INTERVIEW: Stringer’s Warped dreams come true

Photo: Courtesy of Earshot Media / Provided with permission.

The title of Stringer’s new album should shed some light on the band’s musical and lyrical objectives. My Bad, which was recently released digitally and on vinyl, offers a touch of humor and a bit of reflection on the last presidential election. The 13-song effort includes songs such as “U.S.A.,” “Ghosts,” “Through the Walls” and “Flower Bomb.”

The band, which consists of Mark Fletcher, Max Kagan, Riley Zimmer and Johnny Spencer, are having a banner year as a musical group. Besides the success of My Bad and their constant touring, the four guys also got to fulfill a lifelong dream and play on the Vans Warped Tour, which came just in time because Vans Warped has now called an end to its cross-country festival.

For Fletcher, My Bad is the result of two long years of creative thinking and rock ‘n’ roll inspiration.

“My Bad I guess was the result of the past couple years of songwriting between Max and I,” Fletcher said in a recent phone interview. “We started demoing I guess in what was December of 2016 and then made the record pretty much throughout the entirety of 2017, and then it came out digitally. … So we’ve been working on the songs for a while. A lot of them got written during the election cycle while we were on the road. That second song, ‘U.S.A.,’ [came] while we were shocked and appalled at all the [Donald] Trump signs that we saw on the highway while on the road, so a lot of it came from that slightly dark place and a place of not knowing what was coming next.”

Once the band members finished writing a song on the road, they almost immediately started playing the tune on stage. Fletcher called this quick turnaround a “road test,” which seems to have strengthened the songs for the recording of My Bad.

“We have been playing them in New York and elsewhere pretty much ever since they were written,” he said. “It’s just the recordings that are newer to people now.”

Fans had the chance to listen to My Bad’s songs on the Vans Warped Tour, at least the Massachusetts and New York dates in July. Even though the concert at Jones Beach, New York, was a hometown crowd for Stringer, the experience in Mansfield, Massachusetts, was truly memorable.

“[In Mansfield], the stage we were on somehow by some stroke of luck got moved to the big amphitheater,” Fletcher said. “As you know, most of those dates they don’t really make use of the amphitheater. Usually they set it up in the parking lot. I guess this date got sold out in advance, and the tour decided to move our stage into the big amphitheater, which was really exciting for us. That was probably the biggest stage we’ve ever played before in front of what must have been nearly 1,000 people, which was pretty incredible. So that was a nice surprise that we got.”

The Jones Beach crowd was also fun because it included many friends who have tracked the band members’ careers ever since they began joining together and making music in 2012. Here’s how that story goes: On Dec. 12, 2012 (12/12/12), Fletcher and Kagan met during a 24-hour noise show at a beloved venue called Shea Stadium. They eventually teamed their creative minds with Spencer on drums and have been making music for the past six years. When Zimmer joined on bass in 2015, the band started calling themselves Stringer.

When they formed as a band, they didn’t know that it would take a relatively short time to gain enough notoriety. But they did, and it was a full-circle moment when they took their first steps on that celebrated Warped stage.

“Max and I grew up in Manhattan,” Fletcher said. “We went when it was on Randall’s Island. Never would we have ever dreamed of actually being on it, so that was a huge honor as well. Getting to meet [Warped founder] Kevin Lyman, albeit briefly, but meeting him at all was an incredible honor. Everybody on the tour was super nice. … It was really amazing meeting everybody, being side stage for other band’s sets and just the overall vibe of the thing. It was a huge honor to be a part of it for sure.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

Stringer’s new album is called My Bad. Click here for more information.