Doing What Comes Naturally: On the American Classic’s Early Beginnings and Their New Album 'Forgive'
The American Classic ‘Forgive’ Album Artwork
When it comes to crafting a new sound when forming a new band, sometimes the best way to do that is to tune yourself out from the rest of what's going on around you. Thinking that is what listeners will want or expect people to bring to the table if often results in "too much of a good thing." While that all may be okay in small doses, sometimes stepping away from the scene entirely and looking at what has inspired you to create music in the first place is what is needed to bring something fresh and exciting to our ears. The American Classic embodies this philosophy to the fullest extent and it's pretty prevalent in their latest album Forgive.
When listening to Forgive, what materializes is indeed pop-punk, but there is so much more to chew on with this record instrumentally than you can capture upon the first listen. Forgive is the result of throwing caution to the wind. What materializes is this gorgeous combination of infectious modern pop overtones, free-spirited guitar riffs, and all the massive energies of pop-punk rolled into one record. Never forgetting that music should always encompass a fun element within its framework at a time that needs an excuse for it, new pop-punk band The American Classic is currently standing out in front of the crowd, doing what they love first. The band talks with me about their early beginnings, their new album, and what's next in their bright futures.
How did The American Classic get started? What was the scene like when you first got started?
Kenney Li: I want to say back in about 2016 roughly was when I entered the studio to start tracking some demos. I was pretty involved with the local music scene in Maine from like 2005-2009. I stopped for a bit to go to college but even then, I knew I only wanted to play music. Fast forward to 2016, I had a catalog of old and new songs that I had compiled over the years and I knew I wanted to do something with them. At that time, it was only me. I knew I had songs but I needed to piece together the band. So for two years, I had to find the right members and the lineup didn’t really solidify until the end of 2018.
The American Classic
Even though I was entering the music world again after taking such a long time-out from it, I wasn’t focused on what was going on in the local scene. I was more or less just working and focusing on piecing together what would eventually become The American Classic.
What are your musical influences? How have you integrated those into Forgive?
Kenney Li: Collectively, our tastes span across the board. We love everything from rap, hip-hop, rock, and progressive metal. To name a few artists that influence us: Post Malone, Bring Me The Horizon, The 1975, Dance Gavin Dance, Blink-182, Counterparts, Periphery. The list is probably endless.
I don’t think we’re one of those bands that say “Hey, we should write a song like X” or “We NEED to have a ballad.”
Sure, it would be great to have those elements in our sound, but we more or less write whatever comes to mind and we try to run with it. If we’re in the mood to write a slow ballad or a progressive rock tune, we’ll just go and do it. To pretend to be something we’re not is so disingenuous and we’d rather just write whatever we feel like.
What attracted you to make music in the pop-punk genre?
Kenney Li: For me, that’s what got me into music the most. It influenced me enough to want to get behind a drum set and eventually pick up a guitar. I think every member in this band was and has always been driven towards the “drums, bass, guitar” vibe.
As far as our sound goes, this is just the beginning. We sound like we do because a good portion of these songs (Blossom EP to Forgive LP) was written almost ten years ago. I just wanted to get them out into the world to give us a starting point and then evolve like any other band.
Let me put it this way, if The American Classic were a novel, we would only be on the first few pages.
What were the writing and recording experiences like for the making of Forgive? I know last year was very unconventional and in a lot of ways still is in terms of how we write and produce music now. How did you change from that?
Kenney Li: If I remember my timeline correctly, we began working on Forgive around the end of 2018. By mid-2019 it was mixed and mastered completely.
If you haven’t noticed, the singer on Blossom and the singer on Forgive are two different people. Our initial singer, Joey, had to leave due to personal reasons. We then met up with Wyatt and had him step in for him.
But generally, what will happen is I will demo out the songs to give the guys a rough blueprint. Then we go into The Halo Studio for pre-production. This is the process in which we iron out any wrinkles and just try to make the songs sound as cohesive as possible. Once everything has been mixed to our liking, we ship the tracks off to Adam Ayan at Gateway Mastering (Portland, ME).
Let's talk about the album for a bit. Lyrically, where are you coming from with this? There is a lot of upbeat instrumental energy here undercut with some pretty emotional material here.
Kenney Li: I guess you could say the overarching theme of the album is loss and the feelings one might experience while going through it. We’ve all dealt with it to some capacity and we all handle it differently. That’s why we wanted to make it as relatable as possible.
And to be honest, we didn’t start with a mission to write an album about loss. It’s just what happened along the way.
What do you want people to take from this release?
Kenney Li: We just hope people will enjoy it. Musically and/or lyrically. The goal for this band has always been to write whatever we want and hope that it resonates with people.
It doesn't appear that you feel any pressure to make the kind of music that fits the current pop-punk formula to boost your band's profile? Is that fair to say? For a band that is still new, this album is very confident in the way it presents itself, and at the same time, shows where you guys stand in the music genre.
Kenney Li: I guess you could say that. We don’t care about genres, labels, or categories. The vibe we went on Forgive is just what we were feeling at the time. We all love different types of music and feel no need to pigeon-hole ourselves when it comes to writing. While Forgive may be more of a “pop-punk” sound our next album could be a pop record with metal riffs if we feel so inclined to do so.
At the end of the day, we’re just four dudes that love making music and performing. If you like what we’re putting out there, awesome! If you don’t like it, that’s totally cool too!
Check out The American Classics' latest music video for "Drive" down below and listen to the whole album here!