Unseen Plays: Welcome to the UP Family! When your music came through we were excited to share your music on our blog. Let’s start with a band introduction. Who is in the band, how did you get started, and how long have you been together?
AstroNutz: Thank you for this opportunity, we are also very excited to be featured! We are AstroNutz a pop-punk band from a city called Almere in The Netherlands. The band consists of, Josh on the Bass, Cas who is our drummer/ producer, Danny on vocals and rhythm guitar, and Max on lead guitar. We formed about 6-7 years ago, due to some major setbacks and then corona we have been out of the running for quite some time; now since around 6 months we’ve come together with our new drummer and started getting into serious mode and doing what we love, making music.
Unseen Plays: When I went over to your Spotify page, I noticed that you only have one single. Can we expect more music from the band this year?
AstroNutz: You can for sure expect a lot more to come this year, there’s an entire album waiting to be released. We have all our raw demo tracks recorded and are currently in the process of completing them.
Unseen Plays: Now going into your latest single titled “Whiner Little Cry Baby”. What is this song all about? What inspired your band to write this new song?
AstroNutz: The lyrics of the song are about an ex-boyfriend of an ex-girlfriend who (for whatever reason) were still living together and he liked to brag about it, as the song mentions, so this text was about that specific situation. We joined an event where we had to write a song based on a title given by the audience, and we had to write it within an hour, afterwards, the song was tweaked a bit of course, but the main body of the song is still there.
Unseen Plays: Can you share your next upcoming single/song title? We loved your current song title! Maybe we can get a sneak peek?
AstroNutz: We are currently deciding between 2 songs and which to release first. The song we are giving a preference to is called “No Regrets” which is a bit of pop-punk, with some surprising elements, but that you will hear soon.
Unseen Plays: Where did the band record “Whiner Little Cry Baby”? Did you guys record it in a recording studio or at home?
AstroNutz: We recorded it at home- we each recorded separately in the comfort of our bedrooms, sent the files over to Cas and he worked his magic.
Unseen Plays: I know bands HATE to be compared to other bands but when I listen to your track it has an old-school green day kind of sound. I love that! What bands have inspired you in the past and the present?
AstroNutz: To sum up everyone’s inspiration, here is the list as follows in no specific order. Danny’s inspiration includes Green Day, Foo Fighters, and Goldfinger. Josh’s inspiration includes The Offspring, Nirvana, and Audioslave. Cas’s Avenged sevenfold, Bob Marley, and Young chop. And finally, Max’s is Falling in reverse/Ronnie Radke, Eddie van Halen, Bring Me The Horizon.
Unseen Plays: Now, we are from the USA, tell us about the pop-punk scene in the Netherlands. What’s that like over there?
AstroNutz: Almost non-existent, very small-town/local! Unfortunately, pop-punk’s not in our area, we do however have plans to start something up to bring it more to life.
Unseen Plays: What are your plans as a band these upcoming months? Any touring? Or is something cool happening that we should know about?
AstroNutz: Continue recording our album and drop it and make some music videos. Before that though, we will release a couple of singles and we also have a charitable event coming up which we are very excited about that as a band.
Unseen Plays: Who came up with the band name? And what does the band name mean? What’s the story behind it? It brings smiles to our faces!
AstroNutz: The original band name was “Astronaut”, it’s a dedication to Danny’s nephew (Ryan) who was 8 years old and ill with cancer. He always kept a positive mindset and said that “he wouldn’t die, he would simply become an astronaut” and soar into space. There were a lot of artists and bands with that name already, so our friend Jeroen said “why not just call yourselves AstroNutz!” and the name stuck with us.
Unseen Plays: If you could describe your band in one word. What word would that be?
AstroNutz: Josh would be Joyful, Max would be Fun, Danny would be Nutz and Cas would be Gezellig (an untranslatable Dutch word).
Unseen Plays: Last random question to get to know you all better: Any favorite superheroes? Marvel or DC?
AstroNutz: Josh’s superhero would be One Punch Man, Cas’s would be Iron Man, Danny’s would be Spiderman and Max’s would be Dr. Strange.
Unseen Plays: Lastly, what’s the best place to check out your music and learn more about AstroNutz?
AstroNutz: Mainly our Instagram, which we update daily, and on our Spotify.
You can listen to AstroNutz’s latest single below or on our Pop Punk Playlist: