{"id":6986,"date":"2013-05-31T15:10:38","date_gmt":"2013-05-31T15:10:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=6986"},"modified":"2013-05-31T15:10:38","modified_gmt":"2013-05-31T15:10:38","slug":"the-wonder-years-setting-their-sights-on-the-greatest-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2013\/05\/31\/the-wonder-years-setting-their-sights-on-the-greatest-generation\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wonder Years :: Setting their sights on the Greatest Generation"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Janet Adamana<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI’m nailing shards of hope together to put something over my head\u201d bellowed a short, bearded young man, whirling around the stage of an empty theatre in Cleveland. The vocalist was surrounded by his band mates and best friends, he had his hoodie up, spewing his heart out into a small silver mic. \u201cYou know here it’s always raining, and it happened again, it happened again…\u201d I will always remember the day I first heard pop punk band, The Wonder Years, and the moment they changed everything.<\/p>\n

A fresh college graduate, in the midst of a chapter of life full of more failed career attempts and confidence-killing moments in one year than most people experience their entire lives. I was metaphorically beaten and on the verge of throwing in the towel on the boxing ring of hopes and dreams. But there was something in those simplistic lyrics, and the way each member standing on stage played their hearts out to it, sweat and spit flying to-and-fro, as passion and pep were thrown into each and every note. It picked me up, dusted me off and pumped me full of new found motivation, hope and fearlessness and sent me trekking back towards the sun.<\/p>\n

Hailing from suburban life in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, The Wonder Years had humble beginnings as they first came together back in 2005. What started out as a fun band, singing silly songs like \u201cBout to Get Fruit Punched, Homie\u201d<\/a> on their debut album, Get Stoked On It!<\/em>, has grown into an accidental, yet powerful, pop punk movement full of fire, painful honesty and grit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we write, we just try to write things that are sincere, and I think that’s where that connection comes from,\u201d says Wonder Years bassist, Josh Martin. \u201cIt\u2019s not always a cheerful mood, it\u2019s not always something you want to feel but it\u2019s so sincere that we had to get it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their second, and most notable album, The Upsides<\/em>, initially released on No Sleep Records in early 2010 and reissued as a \u201cdeluxe edition\u201d by Hopeless Records later that year, began this progression into what is now known as a trilogy about the battles of growing up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Upsides<\/em> was kind of what we call our \u2018last chance record,\u2019\u201d explains Martin. \u201cIt was going to be the last record we were going to release from No Sleep. We hadn\u2019t seen any interest from any other record label, so we thought to ourselves, this was going to be the end of the ride. So we put it all out there and made a record that helped us cope with those early-twenties kind of feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n

These feelings of fear and hopelessness often felt by those in the state of transition between wanting to stay young and growing up in society\u2019s sense of the term, a very common yet moving theme within the current pop punk scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see that theme a lot because a lot of us came from a similar place. Everyone feels this growing up and everyone wants to find their place in the world,\u201d says Martin. \u201cEveryone deals with this, like finishing high school and thinking, am I going to go work? Am I going to go to school? Where am I going to live? And then you finish college and it’s like, now what to fuck do I do?\u201d<\/p>\n

The band soon garnered attention from a worldwide audience, embarked on a large-scale tour circuit taking them as far as Australia and the Philippines and released their third and highly-rated album: Suburbia, I\u2019ve Given You All and Now I\u2019m Nothing<\/em> and even landed a spot on the Vans Warped Tour.<\/p>\n

In May, the band released the next chapter, The Greatest Generation<\/em>. This record proved more progression and more growth, both sonically and lyrically. \u201cIt\u2019s another change but I feel like we do that to challenge ourselves and give the listener something new,\u201d says Martin, \u201cWe\u2019re always going to develop our songwriting, make our songs more interesting, and have those impact moments that people care about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although both The Upsides<\/em> and Suburbia<\/em> centred around battling depression and finding one\u2019s place, this is about where that fight has taken them, the strength its given them and the constant allure of moving forward. Inspired by the popular American term used to refer to those who fought in World War 2, The Greatest Generation<\/em>, circles around the ambition to be better and to do better.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that we’re older, we want to make sure that we leave a mark with our lives, and not just that we got to live in a van and everything but that we did something positive, and tried to help people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catch The Wonder Years at The Pyramid Cabaret on June 8, 2013 on their first Western Canadian Tour with Silverstein.<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Janet Adamana \u201cI’m nailing shards of hope together to put something over my head\u201d bellowed a short, bearded young man, whirling around the stage of an empty theatre in Cleveland. The vocalist was surrounded by his band mates and best friends, he had his hoodie up, spewing his heart out into a small silver […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[437,751,766,1118],"class_list":["post-6986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-hopeless-records","tag-pop-punk","tag-punk","tag-wonder-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}