Hop Along | |
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 Hop Along performing in 2019 | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 2005–present |
| Labels | Saddle Creek, Hot Green, Salinas, Big Scary Monsters |
| Members | Frances Quinlan Mark Quinlan Tyler Long Joe Reinhart |
| Past members | Jacki Sulley [7] Dominic Angelella [8] Peter Helmis |
| Website | www |
Hop Along is an American indie rock band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, formerly known as Hop Along, Queen Ansleis. [9]
Hop Along began as an acoustic freak folk solo project known as Hop Along, Queen Ansleis in 2004, during Frances Quinlan's senior year in high school. [10] [11] The name "Hop Along" is derived from a nickname Quinlan received in high school for being a slow walker, [12] and "Queen Ansleis" was derived from the name of a wild flower, which Quinlan intentionally misspelled so it could be the name of a character. [13]
Quinlan released their debut album Freshman Year in the summer of 2005. [14]
Quinlan performed an acoustic solo act for several years as they honed their style, stating "I would envy [full ensembles] because I thought that a band inherently carries more energy than a person does solo. I suppose you could argue that point, but when I was playing by myself it was just out of necessity. I wanted to play and I just couldn’t seem to get a band together. I wanted to write and I didn’t want to wait for anybody." [15]
Three years after Quinlan's first album, their brother Mark joined the project as drummer, followed by bassist Tyler Long in 2009. As a trio, the band's name was shortened to Hop Along. [10] The group's first release was an EP titled Wretches in 2009, followed by their second full-length album Get Disowned on May 5, 2012. [16] The album was a critical success in the independent music press. [17] [18] [19] Quinlan said they wanted the album to be produced by a friend rather than a stranger. The band approached Joe Reinhart of Algernon Cadwallader, who Quinlan had met through the Philadelphia basement show scene, to produce the album. [20] Reinhart was later added to the band's lineup on lead guitar. [10]
In October 2014, Hop Along signed to indie rock label Saddle Creek Records, [21] which released the band's third full-length record, Painted Shut, on May 4, 2015.
The band toured with Modest Mouse and The War On Drugs in 2015. [22]
On January 22, 2018, the title and tracklisting of the band's fourth full-length record was revealed. [23] The lead single "How Simple" appeared on streaming sites the next day after a postcard vinyl was sent in the mail. [24] The nine-track Bark Your Head Off, Dog was released on April 6, 2018. It was recorded by Joe Reinhart and Kyle Pulley at Headroom Studios. [25]
Hop Along embarked on a US tour of the Midwest and East Cost in the fall of 2021, their first tour since before the COVID-19 pandemic. [26] The tour included a performance with Dr. Dog at the Shelbourne Museum in Vermont. [27]
On September 23, 2023, the band announced on X the cancellation of a planned Halloween show with Japanese Breakfast due to "unforeseen circumstances beyond [the band's] control". [28]
The staff of Spin magazine have assessed that Hop Along "straddle several genres" and ratified "it’s easy enough to file them away in indie rock without batting an eye". However, the site admitted that the band "derive some of their power from emo". [29] Hence, Hop Along's overall style has been described by AllMusic as "impulsive, punk-injected indie rock". [30] In congruence, Pitchfork said "Hop Along's energy comes from punk but their style is indebted to the romantic, middle-American indie of Bright Eyes and Rilo Kiley." [31] Jezy J. Gray of D Magazine stated that Hop Along "traffics in mid-tempo guitar jams, tender acoustic confessionals and buoyant, hook-driven indie pop". [32] Grant Sharples of Alt Press said "although Hop Along have plenty of folksy tendencies, emo music sets the groundwork for the group’s songwriting". [33] Chris Gee of Exclaim! described Hop Along's sound as a blend of power pop, folk and emo. [34]
Lyrically, the band is known for the "literary stylings" of frontperson Frances Quinlan. The band's songs often explore topics such as death, loss, poverty and abuse of power. Quinlan has stated "I don’t ever want to get away from talking about death. I don’t want to be a drag either but I think the only way you can speak honestly is to have it in your mind." [35] [36] [37]
Office Magazine said Quinlan's voice "wields a power that alludes to the strong women preceding her—the raspiness of Janis, the honesty of Fiona Apple and Alanis Morissette—yet is still impossible to define." [13] Drummer Mark Quinlan has a hardcore punk background, and is influenced by grunge and heavy metal music, which he jokingly attributed to "angst and male aggression" and "suburban white male problems". [38] [39] [40] Guitarist Joe Reinhart is said to be stylistically rooted in "math emo" from his previous project, Algernon Cadwallader. [41]
