New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Every band has their own perspective about how their music is heard by fans. For New York City's STATION, they've adopted the phrase as ordained by Guitar World, one of the 15 current bands who are "the New Wave of Classic Rock" (alongside peers such as The Struts, Stonefield, Dirty Honey, and Rival Sons).
On October 8, STATION - Patrick Kearney (lead vocals),
Chris Lane (guitars/keyboards/backing vocals), Emi Asta (bass/backing vocals), Tony Baptist (drums) - will showcase this special brand of Rock on their self-produced fourth album, PERSPECTIVE, on Station
Music LLC via AWAL. Pre-orders and pre-saves for the album will include a free download of the first single, "Believe," worldwide starting today.
A video for "
Believe" premiered on the band's official YouTube page last night exclusively for their fans.
The aptly titled album is so named because, as guitarist
Chris Lane says, "The songs are really about different takes on what's going on around us. Not a specific event, but just reviewing things as we travel through this station of life, viewing things from a different point where you might have interpreted them differently as a younger person, or how you probably will interpret them differently when you're older."
Like on all previous STATION albums, the songs on PERSPECTIVE show remarkable diversity and impressive musicianship. Lyrically, they cover a wide spectrum of different types of topics, ranging from purely happy, fun songs about love to touching on more introspective and serious emotions.
"I love the fact that we are putting out something that's both speaking to the aesthetic that we've built from the ground up, but also showing an evolution of how we can still rock really hard," says singer Patrick Kearney. Lane agrees: "I don't think that there's any one style of music that we play. I think that it's all in the amalgam of rock and we touch on different parts of it. The tracks are all pretty diverse."
STATION attracted a dedicated audience right from the start, even though the band always stood out from the esoteric indie rock acts that have tended to dominate the New York City scene in recent times. Bucking that trend, Kearney and Lane founded STATION so they could create more complex hard rock infused with a fun attitude, with bassist Emi Asta and drummer Tony Baptist joining later. Naming themselves STATION after a pivotal character in the Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure film series, they soon won over a large and loyal fanbase in New York (and well beyond), proving that there are, unquestionably, many listeners who appreciate this type of high-spirited (and highly skilled) hard rock.
Staunchly independent right from the start, STATION have always handled much of the business side of their work themselves, which may surprise anyone expecting the stereotypical hard-partying hard rockers. STATION's members may have long hair and play music that's meant to be fun, first and foremost, but they are disinterested in the debauchery or posturing that has sometimes plagued other artists within this genre. "We're just nice, normal, down-to-earth guys, and sometimes people find that surprising," Lane says. "If you show up with a leopard print guitar and long hair, often people say, 'I think I know what's going to happen here.' But we really feel strongly about just being us. We're really just a group of four guys enjoying what we do, and it's really that honest."
As for why they chose to play this type of music, Kearney and Lane say it's simply what has always appealed to them the most. As they reached their musically formative years, they found themselves at odds with the prevailing pop-punk culture that was topping the charts. Searching for something they found more appealing, they both scoured the Internet, teaching themselves about the highly-skilled rock artists that suited their tastes more. This solid musical education comes across in STATION's discography - yet the band still sound completely current, creating a unique and modern style all their own.
This distinctiveness was evident right from the start with STATION's debut single, "Everything," in 2012. The next year, they put out an EP, WIRED, which was produced, mixed, and mastered by famed hard rock producer Michael Wagener (Alice Cooper, Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne). Gaining confidence in what their sound should be, Station self-produced their subsequent full-length studio albums: STATION (2015), MORE THAN THE MOON (2018), STAINED GLASS (2019), and now PERSPECTIVE (2021).
With a stellar new album and live shows coming soon (and a loyal fan base eager for both), Station members have many reasons to feel optimistic as they enter their second decade together. "I feel like we're very comfortable being Station and making the music that we want to make," Kearney says. "When we put something out now, it's, 'Yep, this is exactly what we want and how it's supposed to sound and what we want to do.'" Lane agrees: "I think that we've grown as artists in that we have a bigger picture of what we're looking to accomplish."
