UTG INTERVIEW: Reckless Serenade Discuss Touring, New Album

December 15th, 2014

Matthew Leimkuehler

Propelled by the success of a recent independent tour and music video for the hard-hitting track “Take Me Back To The Summer,” Reckless Serenade are making waves in the pop punk scene. The band’s music is fueled with an adherent aggression most commonly associated with post-hardcore music — but the melodic honesty vocalist Corey Brent delivers levels the music out to reach the best of both worlds.

The band is gearing up to record new material and plan to continue to work relentlessly, as like so many bands in the scene looking to garner attention. A collection of memorable songs mixed with youthful energy gives this band the right formula to stand out amongst competition.

Under The Gun Review had the chance to chat with Mark Neidhardt, guitarist and songwriter, about the band’s recent tour, future plans and more. Read the full interview after the jump.

UTG: Hey, man. Thanks for the time today. You guys just finished up with some tour dates, correct?

Mark Neidhardt: Yeah. We did a couple weekends in October.

How’d it go?

It was good. We went back to some places we’ve been hitting over the summer and we got some new people out there. We played some new places, as well.

Very cool. Chasing Light came out last year. How has reception been for you since its release?

It’s been really good. We put it out last year so it’s been kind of a while ago. We’ve been playing more shows this year than last year, so it’s cool to see people discover it for the first time even though it’s been out for a while.

Is there a new release in the works?

Yeah, we released a new single on October 1, called “Take Me Back To Summer.” We’re planning to release another single probably early January, and we’re hoping to get into the studio sometime during the spring to record another album.

Yeah, man! Tell me a little bit about the music video.

The one main character is our singer, Corey, in the future. He finds a photo of him when he was younger with the rest of the band and pretty much goes out and finds the other members of the band doing stupid jobs and kidnaps them and brings them around to reminisce about their youth and remember what it was like to be young and play in a band. There’s a bunch of flashback scenes between us now and us in the future — which most of our dads play us in the future.

Interesting. What was it like working with your dads on the video?

It was cool! I had one of my friends direct it and we had all of our dads and our friends in the video so it was cool to see all of those people together in the same room.

What should we expect from the next release?

The next single’s not out yet, but our first single, “Take Me Back To Summer,” is more of a heavier song. The song out in January is the exact opposite of that. It’s not a ballad but it’s a slower, more radio-friendly song. I think what you can expect from the new album is what we always try to do — combine totally different styles of music and put ’em together in the same song or the same album. We try to have each song be totally different from the one before it.

With the band not being your full-time job yet, how do you balance time between working and playing?

All of our jobs either take place in the mornings or just during the week. We’re lucky enough to have jobs that are flexible to let us tour or play a show coming up. We’re all able to take off.

With that being said, what do you guys try to do to stand out?

I think we just try and not fall into one specific genre. We try to put out songs where you could have a teenager in high school like it and their mom like it, too. Just recently, it’s been weird. We’ve had a couple people come up to us and be like, “Yeah, I’m not really into that music but I really like your band for some reason.” I guess that’s a good thing [laughs].

What else can we expect in 2015?

Right now we’re starting to book a tour for February. That will be around the northeast and south. Right now, we’re booking that. January we’re putting out a new single and hopefully heading into the studio early April. We’re just trying to play as many shows as we can.