Best of 2014

It's that time of year again where we get to look back at our favourite albums and EPs of the year, and let's be honest here, there's been a few good ones. From the return of New Found Glory and Four Year Strong, to Real Friends' first full length, pop punk definitely proved it wasn't dead (it even had it's own UK tour). Here's a list of things that we've loved in 2014 (in no particular order) and we'll see you guys in the new year...

   

Albums

Candy Hearts - All The Ways You Let Me Down

Forever Came Calling - What Matters Most

Handguns - Life Lessons

 Major League - There's Nothing Wrong With Me

Me vs Hero - I'm Completely Fine

Moose Blood - I'll Keep You In Mind, From Time To Time

 New Found Glory - Resurrection

Real Friends - Maybe This Place Is The Same And We're Just Changing

Rust Belt Lights - Religion and My Ex

Transit - Joyride

Neck Deep - Wishful Thinking 

Fireworks - Oh, Common Life

Trophy Eyes - Mend, Move On

Yellowcard - Lift a Sail

Gnarwolves 

EPs

The Story So Far - Songs Of

Knuckle Puck - While I Stay Secluded

Four Year Strong - Go Down In History

Seaway - All In My Head 

Homebound - Coming Of Age

 Boston Manor - Driftwood

Six Time Champion - Expecting Honesty

Trash Boat - Look Alive 

Nathan Detroit - Peace Of Mind

State Champs - The Acoustic Things

Thank you to everyone who has supported us in 2014 and we hope you all have a Happy New Year!

Candy Hearts Interview

Roughly two and a half weeks ago, Candy Hearts commenced on their first ever run of the UK joining Only Rivals, State Champs, The Story So Far and New Found Glory on the Pop Punk's Not Dead Tour. The band recently released their second record 'All The Ways You Let Me Down' which was produced by New Found Glory's very own Chad Gilbert. We sat down with vocalist/ guitarist Mariel Loveland to talk about her time in the UK, the new album and being one of the only girls on tour...

PPUK: HOW'S THE POP PUNK'S NOT DEAD TOUR BEEN GOING SO FAR?
Mariel: The tour's been really great. It's really exciting to see people from a different country singing our songs and liking our band, it's really cool.

PPUK: IS THIS YOUR FIRST TIME IN THE UK?
Mariel: Yeah.

PPUK: HOW HAVE YOU BEEN FINDING IT?
Mariel: It's been great. I'm really glad it's not too different from America. There are still things that are familiar and a lot of cities remind me of New England.  

PPUK: ARE THERE ANY WEIRD DIFFERENCES THAT YOU'VE NOTICED BETWEEN THE UK AND THE US?
Mariel: There are! There's one thing I've noticed that is really different that I was surprised by. I really love cheese fries so I ordered them and they we're like 'what are you talking about?' so I said 'can I have chips and cheese' and they gave me french fries with shredded cheese melted on it. In America we melt it on instead of letting the hot chips melt it. We melt it on already we just put it in the microwave or put nacho cheese over them. And also, I noticed that your Chinese food in Ireland comes with french fries instead of rice. Ours never comes with french fries. You just never get Chinese food with french fries.

PPUK: WHAT DID YOU MAKE OF YOUR TIME IN IRELAND, WAS IT NICE?  
Mariel: Yeah, it's really pretty, it seems very similar to here.

PPUK: HOW HAVE PEOPLE BEEN REACTING TO ALL THE WAYS YOU LET ME DOWN ON THE TOUR?
Mariel: People have been really awesome about it, there are those original fans that we've had for years and then there are always those people who are always like 'Oh they're a little bit pop in this record', but we went in a new direction we wanted to go and the reception has been really incredible.   

PPUK: WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE SONG FROM ALL THE WAYS YOU LET ME DOWN?   
Mariel: My favourite song I think is Something's Missing. It was a song that I've written for our EP actually and it just didn't feel right for the EP and we reworked it and put it on our record. It's like a slow song and Jordan from New Found Glory sings on it.

