Why Against The Current Is Headed Straight To The Top
Against The Current has completely dominated the pop-rock music scene ever since they first started posting covers of hit songs on YouTube back in 2011.
The trio, consisting of lead vocalist Chrissy Costanza, guitarist Dan Gow and drummer Will Ferri, have a long list of notable attributes including 1.5 million YouTube subscribers, a summer on Warped Tour, and a new album, In Our Bones, which entered Billboard’s Top New Artists chart at #2 and hit #2 on iTunes Top Alternative Albums chart. With their energetic sound, sincere passion for music and all around charming personalities, these three are only headed up from here and I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll be blasting their album on repeat.
As the band prepares to embark on the US leg of their worldwide headlining tour, I caught up with them to talk about the weirdest places they’ve ever written a song, their craziest memories from Warped Tour, and the best parts about being in a band of mixed genders.
K: Why did you choose to title the album “In Our Bones”?
C: We went through a couple of different album names actually before we came up with In Our Bones, and once we called it In Our Bones and even before anyone was like you know “What does it mean?” we kind of all had this feeling that yeah this makes sense, we know it makes sense and the reason it makes sense is because doing music and traveling and this persistence that we all have and this passion and drive that we all have for what we do and this love that we have for what we do is kind of something that we felt is so deeply engrained in us that it’s literally in our bones instead of something that we just picked up along the way, it’s just always been a part of us.
K: Where did the inspiration for the songs on the album come from? Is there a specific message that you want people to take away from this album?
W: There’s definitely a lot of underlying ideas but overall it’s just kind of about, I don’t know I just feel like everyone has something that their meant to do in life. They may find it later on in life or early on in life, but for us we connected with music instantly at a super young age and knew it was exactly what we wanted to do. So we wrote a lot about that and about chasing any dream that you have or passion that you have relentlessly and the obstacles that come along with that. We just want to inspire people to do whatever they do, whatever makes them them, whatever they love.
K: Do you think that being in a band of mixed genders gives you an advantage on writing music? Does it help you to see things from the perspective of the opposite sex when you’re writing about certain situations?
D: For sure, there’s different sides to every story.
C: For me personally, it keeps me kind of grounded lyrically. From never writing like boy bashers, which it’s not like boy bashers are an issue, I definitely listen to them and scream them because I’m like “Yeah! Boys suck!” but it’s not our type of band. Knowing that the song has to represent 3 people and two of them being boys kind of keeps everything in check. It’s like ok how can I say the same thing but be it that everyone can understand that message.
W: Yeah I think with music any little thing like that definitely helps in the long run. Any difference, any like variety that you can throw into the mix always helps it’s like a nice different outlook or approach or little something that you can add to make it more special.
K: What’s the weirdest place you’ve ever written a song?
D: We don’t really write too much out of the studio…
C: Oh no! One of the first writing sessions that we ever did, before Gravity, we wrote it above an antique shop. It was a weird spot in the middle of no where in New Jersey and I’m from New Jersey and I had no idea where this was.
W: It was in the attic of an antique shop so you walk through this piles of old stuff and up this little staircase.
C: Yeah it was definitely super odd.
W: I mean our producer, we did most of the writing at his home, he has a cool little garage studio so sometimes if we got burnt out at night we’d have like a little fire and sit around a play a voice memo. That’s actually how we wrote Runaway I think, we were struggling with something in that song and he was like “Let’s just have a fire.” We love that kind of stuff though, hopefully we can do weirder, weirder stuff. Get out in nature, write some stuff in nature.
K: You spent your entire summer on Warped Tour where you got to travel with a lot of different artists. Was there any artist that you met on the tour that left a big impression on you or gave you musical inspiration?
D: Yeah I mean the Good Charlotte guys are always really good to us, we grew up listening to them, Yellowcard was awesome, we did an acoustic video with them and like Ryan Key and Sean were very nice.
W: It was funny to wake up from my bunk at like 2 in the morning to go to the bathroom and Ryan Key is like up there losing his mind over FIFA or something and I was like “This is weird but cool!”
D: Yeah Ryan Key is a lot of fun. It was just crazy because we’ve been going to that tour since we were kids and being on it now and making friends with all these bands and playing all these cities was a really cool experience for us.
K: What is the craziest memory that you have from Warped Tour?
W: We have bad memories.. * laughs *
D: The barbecues were fun. I just remember the first show of the tour or something everything was going wrong onstage and then all of a sudden this huge gust of wind came in and all of our stuff in the back just started blowing and it was the day they were filming the live video for it.
W: Yeah it was super early on and then our backdrop thing fell over and it was just like icing on the cake.
D: We were just like today is not our day!
K: What about a memorable fan interaction?
D: There are a lot of good ones, especially I love seeing the art they make. That’s always really cool.
W: Warped tour is very diverse though, all over the country in every little town.
