New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Feel-good indie-pop outfit Clubhouse are using their new single, "NO WAY!," to make a case against wasting time in toxic relationships. Co-written with spill tab & co-produced by
Cooper Holzman, "NO WAY!" reinforces a reoccurring focus of being in and existing for the moment on their forthcoming EP, Are We Going Too Slow?, out November 5 via AWAL, ahead of a just-announced tour with The
Wombats that kicks off in early 2022.The track joins previous singles "Heartbroke," "Weekend," and "Flipside" in using happy-go-lucky arrangements that pull you in with introspective lyrics that make you think by using emotional and provocative storytelling that A1234 says "fuse sadness and joy together" and "manages to speak directly to you…no matter what mood you're in."
"We've been adopting this motto, carpe diem, and going after what we want to go after. 'NO WAY!' ties into that motif of the EP," according to guitarist and frontman Max Reichert, adding, "if something's not serving you, life is too short to try to make it work."
That ability to zoom in on making the most of the present without questioning if they are going too slow hasn't always been a given for the members of Clubhouse. Despite successfully building a cult following, first in the Midwest, then globally, gathering millions of streams and sharing stages with HAIM,
Bastille and Young The Giant, Clubhouse saw the certainty of their future, or any future, in jeopardy, as they were suddenly forced them into a year-long pause when Max unexpectedly received a bone cancer diagnosis.
"The whole life is too short thing really smacked us in the face," drummer Zak Blumer shares. "I feel like I finally know the answer," he adds, while reflecting on the EP's central query and title. "We're going at just the right speed. We're doing it with our brothers, and if we keep making music we like and doing it at the pace we feel is right, it'll be just the right speed."
Zak, alongside his twin brother and guitarist Ari Blumer, rallied around their lifelong friend Max, who they have been connected to since they were just 8-years-old, first, as soccer teammates and then as bandmates, as he underwent chemo and multiple surgeries. Alongside keyboardist Forrest Taylor and bassist Michael Berthold, the Los Angeles by way of Ohio five-piece, kept going, visiting Max in the hospital with their laptops, showing him new beats, and getting his feedback on melodies.
After everything they've been through, the answer to the question "are we going too slow?" fluctuates day to day for Clubhouse. In the end, it would be Max's heath battle and the band's subsequent awareness of the brevity of time, that led them to create the intimate, feel-good collection of songs that "almost serve as reminders to ourselves that the focus should be on happiness." Max says.
