The Sweet Nothings

      If you look past the blast beats and excessive breakdowns in the La Crosse, WI music scene, you'll find the fun, laid back band that calls themselves The Sweet Nothings. The band's been around for over a decade and continues playing their brand of what can only be described as "party punk."
      The band came together in 1999, as young musicians, they aimed to mimic bands like Blink 182 and Green Day. Since then, the band feels as though they have really bloomed into their own sound. "When you're young you just want to sound like your heros. As time passed, we grew. We would kick around new sounds, new ideas, and new ways of writing."
      "In the first few years of being a band we were so obsessed with being 'the next big thing' we really didn't allow ourselves to take a step back and say 'Wow! We sound like 5000 other bands, we should try to do our own thing".  Today, we're just having fun.  We sit down as a group of friends, as close as family and just start jamming.  Whatever we feel at the time that's what we write.  We don't feel we have to be held down by one particular sound.  It's one thing I love about our band now, we are just having fun and writing what we feel."

      Since the formation over ten years ago, the band has learned numerous lessons. "First and foremost, you cannot take yourself too seriously. Remember that this is supposed to be fun!  When it stops being fun and starts being a "job" quit.  Now, if it's still a "job" but you're having fun, keep on keeping on!  If you take yourself too seriously, it's not worth it, it takes the fun out of it.  Another huge lesson we learned is unity. You have to be willing to put yourself out there and help other bands. This 'out for yourself' attitude has to stop!"
      "(We) remember when bands would trade shows and it didn't matter if we were playing to 5 or 500 people, we were just happy to be playing a show.  Now it seems as though every band we contact says 'well, we can get you a show in our town (that you've never played) if you can draw 50 people.'  Seriously? We've never played your town before and you want us to bring the crowd?  You are the local band.  Isn't that the point of doing show trades?  To inject new bands into your scene?  Or sometimes you just get bands that just flat out refuse to help you get shows.  That, to us, is just sad." Says the band.

      The band has several influences such as bands like Rufio, Strung Out, Rise Against. "Really we draw influence from everywhere.  I know we all carry a big torch for Four Year Strong.  We also love Andrew W K, Set Your Goals. When we are road tripping, we listen to and pull ideas in from tons of different bands.  In one four hour drive we could go from listening to MC Lars or Weerd Science, to Pantera or Blackguard. We will listen to Bad Rabbits, Hank III, Descendents, NIL8, Against All Authority, Blacklist Royals, and The Exposed.  We played with Bobaflex and those guys killed it so I'm sure we'll be listening to them.  There are so many bands that have influenced us over the years and that continue to be a source of inspiration we could probably easily list 500 bands.  But we do have to give a shout out to our boys in GUFF please come back to La Crosse, we miss you!"
      With this whirlwind of influences, the band's sound has fused into a sort of party punk/rock and roll type genre. They include heavy guitar riffs and keyboards, with lots of gang vocals."Just funmusic you can throw on and rock out to."

      When it comes to playing shows, the band tries not to stay in one crowd. The band enjoys branching out and playing for new crowds. The band has played with bands like Fall Out Boy, Motion City Soundtrack, Brand New, and ska punk favorites MU330. "We have also played shows with Four Letter Lie and some heavier local bands.  We played with Bobaflex, not really our style but it was a hell of a night!"
      "We are working on setting up a show called "La Crosse Mindf*ck"  or something to that effect. Basically, we are going to have a little bit of everything there. Orwell, an amazing metal band from La Crosse, Another Exoneration, an incredible local indie rap/hiphop crew, and ourselves and possibly more bands all want to do a show together to try to bring all of our fans and friends together. We think it will be a blast!  Another thing is we will play pretty much any venue.  A sweaty dank nasty basement can be just as awesome as packed concert hall.  We are always looking for new places to play and we always trade shows.
      When performing, the band tends to stay away from anything too tacky or scripted like synchronized moves. "We play with our hearts and whatever comes out comes out, even if that's our keyboard player running to the front trying to get people to clap or our singer pounding on his chest like a freaking ape. We definitely feed off the crowds energy.  We could be having the WORST day of our lives but if the crowd is giving it to us, we're gonna give it back times 10!  We try to get the crowd as involved as possible, it could be with singing some gang vocals, clapping or our favorite yet, good old fashioned mosh pits. Not this new breed of mosh pit, we mean the good ole 'lets move around get into it dancing together a little push and shove but if someone falls you pick them up' kind of mosh pit."

      So what's next for the band? "We're going to be writing a ton of new material, playing shows, recording a new record.  We are really trying to make a push to play some dates of next year's Warped Tour.  We really want to try to bring our music to as many new people as possible.  We don't need to be the next Rise Against or Foo Fighters, but we would love to be able to share what we do with the world.  We've met so many amazing people both bands and fans and we just want more."
      You can download 3 free songs on the band's Bandcamp! "If you want to play a show with us or want us to come to your town, we do our best to get everywhere we can, email us at sweetnothings@sweetnothingsrock.com"