PPUK: WHAT'S IT LIKE SHARING A TOUR BUS? ARE YOU SHARING WITH THE STORY SO FAR AND STATE CHAMPS?
Mariel: Actually, two of us are with The Story So Far and State Champs ad two of us are with New Found Glory. They were all kind enough to let us ride with them because we couldn't afford to do it otherwise. It's been really fun! It's like summer camp, I never really went to summer camp, but like you all lay in bed and gossip about girly things. I guess for some reason we bring out that girliness (laughs). I don't know, we just gossip and watch movies. I don't know what it's like for the boys though. There's like a full boy bus, there are no girls on that bus.

PPUK: ABOUT THREE YEARS AGO YOU WROTE A PIECE ABOUT SEXISM IN THE PUNK/ ALTERNATIVE SCENE. DO YOU THINK ANYTHING HAS GOTTEN BETTER?
Mariel: I've noticed the more we stray away from the DIY scene that we where in when I wrote that, that actually the worse it is and I don't think it's because it's getting worse in general. I think that it's just worse in the mainstream than it is in like a smaller scene were everyone's just like friends and working together, you know? And like, [in] the big world it's really brutal and really disappointing and annoying.  

PPUK: HAS ANYTHING HAPPENED ON THIS TOUR THAT YOU WEREN'T COOL WITH?
Mariel: Umm, not really. Every once in a while someone will make a comment that bums me out but they don't mean anything by it. It's just like, you know, you're making that comment but you don't know what it feels like to be a different person than everybody else on the tour. You come here, you're a white man and you're like everybody else here and I come here and I'm different and people can sometimes treat me weird. You know, there's always something where people have like, they don't know how to live with a girl. Everybody's like a man with a girlfriend, a wife or something and it's like you know finding out how to live with a girl and be nice to them. It's just a little strange. 

PPUK: NOW THAT A LOT OF CELEBRITIES AND PEOPLE IN THE MEDIA ARE COMING OUT AS FEMINISTS AND REMINDING US ABOUT GENDER EQUALITY, DO YOU THINK THE ISSUE OF SEXISM WILL GET BETTER?
Mariel: I do, it was similar in the 90s. A lot of punk bands and actors and famous people were talking about feminism. The Spice Girls were the biggest example. They were all about girl power and that really inspired me when I was a child and I think now it's the same thing. The 90s are coming back and I think there are a lot of people who are kind of realising  that not that much has changed since then. Things have changed but not as much as they should have and I think a lot of people are noticing it and really working towards that.

PPUK: HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU LEARNT TO PLAY THE GUITAR AND SING?
Mariel: I was between 15 and 16 years old when I started playing guitar but I started writing songs before I knew how. I was in a band with my friends and they wouldn't let me play guitar and it was when I'd just picked it up, and no one really knew how. We were just pretending we knew how to play instruments and kind of figuring it out. I was the only one who actually learnt how to play.

PPUK: DO BANDS HAVE THEIR OWN MUSIC ON THEIR IPODS OR PHONES ?
Mariel: I do because sometimes I nervously listen to it like 'is this still good?', 'do I still like this or do we suck?', you know?. So yeah especially when we first get it in and it's our record for the first time. I want to test it in a few ways to make sure that it's the record I wanted to make. I listen to it when I'm driving or on the subway to make sure it's the kind of record I thought it would be.

PPUK: SO YOU HAVE ANY FUNNY, EMBARRASSING OR WEIRD TOUR STORIES?  
Mariel: We're a very quiet band, nothing really too crazy happens. There was something where we accidently left somebody behind when we took the ferry we had to go back and get them. Just from Ireland to here. That was pretty funny, not for who we left behind.

All The Ways You Let Me Down is out now. Get it here.  
             


