by Sebastian Mackay
It takes a lot of balls and an equal amount of grit to fund one of the most bad-ass independent EPs to be released in 2013 and then give it away for free. But for Anchors to Anchors, the pop punk easycore fusion, it’s more about world domination than becoming millionaires. After all, they’re fans of The Wonder Years, A Day To Remember, and Chunk No Captain Chunk- bands built off the pop punk ethos of fun, heartfelt lyrics, and channeling a serious amount of ass-kickery.
Anchors to Anchors were formed in Ebensburg Pennsylvania “basically the middle of nowhere” says vocalist Brandon Esquivel II. And breaking out of the middle of nowhere, generating noise and a following can be the hardest first steps. But giving away their debut EP Clubhouse Cancer has worked out in their favor.
“We care more about getting our name spread around and generating a fan base than making money off of our EP.” says Esquivel on their decision to implement Bandcamp’s pay what you want system. “I’m not interested in charging someone for checking us out, we feel grateful for everyone who takes the time to do that.”
Esquivel says recording was “a blast” and with help from Jon Kraft (formerly of Last In Line) and the rest of the band dropping in during the recording process they built on their songs with gang vocals and guest appearances.
“Jon…told us to come out to Harrisburg and as soon as we were happy with the five songs we made the trip. Recording took four to five weekends…We had a great time recording and can’t wait to go back again.”
Good news for their fans because Esquivel and the band are talking about hitting the studio again next year. “It may be a new EP, it may be a select couple of songs, maybe even some acoustic stuff.”
On top of that, they’re booking tours all over the place and are working at getting into Philly as soon as possible. “We’re going to start booking up the next couple of months and we’re also looking at our options for a spring break tour down the East Coast. Next summer we have plans to do a larger tour that we’re really excited about.”
It’s not all the roses for independent bands and Anchors to Anchors are fronting it without a label, management or booking agent. But you’d be a fool to think it was keeping them back. “It’s definitely really tough. We funded our EP, we booked all the shows [and] tours, all the merchandise is handled by us.”
Be sure to catch them, hell, go out of your way, to see these guys when they bring their heartfelt lyrics this way because if they’re not a testament to the ethos of doing it yourself and killing it, then I don’t know what is. This year is going to be a huge one for Anchors To Anchors and they’re definitely my band to watch.
