After releasing just two EPs in a span of five years, local punk band Popular Music finally has new material coming out.

Lead vocalist Tom Ranger said all that is left to do on the EP is some final mixing and mastering. It will contain the usual dirty guitars and danceable baselines that are common in their songs, but will also experiment with new ideas such as a hip-hop verse and a slower jazz tempo.

The band formed in 2010 and consisted of Ranger, a Syracuse native, and a couple of other members from Massachusetts. With so much distance between them, the band only performed about one gig each year. Despite the infrequent live activity, they have two EPs out on Bandcamp.

Being apart had its downsides. In 2013, a writer for Rolling Stone put Popular Music’s demo on his top 10 tapes of the year after receiving their tape through Perfect P*ssy, another band featured on the list that also shared a few members with Popular Music. Ranger said the exposure led to a spike in activity on the band’s site, but never resulted in anything serious because they weren’t very active.

That’s when Ranger said he knew it was time to localize the group. While working at local restaurant Pastabilities, he started talking music with coworker Jonathan Graham.

“I needed a drummer,” Ranger said. “He said that he could play fast, and we had a lot of things in common, so we started playing together.”

With Graham on the drums and other Syracuse locals — Adam Martinez on guitar and Dan Lyon on bass — Popular Music finally had a local lineup that was readily available to play shows and put out more music. In October 2014, they opened for Cloud Nothings at The Lost Horizon.

Just last month, they put out a six-song split tape with The F*cking Wolfbats, a band Graham also drums for. They also opened for Pinegrove and Leapling at a Feb. 21 Scarier Dome show.

Ranger admits the band’s name isn’t the easiest to find on google. But that’s all right with him, who said he knows that people who want to listen to his band will do what it takes to find its music.

“A lot of bands will sort of bend over backwards to try to get some notoriety,” he said. “But I’d like what we do musically to speak for itself.”

The name Popular Music came from a quote from the fourth installation of the Die Hard movie series, “Live Free or Die Hard.” Justin Long’s character asked Bruce Willis’ character, “When was the last time you remember turning on the radio and listening to popular music?” The band’s previous drummer thought it would be a funny name to go by, and Ranger said he saw some rebellious elements in the title.

“With the music itself, we’re trying to be subversive but while also trying to be pleasing to the ear. You could almost interpret that in a yin and a yang type of way,” Ranger said.

Yin yang is just one of the many symbols found in Popular Music’s logo. It is a sort of satirical version of famous punk logos, such as that of British punk band Crass. Ranger said he wanted to fit as many symbols into the logo as possible, so it also includes a cross, an obelisk pyramid and a dollar sign, among several others.

“It’s a satire, but all those symbols have meanings, and all those meanings are encapsulated within the group,” said Ranger.

Graham said he hopes Popular Music can provide a positive influence to the punk scene. In a genre that is known to have sometimes-violent moshing, he wants shows to be safe and smart.

“We don’t want people to come to our shows and kill each other,” Graham said. “We want them to come and dance and have a good time and hopefully walk away with an idea in their head.”

Even though Popular Music is a punk band, the guys’ influences range from 60s girl groups to psychedelic bands to even modern rap personalities like Kendrick Lamar and Young Thug. They take catchy elements from other genres and add the signature pedal-distorted noise elements that punk is known for.

Even though Popular Music might draw from other artists, Ranger said they’re doing something that’s never been done before.

Said Ranger: “Everything that we’re doing you’ve heard before, but you’ve never heard anything like it.”

Published on March 1, 2016 at 10:50 pm

Contact: jtbloss@syr.edu | @jtbloss