Churchville, PA · pop-punk · emo

The Starting Line

2 upcoming festivals ↓

Early-2000s pop-punk with more craft than the era gave it credit for — 'The Best of Me' aging like a yearbook photo you actually like.

The Starting Line began in 1999 when guitarist Matt Watts, emailing strangers from an AOL member directory in search of people to jam with, got a reply from fourteen-year-old Kenny Vasoli, then playing in a band called Smash Adams. Within weeks Vasoli was rehearsing with Watts, guitarist Mike Golla and drummer Tom Gryskewicz in Churchville, Pennsylvania. The group first called itself Sunday Drive, playing shows alongside bands like Saves the Day.

Vasoli sang and played bass while still in his teens, his clean, high-register melodies riding over quick pop-punk guitars, with lyrics that mostly stayed with the small dramas of adolescence and early adulthood, from stage nerves to sour breakups.

After a self-recorded demo cassette and a three-way split single, the band signed with Drive-Thru Records in 2001, discovering that another act already used the name Sunday Drive and settling on The Starting Line instead. Their debut EP, With Hopes of Starting Over..., appeared that July, including an early version of 'Leaving' that would later resurface on their first full-length.

Say It Like You Mean It followed in July 2002, its songs moving between fast and melancholy while dealing with tour life, vacations and old relationships. The singles 'The Best of Me' and 'Leaving' received heavy radio and television play, and the band became closely associated with the wave of pop-punk and emo groups emerging from the Northeast in the early 2000s. 'The Best of Me' remains their most recognised song.

After a long hiatus, The Starting Line returned to playing shows and recording together with the original lineup largely intact, and in September 2025 released Eternal Youth, their fourth full-length album and first new record in nearly two decades.

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pop-punkemo