Hop Along's songwriting process is a collaborative effort that involves Quinlan conceiving rough ideas for songs that are later developed and fleshed out by the rest of the band. [42] [43] Quinlan says that some songs evolve into something drasticly different after presenting the initial idea to the band. [44]
Pitchfork wrote "If Philadelphia is the capital of indie rock, then Hop Along sits at the table with its top leaders." [45]
Current Members
Former members
Emo is a music genre characterized by emotional, often confessional lyrics. It emerged as a style of hardcore punk and post-hardcore from the mid-1980s Washington, D.C. hardcore scene, where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore. The bands Rites of Spring and Embrace, among others, pioneered the genre. In the early-to-mid 1990s, emo was adopted and reinvented by alternative rock, indie rock, punk rock, and pop-punk bands, including Sunny Day Real Estate, Jawbreaker, Cap'n Jazz, and Jimmy Eat World. By the mid-1990s, Braid, the Promise Ring, and the Get Up Kids emerged from Midwest emo, and several independent record labels began to specialize in the genre. Meanwhile, screamo, a more aggressive style of emo using screamed vocals, also emerged, pioneered by the San Diego bands Heroin and Antioch Arrow. Screamo achieved mainstream success in the 2000s with bands like Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein, Story of the Year, Thursday, the Used, and Underoath.
Alternative rock is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s with the likes of the grunge subgenre in the United States, and the Britpop and shoegaze subgenres in the United Kingdom and Ireland. During this period, many record labels were looking for "alternatives", as many corporate rock, hard rock, and glam metal acts from the 1980s were beginning to grow stale throughout the music industry. The emergence of Generation X as a cultural force in the 1990s also contributed greatly to the rise of alternative rock.
The Get Up Kids are an American rock band from Kansas City. Formed in 1995, the band was a major act in the mid-1990s Midwest emo scene, otherwise known as the "second wave" of emo music. Their second album Something to Write Home About remains their most widely acclaimed album, and is considered to be one of the quintessential albums of the second-wave emo movement. They are considered forefathers of the emo genre, and have been widely credited as being an influence, both by contemporaries Saves the Day and later bands such as Fall Out Boy, Taking Back Sunday and the Wonder Years.
Brand New was an American rock band formed in 2000 from Long Island, New York. Consisting of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Jesse Lacey, lead guitarist Vincent Accardi, bassist Garrett Tierney and drummer Brian Lane, the band earned critical recognition as one of the most influential emo bands, and was acclaimed for their musical development and artistic innovation compared to other groups in the scene which they originated from.
My Chemical Romance is an American rock band from New Jersey. The band's current lineup consists of lead vocalist Gerard Way, lead guitarist Ray Toro, rhythm guitarist Frank Iero, and bassist Mikey Way. They are considered one of the most influential rock groups of the 2000s and a major act in the pop-punk and emo genres, despite the band rejecting the latter label.
Burritos, Inspiration Point, Fork Balloon Sports, Cards in the Spokes, Automatic Biographies, Kites, Kung Fu, Trophies, Banana Peels We've Slipped On, and Egg Shells We've Tippy Toed Over, more commonly known as Shmap'n Shmazz, is the only full-length studio album by the American emo band Cap'n Jazz. It was released in 1995 on the record label Man With Gun. Cap'n Jazz's lineup at the time of recording comprised Tim Kinsella on lead vocals, Davey von Bohlen and Victor Villarreal on guitar, Sam Zurick on bass guitar, and Mike Kinsella on drums.
Fake Shark is a Canadian alternative rock band from Vancouver, British Columbia. Originally formed in 2005, while their early musical style mainly combined elements of dance punk, post-hardcore and IDM, the group gradually evolved to a more commercially streamlined sound in 2015, within the realm of indie rock, electro pop, new wave and slacker rock. They are best known for their 2021 hit single, "Loser", which charted to #3 on the Canadian alternative radio and are currently signed to Canadian independent label, Light Organ Records.
Kingdom of Might is the second album by American death metal band Woe of Tyrants. Released on January 6, 2009, it marked the band's debut on Metal Blade Records. It was produced by the band and Joey Sturgis.
Never Hungover Again is the third studio album by American rock band Joyce Manor, released on July 22, 2014 through Epitaph Records. Never Hungover Again explores topics like love and summertime. It contains both bracingly fast and mid-tempo punk songs, recorded live across two weeks at a Hollywood studio with producer Joe Reinhart. The album's run time clocks in at only nineteen minutes long. The band aimed for brevity, and most of the songs on the album are under two minutes.
