Woodcliff Lake, NJ · indie-rock · folk-punk

The Front Bottoms

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Jersey folk-punk built on shouted confessions and hooks that lodge immediately and permanently — 'Twin Size Mattress' a generational scream-along.

The Front Bottoms started in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, in 2006, when singer-guitarist Brian Sella and drummer Mathew Uychich began playing together after Sella's first year of college. Uychich's brother Brian soon joined on an old attic keyboard, rounding out the original trio. The band's name comes from a line in the film Sexy Beast, and Sella has never apologized for it.

Before signing to a label, the band self-released the album I Hate My Friends in 2008, followed by the EP Brothers Can't Be Friends and, in 2009, My Grandma vs Pneumonia. A hand-assembled cassette, Calm Down and Breathe, appeared in a run of just thirty copies. They were part of the New Brunswick artist collective Tiny Giant, playing locally while Sella stocked shelves at a supermarket and Uychich worked landscaping.

The band's self-titled album drew a large following through word of mouth, and later releases filled out the sound with keyboards, horns and a fuller band lineup. Bar/None Records signed the group in 2011 to release that record, and two years later Talon of the Hawk arrived with 'Twin Size Mattress', the song that became the crowd's most reliable singalong.

Rose, a six-song EP released in 2014, was named for Uychich's grandmother and extended the run of live favorites. The touring lineup has since grown to include guitarist AJ Peacox, bassist Natalie Newbold and multi-instrumentalist Erik Kase Romero, while Sella's writing keeps trading in blunt admissions and odd, specific detail that audiences tend to know word for word.

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indie-rockfolk-punk