![]() “We’re anticipating so much, it’s crazy,” admits Stern. The weeks leading up to the release of Voices had begun to cause almost too much anxiety for the band members to take. ![]() But on stage we’re always reminded of the connections that we have with our audiences, no matter where we are, and that we’ve come together for the same reason - because of music.” “The most amazing thing,” Stern continues, “is seeing the differences in the cultures from one country to the next. My parents haven’t gotten to some of the places where we’ve toured! On the other hand, it’s pretty cool traveling around and having an opportunity to see the world. The road can be nerve-wracking because you’re always moving and meeting tons of people, and so your mind seems to be always racing along, too. (Jordan, the oldest, will be 26 in November.) “Still, I’m careful to use some downtime to prepare myself for what’s going to happen next. “It’s a grueling way to live, but I’m young, so it’s easy for me right now,” says Stern, at 22 the band’s junior member. It’s the “work hard, play hard” ethos of today’s young rock pros, a caffeine-fueled lifestyle that understands that success and sincerity are entwined. They all reunited in Colorado for a music-industry conference and a gig at a private party, followed by some snowboarding. DePaolo flew to Florida, Kienle and Stern wound up at their favorite tattoo parlor in Dallas, and Jordan took care of business in Los Angeles. (The band performs at the Chance on April 18.)īut after a few weeks of home cooking, the rhythm of the road beckoned. tour that only the road-warrior caste of rock-and-rollers would want to attempt: 45 shows in seven weeks, starting in Washington, D.C., heading out to California, then returning east to finish up in Worcester, Massachusetts, on April 25. After a big promotional concert on Long Island and a few weeks of serious rehearsal, the group was primed to embark on a U.S. Their second full-length CD, Voices, was released on Valentine’s Day. “So we’re really excited to play these songs.With several free weeks scheduled around the winter holidays, the idea was for the Matchbookers to spend time with family and friends before resuming the exhaustive pace of traveling and performing. ![]() “We want people to really be stoked … experience the highs and lows of all of the songs.” But we really want to keep a good mixture of some of the old stuff mixed in with a lot of the new songs.” “So we’re practicing really hard to get these songs down as tight as they can possibly be. “We are the kind of band that might sound better live than we do on CD,” Stern says. That was the most important part because we didn’t want to write an album that we just hated before it even came out.”Īnd the material from Voices makes up a large chunk of the set Matchbook Romance tours this spring. I was definitely worried.īut first and foremost we wanted to write songs that did inspire us. “We should explore this new song, but we’ve got to have a certain element that will have our old fans listening and enjoying it while gaining a whole bunch of new fans. “I was really trying to anchor down the band,” he says. “I was really worried because I was like man, this is nothing like our old stuff.” In fact, Stern says he was the band member most concerned about whether the new songs would alienate fans of Stories & Alibis. “A lot of his stuff was a lot slower, so there was a period of time where we were all worried,” Stern says. ![]() Stern says at first he and his other bandmates, guitarist Ryan DePaolo and bassist Ryan Kienle, greeted the shift in musical direction with some uncertainty. The shift in musical direction first surfaced in songs singer-guitarist Andrew Jordan brought to the band while on tour behind Stories & Alibis. The more measured and spacious sound of that opening track carries through much of Voices, as songs like “Goody, Like Two Shoes” and “Say It Like You Mean it” all explore slower, more atmospheric terrain - while also featuring far more intricate arrangements and richer melodies. The song more readily conjures thoughts of Radiohead than an emo/screamo act like Dashboard Confessional. The first song, “You Can Run, But We’ll Find You,” opens with the gentle tones of a piano before building into a tense mid-tempo anthem. Where Stories & Alibis stuck mainly to hard-charging songs, Voices immediately sets a different tone. “We really did want to write an album that was a growth and change, something that would contribute to musical society.”
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