There’s always a moment during each show were I get a quick flashback to Cindy, the head cheerleader, in Fast Times at Ridgemont High pleading with her peers, “You know, it takes a lot of courage to get up here and do something you KNOW people will make fun of!”. It’s a similar feeling playing on stage to people who don’t know our music, or who simply are just there to have a drink, are working, or were dragged by their friend. Being in a band is a strange mix of doing something genuine that feels innate, yet despite it beginning as a personal experience somewhere maybe in your attic or your garage, the end result is public approval. The need for people to hear and possibly to even appreciate what you have to offer. Releasing a new record…

Roadside Graves have been together in some form since 2000 and Acne/Ears is our fifth proper full length and first to be released by Don Giovanni Records. Geographically challenged with members scattered throughout the Tri-State area, and one even in Spain, we managed to finally write and record an album that sounds like us. These are not songs about other people, or influenced by characters in books as we’ve done in the past. This is our attempt to recreate moments in our lives that weren’t necessarily poignant at the time, but grew to be just that as we aged. These are songs lived in and caved in, at times both depressing and care free. Wild and naive. Genuine and dumb.

Acne/Ears varies in subject and seriousness quite like if you spent an hour with us in our basement for band practice on Sunday afternoons, or like a long conversation with an old friend. Anything is up for discussion, interpretation, and consideration like being jealous of handsome carefree surfers, being selfish while your father dies, blowing up balloons for the prom, worrying about your family, the loneliness and absurdity of being on tour, staying home from school because of acne, or just appreciating the right amount of duct tape wrapped tightly around the microphone stand.

Upon hearing Acne/Ears a friend asked if the record was meant to be our last record. He said he sensed it in the songs and the weariness in my voice. Upon writing the record there were surely moments when it would have been easier to have quit the band to make way for rest of life’s responsibilities, but there is something quite odd and necessary in the friendship we’ve created over the years that even when strained due to work, marriage, kids, bills, sickness, and distance we have the ability to create something genuine and hopefully lasting. I also hope that our appreciation not only for each other, but also for the tiny and mighty group of people scattered throughout the US that have listened to us over the years is evident in the songs. In the title song the chorus simply states how we truly feel, “I don’t expect you to know where I came from, I’m just happy you’re listening”.