Anxious Unplugged: Blink-182’s Echo in the New Wave of Pop Punk and Emo Revival
From Fairfield County in Connecticut, the 5 piece emo punk band, Anxious, brings a breath of fresh air to what has been known as mainstream emo. Releasing their first full-length album, “Little Green House” (2022) and with an overwhelmingly positive response from the scene, Anxious quickly became the forefront?? of the East Coast scene. With new music on the way and exciting plans to start this year off, I connected with vocalist, Grady Allen, who offered insight into the journey of the rapidly-grown band that can only continue to dominate the pop punk scene and leave fans and new-listeners utterly “speechless.” Read on to get the latest on their upcoming album, 2024 tour, and other important news you won’t want to miss out on.
To start off if you could introduce yourself and your role in the band. Maybe a fact about you?
Grady: My name’s Grady, I sing in Anxious. Fun fact about me… What’s fun about me uhm….
Allie: Maybe something people don’t know about you?!
Grady: Something people don’t know about me. I’ve lived in Connecticut my whole life, but I was originally born in Oklahoma. My entire family is from Oklahoma, our bass player Sam (who’s last name is Allen, my last name is Allen), is also from Oklahoma!
I also am really interested in what your first show experience was like, that sort of pushed you into wanting to fully pursue music? Notable venues, bands that put you on etc.
Grady: Sure. I’ll do the first live music I got to see, and then I’ll do first ‘oh my gosh,’ this is it. First show I ever saw was an awesome one; it was Blink-182 with Taking Back Sunday in 2011 or 2012. It was at Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut, and it was incredible. Before arriving at ‘I’m into hardcore and this specific style of emo,’ listening to Blink-182 was like ‘I don’t care what I do, but I have to be playing guitar because this band is the best thing in the world. So that was my first concert, and it really blew my mind. I remember thinking that Taking Back Sunday was really cool too… Now at this point in my life I even think of references of them with Anxious to a certain extent, but at the time I was just like you’re not Blink-182, which was a shitty show-going-to perspective, but I was 11 so I have to give myself some slack. My first hardcore show I ever went to was Bane, Backtrack and Malfunction in New York City at Webster Hall and that was the very beginning of my freshman year of high school. From Blink-182 I really got into the punk starter pack: Misfits, Dead Kennedys etc., and then I got into hardcore– experiencing that live was unlike anything. It was crazy because I had seen punk shows and legacy bands and the energy was just so different. People jumping on each other, I feel like the bands had more to say and it felt way more poignant and real. I just gravitated towards that. It felt so tangible in that way… it was a sold out show in New York City, it felt so personal and so real in a way that going and seeing a show in NYC even, if it was a punk band or something like that–was unlike anything I’ve experienced before.
So you guys are from Connecticut, what is the current state of the scene out there, and how has it evolved since you started participating?
Grady: Connecticut is experiencing something that I think is universally being experienced in a lot of scenes– there’s just this influx of so many young kids. The scene has just grown astronomically within a period of 18 months to two years. When I first started going to shows in Connecticut, they were kind of few and far between. They were happening but I felt like I was traveling way more to see shows consistently. Also, at the time I was by far the youngest kid that was going to shows. Now, it’s crazy I’m 23 and to now be at this point where I’m no longer the youngest person going to shows, and with there being so many young heads that are going… The scene is a lot bigger. There are a lot of kids who are super interested and invested. There’s also an influx of tons of great bands in different styles. A lot of great bands from Connecticut: Wreckage (our bass player Sam he plays in that band), Balmora I feel like is making waves right now, [,,,] Almighty Watching, there’s a lot of great bands and a lot of people who are really committed to making Connecticut pop right now. Connecticut is in a great spot. It’s really cool to see Connecticut go from being somewhat of a passover state, to a real destination spot for hardcore kids to come and play.
You all have done some pretty insane things in, you know, a short amount of time. Millions of streams on some of your most popular songs, tons of touring, sold out shows, was this the reaction you all were expecting when you put out your demo and first started putting out music together?
