Happy.: The Up Within The Down

For Tate Logan, punk was, is, and always will be an escape. “I grew up in the tiniest little town in South Carolina, and there was a lack of music there,” explains Logan, vocalist of pop-punk upstarts HAPPY.. “We listened to the same five Jimmy Buffet songs in the surf shop where I worked, and I just felt different from the people I was around. I was an emo queer kid, and there are kids like that everywhere. When I discovered punk through playing Tony Hawk, it was so overwhelming for me to find that music that spoke to someone like me.”

It was the inflection point for Logan, who started HAPPY. as a solo project out of college. Now a three piece armed with their second album, Imposter Syndrome, the band are a living embodiment of the struggle and freedom found within being in a band, especially one that was on the rise before COVID-19. Those struggles and triumphs are a big part of what Imposter Syndrome is.

“We’re not the biggest band in the world, but there were kids lined up for autographs and it still feels weird,” says Logan. “For this record, we started writing about addiction, depression, and loss of friends, but remembering experiences like that, we thought ‘hey, being in a band is the greatest thing on the fucking planet, we should write about that feels.’ Half the record is all the highs of being in a band, and at the end of the day, it’s the greatest experience in the world.” For Logan, dealing with anxiety though the formation and writing of this newest record prompted his fiancé to suggest he was dealing with some imposter syndrome. “I had never heard that term before,” says Logan. “I was proud of the songs but I thought no one would like them, and after looking up that term, it perfectly described everything I was writing about, so I decided to really lean into that.”

Those extreme highs and lows are a great way to describe HAPPY. for those who unfamiliar. But instead of a clear cut duality between songs, there is the hint of layered emotions amidst the instrumentation and lyricism. The music draws from the pure, unabashed hookiness of bands like ALL TIME LOW and CARTEL while dipping into the melancholic tendencies of bands like REAL FRIENDS. But it’s the sadness found within the happiness and vice versa that makes HAPPY. such an interesting band in the first place.

“I can write a hook I’m excited about easily, but then have a hard time writing the rest of the song,” Logan jokes. “The rest of the band adds all the real flair, and when it comes to my lyrics, they’re really depressing but on top of happy sounding guitars. When we started, the sad boy trend was huge, and it was cool to be sad, but being clinically depressed, I didn’t want to focus on that. So we named our band HAPPY..”

Logan, and the band in general, feel like a perfect encapsulation of the diversity, positivity, and creativity of the rising generation. Being trans and dealing with mental health issues were all factors that Logan aims to normalise, and he knows his band is speaking to those with a similar mission and experiences. Speaking about the second wind of pop punk just starting to arise in the past few years, Logan knows how important the genre was and is to so many dealing with their own challenges.

“When you deal with mental health, you learn to know yourself,” he says. “That’s the message behind our band. We’re transparent about that, and I believe punk music always has a place for certain people who need it. I think it’s so rad that MACHIINE GUN KELLY is putting out a pop punk record and it goes number one. I remember when ALL AMERICAN REJECTS were on the radio and the American Pie soundtracks. Those were huge for me, and to me, that music makes me want to do better in my life, and there were always be kids who want that music.”

Delving even deeper to the record, Logan went on to explain two of the most striking songs on the album. April Is For Fools details the relationship Logan shared with a best friend, who he unfortunately lost to suicide. Capturing his friend’s spirit at its best was paramount and served as a rallying cry for Logan and was instrumental in keeping his love for music alive. “We did everything together, and he was so ambitious. I had to choose whether to embrace music or not, and I couldn’t let his drive die. It was just inspiring to me. I had to do justice to him as a person and I wanted the song to feel like how I felt when I was around him.”

Black Picket Fence is a particularly affecting track, as it details Logan reminding his fiancée that even amidst financial hardship that their dreams are always worth chasing and will one day be in their grasp. It’s an all too familiar situation faced by many band members and one not often talked about. The steadfast partners left at home on tour is a concept well understood not just by Logan, but all members of the band.

“I wrote that song in five minutes,” says Logan. “I got back from a tour that was totally DIY, and we had spent all our money and were living on our credit cards, and the rent was due. My fiancée was working doubles at a restaurant; beat to death and all she wants to know is how the tour went. I’m the luckiest person in the world to have someone who supports my dreams and I wanted her to know how much I appreciate her. Both other guys in the band are married and we go out on tour and call our wives.”

In the midst of a pandemic, where so many are suffering with their mental health and in a country that seems to be fostering so much anxiety, the draw and importance of a band like HAPPY. is encapsulated and found in their sound and lyrics: there is light in the darkness, and darkness in the light. And through all our struggles, there is a way through, always. Punk music and its DIY nature has a way of revealing a lot of the truths of life that often remain hidden in plain sight, and Tate Logan, at 24 years old, is putting that truth out there with Imposter Syndrome. “We’ve toured and been around the block; taking showers in gas station bathrooms and playing to rooms of 1000 kids, and though the world is shut down, the message we’re trying to get across is only amplified in the pandemic. It comes across even more clearly. Punk music is always going to be there for kids like me, and so are we. If we connect to one kid the way punk music connected to me…that stuff saved my life.”

Imposter Syndrome is out now via Rude Records. 

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