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Candy Hearts Stream New Album

Candy Heart's new album is streaming over on Alternative Press. All the Ways You Let Me Down is officially released June 10th but you can listen to the album early here. 

State Champs Join the Pop Punk's Not Dead Tour

State Champs will be joining New Found Glory, Candy Hearts, The Story So Far and Only Rivals on the Pop Punk's Not Dead Tour this November. If you want to know what's in store for us this November, or learn some more about the Pop Punk's Not Dead Tour, click here.

The Dates for the PPND Tour are as follows: 
Sat 15th Nov: Birmingham Institute
Sun 16th Nov: Newcastle O2 Academy
Mon 17th:Glasgow O2 ABC
Tue 18th Nov: Nottingham Rock City
Thu 20th: Liverpool O2 Academy
Fri 21st: Manchester Academy
Sat 22nd: Leeds O2 Acadmey
Sun 23rd: Cardiff Uni
Tue 25th:Bristol O2 Academy
Wed 26th: Portsmouth Pyramids
Fri 28th: Londom Forum

Get your tickets here.

New Candy Hearts Song: 'I Miss You'

Candy Hearts are premiering a new song over on Alternative Press. Listen to it here. The song is from their full length album All the Ways You Let Me Down which comes out June 10th.

Acoustic Motion City Soundtrack Cover

Watch members from Real Friends, Candy Hearts, Modern Baseball and Stick Up Kid cover 'When You're Around' by Motion City Soundtrack...

Pop Punk's Not Dead Tour: What's in Store For Us?

After the news that the Pop Punk's Not Dead Tour is hitting the UK in November, we thought we'd look back to the 2011 run in the US to see what we have in store for us. After Chad Gilbert promised that they'd organise something for the UK two years ago, we're thinking it will definitely be worth the wait.

Pop Punk's Not Dead US Tour

The Pop Punk's Not Dead Tour was set up in the US to showcase bands within the pop punk genre that New Found Glory wanted to give more exposure to. The line up in 2011 consisted of Set Your Goals, This Time Next Year, Man Overboard and the Wonder Years and was, of course, headlined by New Found Glory. The band wanted to give younger bands the same recognition that they were given in the early part of their career when they were in the same position. Steve Klein (who's no longer part of the band) said of the tour in an interview with Absolute Punk: '“When we started out, Less Than Jake, Blink-182 and Green Day and bands like that took us on tour and they all helped us out. We’re just trying to pass it down. I feel with us, we’ve gone through all the crap you could go through as far as managers, labels, press people, whatever. We talk to the younger bands and try to give them advice on what is a good or bad way to go about things.”The US tour ran for nearly 2 months and played in 35 cities. 

Now, the tour's coming to the UK with probably the same objectives; to give more exposer to newer bands such as Candy Hearts (who Chad Gilbert works with closely) and Ireland's own Only Rivals. Check out the UK tour dates here. 

Watch Man Overboard's time on the PPND tour in 2011:

Pop Punk's Not Dead Tour Comes To UK

New Found Glory, The Story So Far, Candy Hearts and Only Rivals will be heading to the UK this November on the Pop Punk's Not Dead UK tour. More guests will be announced this May. Pre Sale tickets go on sale here. 

General Sale starts this Friday. 

Check out the dates below:

The Works of Steve Klein and Chad Gilbert...

You know when you listen to an album and it’s really great? Well, we've come to the conclusion that some of our favourite albums have one common factor; they were produced by the offspring of one pop punk’s greatest asset's, New Found Glory. Even though Steve Klein recently parted ways with NFG (full story here), we thought we'd bring together a compilation of albums produced by Gilbert and Klein. Both have worked with a number of bands including Set your Goals, Fireworks, The Story So Far and Man Overboard to name a few. Obviously, the producers are the aren't the only factor that make an album great, you have the band themselves which is a pretty big one too but nevertheless we thought we'd bring to you our favourite albums produced by Chad and Steve.

