Photo Credit: Eitan Miskevich
Written by Kelly Holm
If this is what almost monday sounds like, then you’ll never want the weekend to end. Hailing from sunny San Diego, the three-piece alt-pop outfit will leave you soaking in the heat long after it’s time to set our clocks back with their single “come on come on.” Breezy and carefree, it’s a not-quite-three-minute celebration of driving around all night, forgetting adult problems, and maybe even getting tattoos.
“The song feels like summer to me, and kinda just puts me in a better mood,” guitarist Cole Clisby says of “come on come on.”
Now in their early twenties, Clisby, vocalist Dawson Daugherty, and bass guitarist Luke Fabry have been vibing together since high school. Like many folks in SoCal, they’re strongly connected to the surfing community, which contributed to their start as almost monday and has continued to have their backs over the years.
“The first live show we played was… in the back of a surf shop in North County, San Diego,” Clisby shared. “It was before we had officially started a band and we were just stoked on playing music for our friends and having a good time.”
One of the first songs the three wrote together was 2019’s single “broken people,” a homage to “celebrating friendship and acknowledging imperfections and insecurities,” as Fabry puts it. Now, almost monday is prepping for the release of an upcoming EP.
Its title is currently under wraps, but it will feature “broken people” among several other tracks, and was recorded mostly pre-pandemic in San Diego, Los Angeles and Brooklyn.
“Over the last year we wrote a ton of songs and narrowed it down to the ones that felt right for our first EP,” Fabry said. “Songwriting has changed from being in the same room to being in the same Zoom. It isn’t ideal but… music has meant so much to me and gotten me through the hard times, good times, weird times and honestly, if our music could do the same for our fans, that would be the best.”
Clisby, meanwhile, hints that the title track will be somewhat of a departure from almost monday’s usual aesthetic.
“I think it will be a nice surprise for people to hear a different side to our sound, and I personally love the lyrics,” he says.
almost monday finds influence from a variety of legends, living and departed: Bono, David Bowie, Elton John. “Music is so accessible now with streaming and the internet that it’s easy to sound like everything else, artists like Bowie kinda keep us inspired to reach deeper,” Daugherty comments.
But, they also take inspiration from their own friendship, and the connections they make everywhere.
“One of the biggest lessons we’ve learned is how much relationships matter,” Fabry said. “Whether it’s our relationship between each other, or producer or our fans, it is one of the most important things to focus on and maintain.”
Daugherty echoed similar sentiments about music’s unifying powers as almost monday continues to progress toward their goal of going “only up.” With the wind at their back and their loyal fan base by their side, the band will get through all the uncertainty of 2020— and who knows, maybe win a few Grammys in the process.
“We played a surf film premiere for one of our fave surfers, Dion Agius, and after we played the show he told me how I sounded like Jack White. I think I was just stoked to hear anything from him because of how much we love the dude,” Daugherty said. “I love the idea that music can bring strangers together in a room and have it all make sense. There is nothing better than when you play a show and all these different people with different stories and experiences all come together to share the same moment.”
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