Interview: Point North
One of the most promising young acts in the scene, Point North released their debut album Brand New Vision today and I had the chance to sit down with the band’s vocalist Jon Lundin to talk about the new album and what the band hopes you take away from the record. We also talk about how the collaboration with Kellin Quinn came about and much more!
Point North is proof that if you never give up great things can indeed happen. The band has faced a lot of changes in the short time since the release of their first EP A Light In A Dark Place a little over 3 years ago with lineup changes and a lot of uncertainty. Although they have been able to tour with the likes of As It Is and Sleeping With Sirens and recently signed to Hopeless Records, the band hasn't taken anything for granted. After the success of their single “Into The Dark” with Kellin Quinn, the band doesn’t show any signs of stopping any time soon. With their unique take on the pop-punk genre, the band has been able to successfully infuse elements of hip hop to heavy metal into their sound, allowing them to appeal to quite a large audience. Having faced so much adversity coupled with bouts of success, we think that this band has what it takes to make it in this scene and even beyond. Every song on the album has an important message and Point North is here to remind you that it’s okay to not feel ok, to push for a change, and originality.
Check out the video for their newest single “No One’s Listening” below and stream the album! Let us know what your favorite track is!
I know you guys went through a lot of ups and downs since the release of A Light In A Dark Place with lineup changes etc. What do you think made it so you guys were able to keep pushing and eventually getting signed to Hopeless Records?
It all kind of boils down to dropping the Hammer cover. It was kind of Point North’s saving grace. I was also super busy working for another producer in 2018 and I stopped working for him so that I could pursue my own stuff which kind of freed me to reset things with Point North. I think another factor was the As It Is “The Great Depression” tour which kind of solidified us as a touring band.
Obviously “Into The Dark” has put you guys on the map for people who may not have heard of you before. Why do you think that song got received so well? How did the Kellin Quinn collab come about?
Kellin and I met when we were doing their album How It Feels To Be Lost a couple of years ago now. I was basically assistant engineering the record with my friend Zakk Cervini who produced the album and that is how I met the SWS dudes. I got to hang out with them every day for like a month and we got to be good friends. Along the way, I was showing them songs that I was working on for Point North and even still up until that point we hadn’t really locked in a style for the band. Kellin was always saying they should take us on tour with them and we were obviously like yeah that sounds awesome.
There is actually a Sleeping With Sirens song that I featured on and that was the first thing that me and Kellin collabed on at the studio Madden in North Hollywood where Benji and Joel gave me the nod of approval.
It wasn’t until about a year later, me and Andy who write pretty much everything for Point North hit a stride. The first song we actually wrote where we thought it was the vibe we were looking for was “Personal”. “Into The Dark” came way later.
When “Into The Dark” got finished we were looking for a feature for the album and thought it was a no brainer so we just hit up Kellin and he agreed and was able to find time to come to my house to record his vocal part before flying back home.
But yeah we started the tour with them in January, the song came out a week into tour and it got an insane response and definitely one of my favorites on the record.
The SWS guys are super nice guys and we definitely owe them a lot for hooking us up with opportunity and supporting us too. Those guys are the best for sure.
It seems like you guys are one of these bands that continuously just keep evolving with every release and incorporating new sounds into your songs. Where do you guys take your influences from musically/ what do you think sets you guys apart in a genre that is so oversaturated?
The oversaturation is a thing that all bands kind of fear and stay away from. That is why you have bands turning down tours because they’re too pop-punk, rock, etc. We’re in that space where we want to be different but we obviously have very deep roots in the pop-punk genre.
We’re just a really lucky band. Myself, Andy, and Sage’s collective abilities are really what makes it. I could sit here at my desk and write a song but it wouldn’t be Point North. Point North is my vocal style with Andy’s guitar and melodic style and Sage’s drumming abilities.
Andy is more on the punk side of things. He grew up with AFI, The Descendents and Rise Against is his favorite band so he loves the heavy guitars, fast and energetic drums so that’s that world.
I love that stuff too, but I’m also a huge fan of pop music, pop structure, melodies, and even more so hip-hop and hip-hop style vocals. So I try to incorporate that as much as I can, just because it’s what I like to do.
We’re also big fans of Bring Me The Horizon, like big anthemic stuff.
I think that’s what makes bands special when they just do what they like to do and do things that they are genuinely fans of and they say fuck everything else or what people will think and that’s when special stuff happens.
So we’re like cool if we want to say have anthem rock and play big stadiums we’re writing songs like “Personal” & “Brand New Vision”, big anthem bangers with dark minor chords and hip hop top line. Also, Sage just has these gospel drum chops that are kind of out of this world so when you put it all together you get Point North so I think that’s what kind of makes us our own thing. I don’t think that you could find a band that sounds like us. I think that when you hear a Point North song you can probably just easily tell that it is us since there’s like a vibe and just a unique style.
I feel like you guys have your own unique sound. I mean obviously A Light In A Dark Place kind of blended in with other pop-punk bands and I love pop-punk but I’m really impressed at how you guys are taking it to another level! What advice do you have for bands looking for their own sound?
I feel like we sit on the shoulders of pop-punk because of the “Hammer” cover and obviously A Light In A Dark place is a straight pop-punk album. At the same time sometimes when bands start there’s really not a lot of identity, they don’t really know exactly who they are, what makes them special yet. It does take a lot of time maneuvering and trying to figure out things and I think after years it's finally happening for us. We found the right people and me and Andy found a groove and Sage is just a perfect 3rd element. I think a lot of bands will start a little more pop-punk if they’re in the rock scene or this kind of scene and as they move forward they’ll evolve and kind of build on stuff that they’re figuring out along the way.
It’s just a learning process, just like being a human, you just grow and you learn and adapt and change. It's the same thing with music or any kind of art form as a form of self- expression. It's ever-changing and you’re never going to stop learning more. It’s just all part of the experience.
What message do you hope fans take away from this album?
Not a concrete message just more of a place for listeners to go to connect with certain personal and social issues. The songs are more or less situations that people can find themselves in at any given time. The underlying tone is to see the silver lining. That’s always been our creed I mean the A Light In A Dark Place EP, the title itself is kind of like what the message is for Brand New Vision even though that EP along with Retrograde was very emo and sad to reflect difficult times in my life.
I think that Brand New Vision is a big coming of self for me and the guys in the band who have been best friends for over a decade. We have seen each other through everything so its really cool to be able to express that kind of growth and change in the music.
We want to give off a sense of connection and empathy and looking at everyone's experience. If we can inspire people to go into the world with that same mindset and empathize with people in different situations than that’s great. So maybe that’s what the tone is.
What was the recording process of the record like/did COVID affect anything? What song took the longest to record from beginning to end?
It was about 80% done before the Sleeping With Sirens tour and when we got home we worked another month on it and was done in early March so COVID didn’t really affect it. I self-produced the band since I’m a producer by trade so I have my studio in LA and so we kind of just have sessions at my house. It’s crazy that that is what my life is.
Working with good friends is super rewarding because it can be so hard especially when situations get tense and you have creative differences. You kind of learn to get over those speed bumps and in turn have a stronger relationship and the better you become as a team. Its a crazy bonding experience for sure.
When we go to write we kind of have our process where Andy sits at the keys, I’ll sit at the desk maybe with a guitar and Sage is in the back maybe on Twitter and will come up and do drum parts on the drum pad.
The longest song to record was probably “No One’s Listening”. It used to be a different song completely and was actually the reason that Hopeless signed us after playing them a few demos. Everyone was so behind it, but the caveat is that we weren’t really that band anymore, we had found this new thing and knew who we were becoming and we were like this song isn’t working. We even tried rewriting guitar parts and melodies but it wasn’t just who we were anymore. Luckily the label was very receptive and open to working with us on stuff.
At the end of the day, a song is a song and if it's not that song it's a different song. So what I did was I eliminated every element of the song except the drums that Sage tracked. One day I just wrote “No One’s Listening” over the drums of that old song and it's a totally new song. I then sent it to Hopeless hoping that they would like it and it luckily all worked out.
If you could tour with anyone (hopefully sooner rather than later) to promote the new album, who would it be and why?
We had all of 2020 booked up for touring. A lot of really cool tours, I don’t know if I’m allowed to say since they might get rescheduled but we actually had a headline tour booked. We sent offers and stuff so it's a very real thing. Everyone will be excited to see us with the bands that we chose to bring out. An awesome lineup so if and when that happens it will be worth it. They are bands in the scene so people know them.
What song are you most excited for fans to hear off of the album? Were you planning on releasing this many songs before the record?
Because of COVID we actually had to push the release date of the record back a couple of months so we had to release a few more singles to kind of keep stuff going if you know what I mean
Super excited for fans to hear “Apologue”! Its a super cool, giant anthem. Also super excited for fans to hear “Distant” which is a straight-up lo-fi hip-hop song with no guitars or live drums, just a straight-up hip-hop track.
My favorite is already out being “Into The Dark”. “A Million Pieces” means a lot to me.
But yeah I definitely think “Apologue” is the one fans should be looking out for.