justice. Christine

ENTER SHIKARI

From impromptu rants, to band members jumping into the audience, to sci-fi sounding samples, you just can’t recreate Enter Shikari’s exuberant performance on a record. Lizy 72

FUN.

This one time I decided to go to Brooklyn to see Fun. It was fun, all because of Fun. Katey

HOT CHELLE RAE

The energy the four possess on stage is truly infectious. Every time I see them the joy they express through their music leaves everyone with a smile on their face. I’m so happy to see their stage presence evolve to what it’s become over the years. Nicole

ALL TIME LOW

I wouldn’t consider All Time Low one of my favorite bands, but I have never NOT had a good time at one of their shows. They know how to get kids moving, and keep them moving throughout the whole show. That takes talent. Catherine 73