Seattle pop punk trio Dude York recently announced their new album 'Falling' is due

 July 26th via Hardly Art. Today the band are sharing new single & video "Box". 

Vocalist Peter Richards says the song is about adolescent disappointment and the emotional solipsism that can follow.

 

Of the video, Richards says the band "reached out to friends in the Seattle arts community and [dancer] Samie Detzer, [choreographer]

Alice Ghosti, [director] Jared Caldwell, and the

Washington Ensemble Theater answered with

resounding support."

“There are two ways things can fall,” says Dude York’s Claire England. “They can fall and be ruined, or they can fall gently like a feather and be fine.”

 

On ‘Falling’, their second full-length for Hardly Art, the trio explores that sentiment—evoked by the broken cake on the album cover and the soft confetti on the inside sleeve—through

impossibly catchy and emotive songs that investigate the ways you can fall in and out

of relationships, and sometimes fall back together. 

Recorded at Different Fur Studios in San Francisco with producer Patrick Brown, Falling finds Dude York sounding bigger and more fully-realised than ever with hits that would feel perfectly

at home sandwiched between Jimmy Eat World and Third Eye Blind in early 2000s alt-rock

radio rotation, while somehow still sounding utterly their own. Peter Richards (guitar) and England (bass) share equal songwriting and lead vocal duties on this record, a significant

change from their previous album, 2017’s Sincerely, on which England fronted only two

songs.

 

The duality of their songwriting and vocals compliment each other emotionally and sonically, with Andrew Hall’s harmonies and driving drums providing their own unique character in each song. The collaboration is clear—each part is carefully crafted, with Richards’ guitar adding texture to the verses and then soaring into the particularly special kind of guitar solos that make you want

to sing along.

​

A line of nostalgia runs through the record as the songs investigate the deep ties we have to the pop culture that defined our youth.

 

England says:

 

“I grew up listening to all this pop-punk and alt-rock that was mostly male-fronted, but I want to fill that hole I saw by recreating it now for myself.

I’m trying to capture the feeling of the music I listened to when I fell in

love with music.”

​

The title track is a gleeful ode to new, unexpected love where all the details matter. “We used to like all the same shit/do you think we’d be friends in 2006?” England sings.

The track is pure pop gold, with equal parts sweet sentiment and Josie and the Pussycats-soundtrack playfulness. 

 

“I was starting to think/That it would be/When  passion lined up with practicality,” England muses on those pesky expectations of love, gleaned from radio

songs and rom-coms. “But I secretly hoped when it happened to me there

would be no doubt/It would feel like falling.”

​

Falling is tinged with a sense of longing—whether it’s for the beginnings of a relationship, for the way you thought it was going to be, or simply for the version of a former self you think you remember being. “I feel like a lot of the songs that were reference points consciously or unconsciously for this record dealt with everything

very much in black and white, and that really resonates with you

when you’re 14,15,16, 17...” explains Hall. “I think people who have

nostalgia for those songs are exploring that grey area a little

bit more.”

​

The delightfully melodramatic “Box” sounds like a lost gem from the NYC early aughts post-punk revival, with Richards’ deep, emotive voice singing playful nods to The Killers and

Dashboard Confessional while sneaking in lines of a fallout that cut deep—

“Now on your own/There’s no one left for you to hide from

behind your phone”—before soaring into the Cure-like chorus 

“I’ll never love again.”

​

The production on Falling is full of meticulous details and sonic tricks designed to hit that deep teenage place in your heart, whether it’s the dense, chugging guitars or impeccably-placed harmonies. 

 

“We all have very different reference points for music and then when we swap them in becomes something totally different,” says Richards. He didn’t

grow up as attached to the radio-friendly emo music that defined the adolescence of the rest

of the band, but when he got into the genre in the past few years decided he wanted to

embrace it in his songwriting, which comes across in the heavy guitars and dramatic

arrangements that shine on songs like “How it Goes.”

​

Ultimately, the relationship Dude York is really investigating and playing around with is their relationship to music. By playing with tropes of romantic relationships, Dude York created

a record that feels like a love letter to the alternative radio of yesteryear while managing

to stay uniquely singular.

​

TOUR DATES

01.10.19 - Kansas City, MO - Riot Room *
03.10.19 - Denver, CO - Globe Hall *
04.10.19 - Salt Lake City, UT - State Room *
05.10.19 - Boise, ID - The Olympic *
07.10.19 - Seattle, WA - The Crocodile *
08.10.19 - Vancouver, BC - The Biltmore Cabaret *
09.10.19 - Portland, OR - Star Theater *
11.10.19 - Oakland, CA - The New Parish *
12.10.19 - Los Angeles, CA - Lodge Room *
* - w/ Bleached

​

B I Z Z A R R E

​

​

.

​

​

​

​