Grady: I don’t know if that’s something we were thinking about when we were getting started. I feel like being in a band you move into different eschelants pretty naturally, and I feel like when we put out our demo, like seven years ago, all I wanted to do was play music, just to go play a VFW hall and if 10 kids came that was the coolest thing in the world. There was a certain amount of ‘there’s kids in my town who are at home writing an English paper right now, and I’m driving to Boston and playing a show,’ and it doesn’t matter if 13 people come. Even if someone said, ‘hey we don’t have any money to pay you,’ like that doesn’t even matter I was just so thrilled to be doing it. Thinking about things now, I’m so excited that we get to tour all the time and we get to go to Japan, and Australia, and tour the country and have friends all over, that’s really, really cool. But was that our expectation from the demo? That’s just too hard a question because I wasn’t even thinking like that.
So I wanted to spend some time on one of the seemingly more popular albums, “Little Green House,” which was so well received by the scene, what was the creative process like for that? Inspiration musically, content-wise, personally etc.
Grady: It’s funny thinking back about working on that record, because we completed it over the pandemic and it was done for a few years before we released it. It was really interesting because the pandemic sucked in so many ways for bands– touring went out the window and playing shows too. The way that it was really positive was that it gave us so much time to work on this record. Writing that record for about four or five months, me and our guitarist Dante and our drummer Johnny would just meet up every day and just be in the basement of his dad’s house, just writing songs, and we’d go get a little bit of food and come back and just do it. It also felt like that record came at a really interesting time of all of us moving into new spaces personally. Everybody was experiencing similar things. As far as inspiration, our biggest goal was to do something that was authentically us. I think there’s a thing, more specific to hardcore or punk, where it’s like: ‘let’s capture a sound or a place in time…’ for Anxious we wanted to just create the best possible record that was just us and not try to be scared about anything, and that’s what we did… I think. I hope.
With dropping, “Down, Down,” and an album on the way!? What new things were you aiming to do with that single, and on the upcoming album, in comparison to older LPs and releases, and why?
Grady: We are working on an album. I think it will come out this year. Hopefully it will come out this year… it will come out this year. We were just working on ten songs, and then we’re going to go on tour, and when that wraps up we are going to head back and do another month of tracking for it. It’s really great, I’m really stoked about it. With “Down, Down,” we just wanted to put music out. We had like a quarter of the record written and we weren’t going to have some record done in time to put it out at the end of the year, so we wanted to put a song out. That song is originally from Dante, when we were writing “Little Green House.” I think we tried a lot of different things with the new singles we had put out a year prior, and that was really cool, but I think for the most part we wanted to stay true to the sound we worked on for “Little Green House.” As far as the new record, it stops being a game of ‘well we’re really trying to sound like this, or incorporate this vibe,” and we go, “how can we make the best version of what we are.” So, Anxious, with this new album it’s about how we can deliver the best versions of what this band is and what “Little Green House" is.” I would say the pop-py elements are pop-pier and shinier in that way, in ways it’s hard, it’s the hardest that it’s ever been. It’s really great. I’m really excited.
Allie: Is it the same person or studio producing and mastering it as with previous releases, or someone new?
Grady: It’s a different guy, it’s Brett Romnes who plays in I Am the Avalanche, he’s done like all of the Hot Mulligan records.
There’s a new wave of emo breaking through the scene—with Anxious and their peers leading the movement it’s becoming one of the best moments to watch in modern music history. Translating early 2000s style lyrics of simplicity, with clean and punchy production, exciting energy, and a melancholy undertone to match the likeness of classic pop-punk, is seemingly executed perfectly by Anxious. Fans and listeners can only look forward to the upcoming release, anticipating an album that will continue to transcend boundaries in an otherwise close-minded genre.
Can you talk about some major influences or inspirations on the album?
Grady: Our guitarist Dante did a lot of writing for this record, and it was a very collaborative process, but I think a lot of the ideas stem from him, the first thing I would say, touching back on ‘how can we create the best version of what Anxious is,’ so I think we were looking a lot more inwardly. We’ve been listening to a ton of Fall Out Boy on this record. I think we’ve also been pretty inspired by what a lot of peers are doing too. Thinking a lot about Drug Church, and Militarie Gun, bands that are our friends but there’s several moments I can think of ‘that really has an energy of them to it or how that part is played.’ One of the very best songs on the record has a very Radiohead vibe. I think “Little Green House” has a lot of turmoil in it and it’s very aggressive, I think right now feels like a positive space of discovery… The lyrics have that sort of energy. It’s a record about discovery and growth.
What would you say are some of the themes lyrically that you’re trying to convey on this upcoming album?
Grady: So far, because a lot of the record lyrically isn’t done, a lot of it both me and our guitarist Dante who writes portions of the lyrics, we’ve both been in long term relationships for some time now, and I think we’ve both been writing about exploring those relationships in the ways that they’re positive, but the negative aspects as well. And the things that are neither negative nor positive, but what life looks like with that person. I think I’ve also been trying to tackle at 23 years old, where am I heading, what does my life look like, and where does Anxious fit into it. So writing a lot about that. The last thing, it’s aspirational because I don’t think I’ve gotten the song quite right yet, but I have been wanting to write about some of my relationships with some of the members of Anxious. It’s interesting to write about your friends and Dante has been writing a little bit about his partner– we’re kind of exploring it all.
You guys have some big things in motion for this year already, the album, but even the upcoming tour with Koyo and One Step Closer— do you have any expectations? Or what are you most looking forward to from this experience?
Grady: I’m super stoked on this tour that we’re about to do. It’s going to a bunch of places that we’ve never gone to, or I feel like other bands never go to, so that’s really cool. The cool thing about doing a tour and hitting a bunch of spots that others don’t really go to, those shows often being the coolest because kids are so stoked that we’re there. It’s also really cool–Koyo and One Step Closer, those are truly our closest friends that we’ve made through music.
It seems like you guys are on a path where a lot of young musicians hope to follow suit. What is some advice to bands who are starting out and wanting to get involved in the scene in a similar way to Anxious/you guys?
Grady: It’s funny, we get asked this more consistently now, but it’s hard because Anxious comes from the hardcore world, which has a heavy emphasis on DIY, and supporting local bands in a way that genres like hardcore touches like pop-punk or something don’t have. So I think in a way that we are hardcore kids and come from that world of putting on shows ourselves and going to shows, I think that gave us a lot that bands that sound like us but aren’t from that world don’t have. It’s just different. So, I guess a universal thing is just to be involved. Go to shows, make zines, make friends, put on your own shows, it doesn’t matter if it sucks– being a band or doing anything in the space is a losing money ordeal. Like I hear some kids talk about ‘what if we lose money or something,’ and that’s just part of it.
Allie: And should that be the point? That you shouldn’t be in it for the money?
Grady: Exactly. That’s just part of it. Align yourself with like-minded people, have something to say, you know hardcore and alternative music, I think kids get attracted because of the energy, but there’s a lot more substance to it than that. Use it as a means to express yourself and be receptive to what people have to say, and you’ll arrive at the point you want to be at.
Any final words or something to say to viewers/readers?!
Grady: Much love to Rambler Magazine and Allie for having us, shoutout Rambler, shoutout Connecticut hardcore, shoutout 405, and much love to anyone that rocks with the Anxious squadron.
Talking with Grady only affirmed the personal reach that Anxious denotes to listeners through their music—it’s only a genuine and an honest reflection of the musicians as people. With noteworthy things in store for the rest of this year, stream Anxious on all platforms as a preface for what’s to come. Stay tuned.
Written by: Allie Payne (@alliepaynex_)
Published on: March 7th, 2024