Chad Gilbert:

1. This Time Next Year - Drop Out of Life
Absolute Punk said of Drop Out of Life 'Enlisting Chad Gilbert’s services was a good move in two ways. First off, it gained some attention for this record...Secondly, Gilbert absolutely kills it in the studio'. Unfortunately, This Time Next Year parted ways in 2012 but for anyone who's listened to the album will know how incredibly underrated it is. The band said of Gilbert in an interview with Property of Zack: "He is a really talented guy, especially when it comes to our genre". Gilbert's influences can be heard throughout the album especially with stand out tracks 'Get it, Got it, Good' and 'My Side of Town' which accolades New Found Glory.   

2.Fireworks - All I Have to Offer is My Own Confusion 

All I Have to Offer is My Own Confusion (The title was taken from a quote by author Jack Kerouac) was recorded in 2008 and released the following year. Gilbert not only lends his production skills to the album but contributes to the backing vocals and plays additional guitar. Dave from Fireworks said of Chad: Well first of all,[AIHTOIMOC] was created with Chad Gilbert, and that was really cool because we’d never had a producer or anything like that before. It was something new to us and it was a cool, collaborative process working with Chad'. 

3.Set Your Goals - Only Right Now and I'll Walk it Off

Gilbert recently recorded two songs with Set Your Goals which were only released digitally. Gilbert also performs vocals on Set Your Goals's song Our Ethos from their album This Will Be the Death of Us. The band's next album which will be released in 2014 is also being produced by Gilbert. 

4. A Day to Remember - What Separates Me From You

If you want to see Chad Gilbert in the studio with A Day to Remember please click here. Homesick, ADTR's previous album was also produced by Gilbert. More recently, Gilbert has also produced A Day to Remember's latest release Common Courtesy. 

5.Candy Hearts - The Best Ways to Disappear

This EP was released on Gilbert's own record label Violently Happy/Bridge 9 Records. In an interview with Alter the Press, Gilbert stated that the first time he heard Candy Hearts was when his band mate Steve was listening to Tongue Tied. He had this to say about the band: "I think what I love about the band is that, I feel like the punk rock/emo scene is filled with singers that sound very similar. They go for that one sound. When I heard Mariel’s voice, I was like, “Finally a singer that doesn’t stick to this formula.” She’s got her own sound and a unique sound". Gilbert's aim in producing the EP was to get Candy Hearts closer to their 'potential' as a band, tour and be promoted to reach as many people as possible.

Steve Klein:

1. Man Overboard - Self Titled

Man Overboard delivered Klein with his first producing gig which resulted in their self titled record. In an interview with Property of Zack Klein explains how he swapped numbers with Zac and ended up going producing for them. In the interview he stated: "It just came together with Man Overboard; Zac and I started talking and then the band stayed at my house and we vibed on the ideas. I told them that I wanted to get into producing and it was cool that they gave me my first gig. I’m really excited about how it came out"  

2. The Story So Far - What You Don't See

The Band's name came from the track The Story So Far from New Found Glory's album Sticks and Stones so it was inevitable that the TSSF/ Steve Klein mix would work in everyone's favour. Kelen Cappener stated in an interview with Alternative Press: Yeah, he came in to see what we were working on and gave us some pointers without hurting our integrity or trying to take over the creative process. He’s just an extra set of ears on the outside so he can advise us in certain ways. He has experience we don’t have, so it’s a good element in the process, as far as developing these songs.

3.State Champs The Finer Things

Albany natives State Champs started work on The Finer Things in a practice room at home in New York. Eventually the album was recorded with Steve Klein and Sam Pura at the Panda Studios in Fremont California. Tyler Szalkowski commented: 

“Working with Steve Klein and Sam Pura was amazing because they both have so much experience under their belts, they helped us make the best record we could possibly make.”

Credit to Alternative Press, Property of Zack,Alter the Press and Absolute Punk.