Carpool Tunnel: Happy Songs For Sad People

We live in a world where we search solemnly for the one, swiping through all of the lovers and losers our computerised cupids consider to be the apple of our eye’s, feigning pleasure and fighting disappointment. That something as tedious as technology can make such a process so tepid, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it could work in any other way but negatively, when it clearly isn’t as intoxicating as it might seem. However, for Bay Area indie-punks CARPOOL TUNNEL, they found themselves as a match made in heaven thanks to the godlike genius of an algorithm. If it wasn’t for the self-confessed ‘Tinder for musicians’, singer Ben Koppenjan, guitarist Bradley Kearsley, drummer Daniel Stauffer and bassist Spencer Layne would’ve never met and made the decision of a lifetime.

“One day I was just scrolling through Instagram, and I was in high school, and I played in like five different bands at the time, and I got this ad campaign which was like ‘Tinder for musicians, find the bass player you need’ and I was like ‘woah, that’s cool’, so I thought I’d download it and see what happens,” explains Bradley, seemingly still shocked at how everything’s fallen into place like pieces of a puzzle for CARPOOL TUNNEL, continuing. “I matched with Danny the day I downloaded it, and Danny had a match with Ben the day they both downloaded it and they wanted to know if I wanted to get together and jam. So we got together and realised we could actually make music we liked and on the second day we recorded a song we were working on.”

And the rest, they say, is history. The tale CARPOOL TUNNEL tells is one of old-school rock-and-roll proportions. Soon after, they found themselves following in the footsteps of their idols and influences before them by fleeing their family nests to move in together on a journey of enlightenment.

“I was such a negative person before I met this band. I would love to find the cynical things in the world, and would listen to music that would make me feel as sad as possible as it was the only thing I could feel,” admits Brad reflectively, clearly moved by the journey he’s been on both individually and as a member of CARPOOL TUNNEL, adding, “throughout talking about life with these people, and making music and finding the joys of life, I’ve changed into such a positive person who looks forward to the future with such optimism, and I’m so much more open-minded.”

It was through their year spent together in the claustrophobic confines of their crowded home that they grew from the adolescent innocence of high-school heroes to adults studying and working against the struggles of the real world. Subsequently, this journey was the breeding ground for their debut album Bloom, an album that drifts from genre-to-genre, circling around a drain of emotions, as if narrating the story of your teenage years, telling tales of both heartbreak and happiness.

“Bloom is about all of our self-growth, and growing into ourselves. When we all moved in together we really got to know each other and we all individually went through so much and learnt so much about ourselves. We definitely wanted Bloom to be an experience that if you go in feeling one thing, you’ll come out feeling like you’ve accomplished something and that you’ve sat through your feelings and got something out of your system and feel better at the end because that’s what music has been for all of us for our entire lives, so to recreate that is definitely the goal, but we don’t wanna do it and make you feel sad by the end, we want you to dance your problems away.”

As a band who’ve found themselves signed to a label like Pure Noise Records who are as in love with pop-punk as they are post-hardcore, they’re far more into flitting between scenes than fitting into one, and they’ve been counting themselves lucky they’ve got something different to deliver to the revolution.

“I think one of the things we really value about our sound and our style is that we can go and play a full punk line-up at Gilman and get the crowd to mosh and have no problem fitting in, and then we can go and play a very indie lineup where everyone is playing clean fender guitars and clean fender amps, and have no problem,” beams Bradley, before assertively suggesting that, “pop-punk is what Pure Noise is known for, and obviously pop-punk isn’t the main thing in the rock world today, so we’re excited to be bringing something new, but with punk roots, and starting something with that, and so it feels like a great blend between having the punk and the indie elements.”

It’s that ability to blend little bits of anything and everything throughout their music that lends itself so well to the so-cal sun that permeates Bloom. It’s also the very same thing that grounds it in their tales of love and loss, something which Bradley believes was key to the band finding the core of their sound – it simply all comes spilling out of them.

Whilst the world around is right now truly is as unimaginable as it possibly could be, the experience of being in CARPOOL TUNNEL alone is just as unusual an experience for the foursome, especially as a band signed to a label and putting out a record, something they never thought could actually come true. If you’re feeling blue about the weight of the world right now, simply find solace in the feel-good tales of Bloom for a much-needed escape.

Bloom is out now via Pure Noise Records. 

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