Interview: Broadwing
Rising from their original DIY acoustic emo indie rock scene in New England to a newly heightened blend of alt rock genres, you can still hear the roots of their past musical endeavors but with a strong combination of modern influences.
Portland Maine based alternative two piece Broadwing brings nostalgic pop-punk sing along lyrics and stage energy to a modern sound and audience. With a rock foundation of guitar and drum set and samples, beats, and synths Broadwing brings sounds of emo trap, hyperpop, hip hop, dark pop and metal to emo music.
Smashing guitars, stage dives, skateboards, and sing a long simple lyrics brings high energy performances at Broadwing shows and music videos.
What led to you becoming a band?
Gage and Dave both started playing percussion in their school programs in the 3rd grade and went through all the school bands growing up. In highschool the two met and founded a hardcore band with some others which led to some small east coast touring and active playing in the metal scene around New England throughout highschool and college.
Gage left highschool and joined the Marine band as a career while Dave went to college for music production and performance in percussion to pursue a career as an audio engineer.
Both of us have always used music as a way to vent and communicate in a way we couldn’t with typical conversation growing up so it became an obsession, something we wanted to do all the time.
What inspires your music?
Stories, life, challenges, and good times. LIke many artists we write what we know and life has been pretty wild full of super ups and super downs for both of us for a while now so we always take time to highlight the darkness and the light we find along the way.
We like risk and are really dumb so we tend to say yes to a lot and do things that we’ve never done constantly which makes for a lot of new experiences and places to write about and it’s always interesting. Extremes between partying and hyper people orientated time and super isolation away from everyone in nature.
With recent writing going through our late 20’s and heading into 30 it’s been a lot of hints of nostalgia talking about happier and simpler times for us, big life changes, and isolation in COVID lock down times.
Who are some of your influences?
HUGE mix that makes us up.
Old rock blasting from our dads garages and trucks as kids, classical / jazz from traditional music schooling for Dave and Gage from the Marine band, and metal, hardcore and punk from growing up playing in those scenes in New England since we were in Highschool. Over the past 4 - 6 years big big influence from emo trap, hip hop, and pop in general, love that new take on the same topics and vibes we have always been about.
There would be too many individual influential artists to mention by name but if you ran into us somewhere you would definitely hear a lot of different sounds coming from our cars and playlists depending on what we are up to or where we are at.
What are some of your favorite memories from your career?
Since Broadwing has been around we have had amazing memories making our early music video at a house show in NH with friends throwing a couch into the street, and our recent ones with new friends in Maine after we moved here have been fun too. Shooting scenes across the city of Portland, renting out a warehouse and a skate park to do some truly crazy things. Our EP release show for our first demo “Nomad” in NH when the venue was full was a killer day too.
In the past Dave also got 7 stitches in his head playing a house show on the 4th of July hitting himself with a mic stand which we are still pretty proud of and we have had a lot of fun memories breaking down in other states in crappy vehicles and drinking in parking lots. Doesn’t sound like fun and wasn’t at the time but definitely a happy memory looking back at all the friends along the way who have supported us being weird.
What have been some of the greatest challenges of your career?
Some of the biggest challenges have come both in band changes and in life changes while having a band.
We have gone through 3 members in 3 years as a two or three piece so that’s felt like a lot because we are always a small outfit. It’s been a lot to keep balancing the sound and keeping it consistent in that time to stay true to what we are trying to create but keep the train moving with the right people.
LIke many we weren’t super pumped with COVID. As artists we found it to be one of the greater challenges not being able to play out or create in the ways we have since we were kids and communicate through our music the way we desperately need for our own mental health. Bad living situations, job loss, battles with alcohol abuse and isolation, and big relationship issues name a few challenges we’ve had come our way between the two of us but overall we are doing well now in spite of it and have grown immensely so we are in good spirits now and ready to kick some ass.
Which of your songs/eps or albums is your favorite? Why is it your favorite?
Currently we are 100% about our latest singles “I DNT WNT 2 B ANYONE” and planned fall release of “This Year.” with others on the way.
We recently removed most of our old catalog with these new releases because we feel like we finally found our sound and our set up. In the past the band has been a 3 piece and had a much bigger Indie centric footprint but recently we doubled down on our pop punk / metal roots and brought in the modern production we love to make a sound that feels like home finally as two piece band of old friends.
These are our favorites because they finally feel like we found us.
Who are some of the collaborators who helped you create your favorite work?
We have had the biggest team we’ve had so far on these recent releases and couldn’t be more excited to have them on our side for what’s next and grateful for their help.
On these recent singles we worked with producer / audio engineer Duncan Cook ( Desmo ) out of Portland, Maine to help us on our pre-production time clarifying the songs we came up with when Gage first came onboard and we were writing again starting from scratch.
We both used to play hardcore shows with Duncan about 8 years ago and kept up with his work so we knew when we were looking for help on modernizing our sound he was the one to work with on these. Duncan recorded, mixed, and produced our recent singles and Dave as an engineer and producer himself worked on a lot of the sounds and arrangements in tandem. Gage as a new / old collaborator and old friend of Dave joined with force by writing substantial acoustic parts and base chord arrangements in the songs while featuring his performance on drums.
Mastering was done by Ted Whitten Mastering who got us a big, wide, and lively sound.
https://tedwhittenmastering.com/
PR was Zach Zyla of 8 Arm Records
https://www.zachzylaaudio.com/
New Logo / Merch Design: Cody Weimar
New Merch support from Simon Pellet of Skinny Armadillo Printing in Forth Worth, TX
What are you most excited to bring to your fans in the next year?
We are stoked and full of energy right now to be on the move. Our single “I DNT WNT 2 B ANYONE” with its release and music video was a foot in the door to say “Hey we are still here, our sound is different, and we are on the move again.” with a new website, new merch, and a lot of momentum we are pumped on what’s ahead.
This fall we will be releasing our next single “This Year.” speaking to the feeling of seeing friends again after hard and sad isolation during COVID lockdowns and self destructive behavior with another music video that we rented out a skatepark to have skaters doing tricks behind us.
Fans can expect new music coming throughout the year with some tour dates on the way for the following year both around home in New England states and out. We have some surprises too.
What are your goals for this upcoming year?
Write, write, write and get out. We are reforming our set list and have a new line up so we are really focused on getting a set we feel represents us now and quite frankly being able to play it the way we expect to live. Our sound is formed from a lot of complex textures and as a two piece we have been spending a lot of practice time on just logistics of our live show.
Our goals are to keep new music on the way consistently, play those songs with the same tenacity that OG fans of ours like from the hardcore / punk shows of our past in a our new settings with this sound, and get out to play in new places and make new friends.
How can your fans best support you right now?
A great and free way to support us would be by just adding our singles to your playlists so they come around on your speaker, sharing the music videos you like, and spreading the word!
https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/broadwing/i-dnt-wnt-2-b-anyone
If you’d like to rep us and help us fund more studio time and tour prep we would love you forever if you went to our website and bought some merch from us. We have limited release items with every single that go away for good after and the biggest selection of stuff we’ve ever had on there so you won’t be stuck with the same thing you have a million of and it’s all made from by a local business we are friends with down in TX instead of a corporation somewhere.
Broadwing’s Links: