Familiarize Yourself

Chicago’s music scene has a deep history. Whether you were born and raised in Chicago’s music scene or you are an immigrant, Chicago is always here to welcome musicians with its arms wide open. This was the sitation for So Many Ways, who were drawn to the city to receive a college education but gained much more than a lifetime’s worth of debt and a pile of textbooks that will never be opened again.

© Ashley Stolberg

Can you give us all the important background information about how So Many Ways began in as few words as possible?
Why yes we can. We all met here in Chicago, we all like pop punk and we’re all the coolest people you’ll ever meet.

As your line-up has increased and changed over the past year, you mentioned SMW has the “three singer attack.” Can you go into more detail about this sound and what each singer brings to the table?
Our line-up has been shakier than we ever wanted it to be, but the band as it is now is stronger and more together than ever. We seem to really be writing some great songs that are more fun and serious than our previous ones at the same time. Our ex-members are some of our favorite people on this planet, and they had to leave for other reasons just to be clear . Concerning our singing situation, Colin Screams and sings, and Jason sings as well, and as it is now Chris and Murphy are on the manly back-up vocals.

This summer you relocated to Massachusetts to record your first demo, The Real Talk EP – how did you choose your recording studio in Massachusetts when Chicago seems to have a million solid recording studios located closer to home?
The reasons behind the move to Massachusetts were actually pretty legit because we moved into Jason’s house, and our former drummer Billy is from the same town as Jason so it made sense for the other members to just go to them. Also, Jason has an amazing family that put up with us being a young, loud, rowdy band all summer and loved us all the same the whole time. The recording studio in Massachusetts was also a big reason, and was a super easy choice. We recorded with Jay Maas of the Massachusetts band Defeater at his recording studio called: The Getaway Group. Jay has recorded a ton of awesome bands like Title Fight, Verse, Bane, Transit, etc. and he seemed to have the exact idea of what we would want with our music and was offering a sweet deal on recording an EP. Not to mention Jay is a seriously rad dude that makes rad recordings and music.

Where can we pick up/download The Real Talk EP at?
You all can get our Real Talk EP directly from us (it will just be a burned CD with swear words and inside jokes written on them) or you can download it here.

What bands should our readers be ‘familiar with’ that have had a great impact on SMW?
New Found Glory, Blink-182, Four Year Strong, Saves the Day, Kid Dynamite, Lifetime, Have Heart, Daggermouth and a million more AMAZING pop punk and hardcore bands out there. Oh and special shout outs to Andrew W.K. and Municipal Waste, they inspire us daily.

Any upcoming shows we can help you promote?
Yes!  We have a pretty big show on December 4^th with a group of musicians looking to rebuild our dilapidated Chicago scene called The Afternoon Collective, and Michael Louis Vinci, who also plays sick acoustic jams, is sort of the ringleader of this thing.

You can get tickets from us just contact us at our myspace: www.myspace.com/somanywaysrock or our e-mail: SoManyWaysRock@gmail.com

Anything else?

We’re going on tour this winter in Florida with our new bassist Chris’s good friends Away With You which is going to absolutely rule. They play insanely good and catchy pop punk so check them out too!

Oh and get ready for 2010 because we will be coming back to Chicago freshly toured, new music recorded and ready to be listened to and fully ready to SHRED!