Stream Milwaukee ska-punks Something To Do's new album 'Give Me Attention'
Milwaukee ska-punks Something To Do have been going strong since 2003, and this Friday (11/20) they’ll release their newest album, Give Me Attention (pre-order). Bassist/singer Nate Tredinnick tells us that they started writing this album right after 2018’s Design For Living came out, and they had planned to hit the studio this past April to record it, “but because of Covid, we radically shifted our approach.”
“Normally we’re all in the studio together and track ‘as live as possible,'” Nate continues. “This time, our drummer tracked everything in the studio by himself, remembering all of the parts, with only our usual recording engineer Shane Hochstetler a room away. Then we all recorded from home, sent electric files to Shane who re-amped our parts in studio to get good/real sounds. Normally we’re always playing shows and kind of fitting recording in around that time but this time, with no shows, we had a lot of time for extra mixing, thinking, etc, and we’re all feeling like it came out a little extra good. I’ve been at home more in the last six months than ever at any point in my life and having this album to focus on and obsess over absolutely kept me sane-ish!”
It is indeed an extra good album. It sounds fresh and energetic and it’s stuffed with catchy hooks, great horn lines, unique arrangements, and an array of styles of music, including ska, punk, reggae, rock & roll, and more. It’s not every day that a band this long-running sounds this hungry and invigorated, and they say part of that is due to feeling inspired by the current ska scene. “The ska scene is particularly inspiring these days,” Nate says. “We were definitely listening to a lot of great bands while we came up with these like Bruce Lee Band, Planet Smashers and Catbite. We’re always trying to kind of hit a sweet spot of ska and rock & roll. It’s a kind of a happy (?) accident that a lot of these songs are about feeling lonely or being worried about being alone.”
The album officially comes out Friday, but we’re premiering a full stream of it ahead of the release. Listen and watch a couple videos from the album below…
