INTRODUCING: On Your Nerves
Pop-punk is a genre that is defined as a genre of rock that combines punk and pop music. The best thing about pop-punk is that it has such a broad range of music. However, with genres becoming more meaningless, the definition of the sub-genre becomes more murky. However, for ON YOUR NERVES, they define their version of pop-punk as natural.
“We created our sound very naturally. When I’m writing new music I like to pull from all eras of pop-punk but I mainly tried to follow modern songwriting techniques for this album,” vocalist Caleb Andrykovitch explains. He, bassist Roman Backus and guitarist/vocalist Kevin Turcovsky sit down with Distorted Sound to discuss the Pittsburgh pop-punk scene, their debut album, and the meaning behind their album cover.
The first thing that stands out about this band is their name. However, how did the name come about? “The name ON YOUR NERVES came about after about a week-long stint of desperately trying to come up with a name for the band,” explains Turcovsky. “Eventually, and I totally forget how, but the name ON YOUR NERVES just popped into my head one night. I knew instantly that it was it. Looking back on it, part of the reason the name stuck so well is because we were setting out to do something different with this band. That’s why we loved the idea of being able to proudly announce to an audience that ‘we’re ON YOUR NERVES‘ at every show we played. That’s the story behind our name.”
He goes on to explain a little about the band’s history. “We were in tenth grade and at an age where we were just realizing that we didn’t have to be so complicit in doing what we were told. We were starting to get sick of unreasonable and groundless authority. Thus, we wanted to do something where we didn’t have to care if our music, or our live performance, or anything we did got on anyone’s nerves.”
The band released their debut EP Raising The Stakes, and then their debut album, Brace For The Best. However, the approach to them both in terms of sound was “very different” according to Turcovsky. “[It’s] mostly for the better. There are so many factors that play into this, though. Part of it is because our songwriting skills improved, that we had Zac [Eisenstein] from MAN OVERBOARD producing the thing, that the way we recorded the album, in a technical sense, was so much different from how we did the EP, and it lended itself to a more professional sound, among so many other things.”
Andrykovitch agrees, “this album feels very much like a continuation of our story as a band,” he explains. “The EP was like our first chapter that showed a snapshot of our lives in high school and the album shows our lives as young adults trying to figure out leaving home and starting college.”
However, the Pittsburgh scene also had its influence on the band. Despite the fact that “the scene in Pittsburgh is kinda dead,” ON YOUR NERVES “are thankful for all the great pop-punk bands [they] do have.” Backus explains more, “for some reason the only real kinda scene in Pittsburgh is pop-punk or metalcore, probably something in the steel polluted air. Always a big shout out to THE MIDDLE ROOM, and MAIN STREET DETOUR and any bands I’m forgetting. We’re super thankful for all of them for pushing different twists on pop-punk.”
The first thing you notice about Brace For The Best is the cover. It looks like a back of an airport safety leaflet. Turcovsky explains the meaning behind the design. “The initial concept came from our lead guitarist, Seth Toops, and from what I understand, was inspired by the album name. The pitch was essentially to have all these fun objects flying through the air, as people are shown bracing for something. From there, the idea eventually expanded to include the leaflet concept.”
But what does Brace For The Best mean? “The name comes straight from a lyric on Wishing Well, on the record. Part of the reason we like the name so much is because it’s sort of a way of telling the audience to ‘brace for the best,’ for both the record itself, and what the future holds for ON YOUR NERVES,” Turcovsky explains. Backus adds, “our beautiful producer Zac Eisenstein was pretty stoked on using Brace For The Best, so we went with that.”
The album covers the whole spectrum of pop-punk over its ten song runtime. However, the most noticeable song is a one minute track tucked away near the end of the album titled 84%. However, what is the meaning behind the song name? “84% is kinda an ode to the past of hardcore,” Backus explains. “Hardcore, pop-punk, and emo sort of come from the same company, but are completely different divisions. I love all that early hardcore that was coming out of DC in the early 80s, so the song structure is super reminiscent of that. The lyrics are more of Caleb, [drummer] Evan [Blenko], and Kevin‘s deal.”
And ultimately, what do ON YOUR NERVES hope for listeners to take away from the album? “We hope that someone listening through the record will be able to relate to and find comfort and solace in the stories that we present in the songs.”
Brace For The Best is out now via Static Era Records.
Like ON YOUR NERVES on Facebook.