Nashville, TN · emo · alternative · midwest emo · midwest-emo

Free Throw

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Twinkly, self-lacerating emo about mental health, sung like it's being confessed rather than performed — catharsis with a Nashville accent.

Free Throw formed in Nashville in April 2012, shortly after its members finished high school, having met one another through the local music scene while playing in earlier bands. Vocalist Cory Castro has said the group started after listening to Topshelf Records artists together, describing it as a couple of beers and a couple of ideas.

The band's sound draws on Midwest emo guitar writing, with interlocking, high-register lines from Lawrence Warner and Jake Hughes set against pop-punk tempos and Castro's shouted, strained vocals. Castro has cited Snowing and Algernon Cadwallader as key touchstones, alongside the more pop-facing influence of Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance.

The lyrics deal directly with depression, anxiety, addiction, alcoholism and body image, usually in plain, specific language rather than metaphor, which is a large part of why the band drew an audience through the 2010s emo revival. Castro is a longtime Pokémon fan and has worked references to the games into song titles such as "Lavender Town" and "Victory Road".

Free Throw has released six full-length albums, among them Those Days Are Gone, Piecing It Together and Lessons That We Swear to Keep, alongside three EPs including Lavender Town. After their debut record they toured supporting Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate), and the band's live sets tend toward a loud, group-shouted delivery that mirrors the records closely.

The lineup has shifted around a stable core: Castro, Warner and bassist Justin Castro have been present since 2012, joined by Hughes from 2013 and drummer Zach Hall, who left in 2015 and returned in 2022. As of 2025 the band records for the label Wax Bodega.

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