Algernon Cadwallader is an American Midwest emo and math rock band from Yardley, Pennsylvania. They were originally active from 2005 to 2012. In 2022, the band regrouped and began touring again. Stereogum referred to the band as the "heroes of the emo revival".
Foxing is an American indie rock band from St. Louis, Missouri. The band has released five studio albums, a live album, an EP and 14 singles.
Painted Shut is the third studio album by American indie rock band Hop Along, released on May 4, 2015 through Saddle Creek Records.
Midwest emo refers to the emo scene and/or subgenre that developed in the 1990s Midwestern United States. Employing unconventional vocal stylings, distinct guitar riffs and arpeggiated melodies, Midwest emo bands shifted away from the genre's hardcore punk roots and drew on indie rock and math rock approaches. According to the author and critic Andy Greenwald, "this was the period when emo earned many, if not all, of the stereotypes that have lasted to this day: boy-driven, glasses-wearing, overly sensitive, overly brainy, chiming-guitar-driven college music." Midwest emo is sometimes used interchangeably with second-wave emo. Although implied by the name, Midwest emo does not solely refer to bands and artists from the Midwestern United States, and the style is played by outfits across the United States and internationally.
Get Disowned is Hop Along's second full-length album. It was released in March 2012 on Hot Green Records in the US and Big Scary Monsters in the UK/Europe. In 2016 it was reissued by Saddle Creek.
Bark Your Head Off, Dog is the fourth studio album by American indie rock band Hop Along. It was self-produced, written over the course of 2016 and 2017, recorded at The Headroom in Philadelphia during 2017, and released on April 6, 2018.
Christine Frances Quinlan is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and visual artist best known for fronting Philadelphia indie rock band Hop Along.
Likewise is the debut studio album by Frances Quinlan of Hop Along. It was released on January 31, 2020, by Saddle Creek Records.
Headroom Studios is a music recording studio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was originally started by Kyle Pulley and Joe Reinhart in 2008 in a room in a live/work artist warehouse collective, located in North Philadelphia, until it moved to its current location in a commercial building in the North Philadelphia neighborhood of Kensington.
Plastic Death is the second studio album by Los Angeles indie rock band Glass Beach. It was released on January 19, 2024, by Run for Cover Records. The album sees the band move primarily into progressive rock, leaving behind the emo of their debut album The First Glass Beach Album. It was preceded by two singles, "The CIA" and "Rare Animal". Collaborators on the album include "secret fifth member" Daxe Schaeffer, Skatune Network's Jer Hunter, and mastering engineer Will Yip. The album was positively received by critics.
Philadelphia's Hop Along successfully straddle several genres, and it's easy enough to file them away in indie rock without batting an eye. But they derive some of their power from emo—before Saddle Creek came calling, frontwoman Frances Quinlan helped build the foundation for Philadelphia's now-celebrated rock scene by blurring punk, emo, and folk, while her future bandmate and scene-engineer extraordinaire Joe Reinhart inspired a thousand bands to twinkle as the guitarist for Algernon Cadwallader. Hop Along have been Quinlan's ship since the beginning, and she's motored it with emo's affection for complex guitars and herky-jerky instrumentation pivotal to many a Dischord band.
{{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)So much of my taste was influenced by angst and male aggression and, you know, suburban white male problems. A lot of the metal I listened to back then I'll still listen to — I just put on a Cannibal Corpse record from back then, and since I can't understand the lyrics, it's just this really heavy, rhythm-driven vibe that I love. Then from there I made the transition into old screamo where it was kids that looked like me trying to play black metal and it ended up being this cool new thing. But, you know, it was all just about being a boy.
So much of my taste was influenced by angst and male aggression and, you know, suburban white male problems. A lot of the metal I listened to back then I'll still listen to — I just put on a Cannibal Corpse record from back then, and since I can't understand the lyrics, it's just this really heavy, rhythm-driven vibe that I love. Then from there I made the transition into old screamo where it was kids that looked like me trying to play black metal and it ended up being this cool new thing. But, you know, it was all just about being a boy.
We edit throughout the entire process, from our initial jam sessions all the way through to recording. As soon as I bring a song to the band, as soon as they start playing in a major way, it's already different. Some songs stayed mostly what they were to begin with, maybe with a tempo change or with a part taken out. And then other songs changed dramatically at differing times. It's important to keep the process as free of rules as possible. It's a challenge to be free about change, but it's only made the songs better, in my opinion.
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