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Midtown Releases Final Tribute Song

originally published: 05/27/2023 

(NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ) -- Punk veterans Midtown have released their new EP, We’re Too Old To Write New Songs, So Here’s Some Old Songs We Didn’t Write. Featuring tributes to influential songs from the band’s past – including Pavement’s “Cut Your Hair”, Lagwagon’s “Know It All”, and Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up” – the EP is rounded out by the band’s take on “Safely”, originally by Hot Rod Circuit.

The band shares: “The point of this EP was to both share some of the artists that influenced and inspired us as a band and also to introduce people to artists they may not have heard of.”

Midtown had such a blast playing its first shows in a near-decade that the emo-punk trailblazers decided to stick around. Fresh off last year’s sold out headlining tour – and a string of arena dates opening for old friends My Chemical Romance – Midtown presents its first new recordings in almost two decades. The Jersey-bred quartet’s surprise EP – We’re Too Old to Write New Songs So Here’s Some Old Songs We Didn’t Write – features four supercharged covers of songs seminal to Midtown’s musical DNA.

“It’s a lineage – where Midtown comes from and what shaped us as artists and people,” says vocalist-bassist Gabe Saporta. “We wanted to shine a light on our influences, and keep those influences alive.” Fans who caught old Midtown favorites like 'Give It Up' and 'Just Rock and Roll' on tour in late 2022 now get a fresh spin on tracks that helped make Midtown one of the most influential bands of emo and pop-punk’s turn-of-the-century explosion.

“The EP peels back the curtain– the songs would play over and over in the van,” says Midtown drummer Rob Hitt, thinking back to the band’s formative years. All four songs were also frequent warm-up tracks, songs Midtown would belt backstage to test those vocal harmonies, as recently as last year. On their reunion trek, Midtown rocked out to a sea of thousands at Chicago’s Riot Fest, to old friends and family at back-to-back sold out shows at New Jersey’s legendary Starland Ballroom, and to arenas full of MCRmy diehards.

 

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The new EP was born in rehearsals for those shows. “Early summer, June and July, in the midst of practicing, we started talking about recording,” remembers vocalist-guitarist Heath Saraceno. “We were getting asked in interviews, Is new music coming out?,” Saporta recalls. Renewed with camaraderie and purpose, the band was initially ambivalent about being able to deliver.

Vocalist-guitarist Tyler Rann explains: “You have kids, you see the world through their eyes; you start to get older …” “and you wonder if you can get back to the place you were when you first wrote these songs,” interjects Saporta, “or if you’d even want to.” The band ultimately decided that sharing these renditions of songs that inspired them would be the best next thing.

“People always say you can’t go back, you can’t do it again,” says Rann, "but sometimes fate has another plan.”

Midtown is Gabe Saporta – lead vocals, bass guitar; Tyler Rann – vocals, guitar; Heath Saraceno – vocals, guitars; and Rob Hitt - drums.