C: This one is kind of an endearing one. We did a workshop all summer and this one day we had this girl in the workshop, I think we were in Georgia, and she was like 14 years old and she just sat down and she spent the entire workshop basically telling us her life story and like never came up for air. So I was like I wonder if at any point she’s going to be like so what we are we doing here today? And then we just never did the workshop! And her friend was there just like uh, and we were like it’s cool just let her go.
W: We also had the kid that was a farmer, and like he named cows after us! And it was awesome, it was really cool. But it was just like so simple and he was like “I named a cow after you!” and I was like “What?! How is he doing?”
C: Also, in Kansas, there was a guy during our set who sat in the middle, he like brought a lawn chair. Remember the lawn chair and the umbrella? It was completely in the sun, it was in the amphitheater but there was no overhead so he was sitting in the second row, there was no seats (in the theater), so he just brought a lawn chair and plopped down in the middle of the second row and everyone was around him.
K: You’ve headlined in a lot of different countries and are now about to kick off the US leg of your tour. Is there any place that you haven’t been but would like to tour?
D: I think we really want to South America, Russia, Australia.
C: New Zealand, Antarctica.. I want to go to South Africa because I want to hang out with lions!
W: I’d love to do a holiday benefit up at the North Pole for all of the elves..
K: If you had to move to any of the cities that you’ve travelled to, what would it be and why?
C: Either Tokyo or Dublin. I would have to learn Japanese first before I go to Tokyo because they don’t really cater to English speaking. But I just love Tokyo and I love Dublin. I went to Dublin before I was even in the band and I fell in love with it from the first minute I was there. I just love the energy of it and the feeling of the city. Great sushi there too!
D: Nashville, probably.
W: Yeah Nashville or Denver.
D: Dublin is cool, Amsterdam is cool.
C: Switzerland is awesome if you have a billion dollars! It’s so expensive. But everyone there is rich and good looking. I’m not kidding! You think it’s a joke but you walk down the street in Switzerland and everyone was good looking. But everything is awesome there.
K: Do you collect any type of memorabilia on tour to remember some of the places that you’ve been?
C: I keep everything, I’m such a pack rat. I have so much art, I have our kimonos.
D: Yeah we keep the fan art. Sometimes promoters in certain countries will give us gifts and those are always really cool. Sometimes the label in the other countries will give us gifts, like local gifts.
C: I have like a thing on my dresser that someone in Japan gave me and its from a Japanese temple and you’re not supposed to open it but its supposed to protect you so I have it on my dresser.
D: I like to keep show posters.
W: I have a clan of rubber ducks on my desk from all different places. I have like two German ones, there’s a British one. I have a big one. I threw out shoes in my suitcase (to get it home). And they knit like a mini hat for it and glasses.
K: Describe each other by a song title.
W: Jersey girl!
D: Yeah, Jersey Girl for her.
W: Is there a goofy 80’s song called Super Freak? (for Dan.)
D: Piano man. (for Will)
C: Yeah!
K: Lastly, you guys have covered a lot of different artists on YouTube. Who is someone that you would love to see cover one of your songs?
D: I’d like to see Nickleback cover Chasing Ghosts.
W: Sounds like you’ve thought about that one before. You had a song ready!
D: I’d like to see it. Maybe I’ll start harassing him daily on twitter until he does it. Get a chorus out of him!
C: I’d like to see Michael Bublé cover one of our songs. Maybe Runaway? But like in a Michael Bublé way.
W: Can they be living or dead? Freddie Mercury, Wild Things.
Catch Against The Current on tour.
AGAINST THE CURRENT
“IN OUR BONES” TOUR DATES
NOVEMBER
17 Boston, MA Middle East
18 Montreal, QC L’Astral
19 Toronto, ON Opera House
20 Albany, NY The Hollow
22 Baltimore, MD Baltimore Soundstage
25 Charlotte, NC The Underground
26 Orlando, FL Social
27 Atlanta, GA The Masquerade
29 Houston, TX House of Blues – Bronze Peacock
30 Dallas, TX House of Blues – Cambridge Room
DECEMBER
2 Scottsdale, AZ Pub Rock
3 San Diego, CA SOMA
4 Los Angeles, CA The Roxy
5 Sacramento, CA The Boardwalk
7 Vancouver, BC The Rio Theatre
8 Seattle, WA Crocodile Café
10 Salt Lake City, UT In The Venue
11 Denver, CO Marquis Theatre
13 Minneapolis, MN Triple Rock
14 Chicago, IL Bottom Lounge
15 Cleveland, OH Grog Shop
16 Detroit, MI Shelter
JANUARY
13 New York, NY Irving Plaza
14 Philadelphia, PA Foundry @ Fillmore
Photos By Keri Dolan
More on Against The Current:
https://www.facebook.com/againstthecurrentband
