EVERYMEN ALBUM RELEASE
Everymen
Fame, fortune, and a private jet. The goals of many rock and roll bands include a life of celebrity and excess. Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way and for some groups, that’s just fine for them. Case in point, Lake Worth’s Everymen.
The folk-punk outfit are a staple of South Florida’s music scene and perhaps some of the most humble, down to earth musicians to grace the stages of venues such as Culture Room, Propaganda, and Respectables. We spoke to frontman and lead singer, Sergio Witis, better known by his alias, Captain Bobo, about the formation of the new LP. We start by talking about the title and the concept of May Your Ashes Have Stories, a project Witis describes as being “cohesive” and clearly an album that found the group settling down for a minute and trying their hand at taking this whole music making thing seriously.
Still from tour promo video by Strange Wave Productions. Watch it below!
“It’s literally the first record we sat to write to make a record. Usually we just play for fun on stage, and we’ve been touring a lot, and I never have time to sit and write. We took time off from touring and everyone is just trying to get their lives together. I’ve been touring for like 5 or 6 years straight. Everybody was really struggling with work and school and everyone wanted to do something else; obviously the band’s not going to pay our way through life (laughs). The whole record is about the inner struggles we have. The itty, bitty, shitty committees we have in our head that tell us like, ‘oh, it’s okay to do this,’ justifying certain actions, whether they’re good or bad.”
An early listen to the record reveals precisely what he means. The lead track, and possible lead single, “Shake Your Bones,” is a bouncy, bar rattling jam that includes the line, “kill your demons and give them hell!” It’s a sort of rollicking, carnival punk that sounds like Gogol Bordello fronted by a young Tom Waits. “It’s about the insanity that goes on in my head,” he continues. He goes on to explain how the record resulted after taking a look at not his own past struggles, but of the band’s as a whole. Between past drug addiction and tragedy befalling one of their own, Witis and Everymen have plenty of experience to draw upon. And yet, for anyone that’s ever been to one of their shows is aware of how exuberant and high energy those sets can be, with the band more often than not, winding up in the pit with the crowd surrounded by the pool noodles they themselves tossed into it. After listening to May Your Ashes Have Stories to Tell, which features a freshly recorded version of “Waking Up Hurts,” it seems that they finally have the record to accompany their live show that they have always deserved.
On April 22 at 8pm, Respectable Street will host Everymen’s record release party with Howling Winds, Out of Sorts, Whiskey Walls, Menudo Death Squad and more.
~ Angel Melendez
