UP: What’s up Among Legends! UP is so happy to have you and excited to get to know your music. Let’s start with the basics. What’s your band’s origin story? How did you guys come together and start creating such awesome pop-punk music!
Among Legends: HELLO!! It’s very nice to have a chance to chat with you. Thanks for asking us to do this! I think our band started similarly to a lot of other bands – we were a trio just interested in playing covers of songs we liked, and then eventually decided to challenge ourselves to write original music. At early shows, it was Cameron on guitar, Anthony on bass, and me on vocals and drums. Eventually, Sara joined the band on drums, and Tyler joined as a 2nd guitarist, and we’ve been a 5-piece since mid-2017!
I think our influences have kinda set us somewhere between 90s punk rock and modern pop-punk. Cameron and Tyler love the sounds of 2010s and 2020s alternative music, and they’re always sending us wicked bands at the forefront of that world. Sara, Anthony, and I mostly gravitate towards high-energy stuff that’s a little rougher around the edges, and I think that creates a cool balance within the band where the music is forward-looking but has a little bit of a call-back to pop-punk’s roots.
UP: Looking over your History, you guys have been around for a while. Tell us, has anything positively changed for you guys in the last few years in regards to your music? And what sort of things have you been doing with the band that’s different than what you’ve done before? This could be anything!
Among Legends: Shows are back, so that’s a positive change in the past little while! The pandemic has been tough, but it allowed us to try out some stuff that I don’t think we would’ve tried otherwise. Our upcoming record was mixed remotely, including a marathon Zoom session with the producer where we did final edits to every song in one virtual room. We were also able to get more comfortable recording music remotely, which has led to demos for future music sounding a lot better than they did before. So for all its frustrations, I think the past few years have included a lot of really cool learning and applying skills we might’ve avoided in other situations.
UP: What’s your newest single? And tell us a bit about your song. What’s it about? Can we expect another EP or Album soon?
Among Legends: The latest single is called Magnolia, and it’s the final single to be released before our debut full-length record drops on Friday, July 8! It’s a breakup song, but not in the traditional sense – there’s no anger or blame in the song, just a story about 2 people who grow apart over the course of some time. There’s a music video for it streaming on Little Rocket Records’ YouTube channel, where folks can also find our other two singles for the album, Monochrome and Come Up Swinging.
Each single is a little different – Come Up Swinging is a high-energy punk rock song about overcoming adversity, Monochrome is one of our fastest songs and deals with mental health struggles, and Magnolia is a little more like a ballad, but it’s got a cool, heavier thing going on in the middle of the song.
We’re stoked about the album. It’s called Take Good Care, and it’ll be out everywhere on July 8. The pandemic delayed things for everyone – us included – so it’s extra exciting to be releasing the record after a long wait! The guitars are loud, the drums are big, the vocal harmonies are on point, and the bass lines are from another dimension. I can’t wait.
UP: What are your favorite bands of 2022? Any new pop-punk music you found that we should know about?
Among Legends: We’re release-date buddies with another Ontario band, Oakrest, so I gotta give them a shoutout! They’re releasing their debut LP the same day as us, July 8, and the singles have been terrific so far. And a little later this summer, another band in our area, Incase We Crash, has an LP coming out – I think it might be their first full-length as well. It’s a good summer for Ontario bands!
I listened to the new Grumpster record this weekend and really liked it. And the song Pinkshift released earlier this year is awesome – hoping this means a full-length record from them might be coming soon!
UP: Are you guys touring now or planning to in the future? Any big gigs or festivals we should know about?
Among Legends: July 9-16 we’re doing a small tour out to the Canadian Maritimes and back: Kitchener, Montreal, Charlottetown, Fredericton, Rimouski, Ottawa, and ending in Toronto. It’s our official run of shows to promote the new album, and it’ll be the first time we’ve been able to get further east than Quebec!
UP: Fun Question! Tell us about one band secret we shouldn’t know about and swore you’d never tell anyone! Go!
Among Legends: Every once in a while we write a part that’s slightly too complicated to do consistently, so someone else in the band becomes an additional limb for the person performing the hard part. There’s one crash cymbal on February 1st that I hit while Sara played other parts of the drum kit, and there’s a guitar pedal click on the new record that Cameron did by hand while Tyler was focused on clicking other pedals. We have a great video of Cameron slamming his hand onto Tyler’s pedalboard at the critical moment, which will NEVER BE RELEASED SO DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT ASKING.
UP: All right, where can music lovers get in touch with you and listen to your music? You can pick your favorites online spots.
Among Legends: The best place to go is amonglegends.com! It’s a one-stop place for streaming links, merch store, tour dates, and more. Our debut LP is coming out on July 8, and it’ll be streaming everywhere – or you can pick up vinyl, CDs, or hand-painted cassette tapes all from our merch store. And just so everyone knows, we’re cool with illegal downloads as long as you share the music with a friend.