LIB: You name drop bands like Saosin, Say Anything, Man Overboard, From First to Last, Dashboard Confessional, Jimmy Eat World, and Comeback Kid in your songs, are these bands that influence your sound?
Pierri: Definitely. We are a direct product of the early 2000s pop punk, emo, and screamo scene (basically, all the bands that would have played Warped Tour). The biggest thing we love about that era is the absolute over-the-top sing-a-long choruses. There’s a reason that over two decades later, people are still belting those anthems in their cars (albeit on the way to a boring, corporate job rather than the skatepark). All of us in Good Hangs are true “elder emos” at heart.
LIB: What’s the inspiration behind the cat on the album covers?
Pierri: Our singer does all our artwork, and his cat is named Nala. He took a picture of her in front of a can of PBR and we used it as the album art for our song “I Only Do Pushups When I’m Drunk.” For whatever reason, Spotify chose to promote the hell out of this song — with roughly 7 times as many plays as the next song in our discography. We tried to figure out what made that song spread so much faster, and we kept hearing people talk about the album cover. So in a potentially superstitious act, we’ve added her in some form or another to all the subsequent album covers in hopes that it’ll pay off in another boost from Spotify (it hasn’t).
LIB: What is your beer of choice?
Pierri: As you can gather from our lyrics, we aren’t fancy. No craft beers for us — just the basics. Miller Lite is the drink of choice for Good Hangs.
LIB: Many fans can relate to your music, how does that make you feel?
Pierri: We love to hear it! Since we started, we had one goal: make music that people wanted to sing along with as loud as humanly possible. There was a Dashboard Confessional concert that he played at some college in probably 2002 in front of a few thousand people. It was just him on acoustic guitar with a lackluster PA in a giant gymnasium, and you could not for the life of you hear a single thing he sang or a chord he strummed — because the room singing along was DEAFENING. Thousands of college kids screaming so loud that they’d all lose their voices the following days. That’s all we’ve ever wanted. And so when we see people sending us videos screaming along in their cars, it really feels like we’re getting closer to that reality.
LIB: Which bands do you dream about touring with?
Pierri: If time-travel was possible, we’d love to tour with all our favorite 2000s bands during their prime. Could you imagine playing with pre-scandal Brand New during the Your Favorite Weapon era? Or to hit the road with Taking Back Sunday right as Tell All Your Friends was spreading like wildfire? But realistically if we were to tour today, we are big fans of other bands keeping the 2000s torch alive (with a modern spin) — Hot Mulligan, Free Throw, Neck Deep, Real Friends, etc.
LIB: Any plans to play NY in the near future?
Pierri: We’re taking some time off playing shows to write and release as many songs as possible (we dropped a full length in December, and have dropped a remix EP and two singles since then). We haven’t gotten a “hit” yet, so that’s priority number 1.
LIB: What’s next for Good Hangs?
Pierri: We’ll be writing the next great American pop punk/emo album to keep the genre alive for our kids!
Be sure to stream Good Hangs and show the band support by purchasing some cool merchandise including hoodies, a shirt, and a skateboard deck.
