Make-Ups, Break-Ups, Family Stuff & Life On The Road

With certain bands and genres, to the non-familiar ear, songs can kinda blend into one another and sound a little samey. The pop-punk genre has been slugged with that stigma, whether fairly or unfairly is squarely in the ears of the beholder. However, standing in defiance of that reputation is New York five-piece State Champs. Their brand new album Living Proof walks a very fine and skilful line between injecting refreshing variety into pop punk while still retaining their own, as well as the genre's, core sound.

According to frontman Derek DiScanio, this was absolutely a focus while they were creating the record. "Definitely," he confirms. "We spent a lot of time on this record and we weren't afraid to take as many slings as we could. That meant thinking outside the box, working with new people, trying a couple of different processes for recording. But at the same time we didn't want to make something that was too far outside what we do and make something that isn't us.

"If something sounds a bit weird or there's something on there that you wouldn't think is Champs, just know that it's coming from a place where we're just trying to explore ourselves and some new ways of taking ourselves forward as a band."

DiScanio says that a lot of that new-found variety and need for experimentation comes down to the fact that the individual band members have wildly different influences and tastes in music. "We all listen to so much different stuff," he reveals. "I'm like a Top 40 pop music and dance music guy - some of that blends into some of our stuff, some of the guys love classic rock, some of them love classic alternative rock from the '90s - like, Goo Goo Dolls and Third Eye Blind and stuff like that, and some of that trickles in.

"I think that's something special that gets us in a room together, and this time we had some help from some other people that we'd never worked with before; we got in a room with [Blink-182's] Mark Hoppus, which was a huge thing for us as well. We were really nervous about it, but he made us really comfortable."

Something else that adds to the diversity of tracks on the record is the broad scope of bittersweet and real-life themes and topics broached through the lyrics. "There was so much time spent on it," he recalls. "Some of these songs were written in one day, some of the songs were written over the course of a year.

"During the two years we were writing, a lot of stuff happened to me personally and there's a little bit of everything on there. There's songs about make-ups and break-ups, and being on the road, and the ups and downs of that, family stuff, and just a lot of things that I think are going to be relatable to the fans. Everybody goes through those kind of patches in life, everybody goes through dark times, but the idea of Living Proof is that you have to surround yourself with the right people and the right environments and you'll overcome those kind of things and you'll find your independence."

The band have a ridiculously busy schedule for the rest of 2018, which includes the "very emotional" final Warped Tour across North America, a run with Fall Out Boy, an extensive tour of Europe and then some South American dates. So an Australian jaunt is not on the cards for this year. However, DiScanio is extremely confident that the band will return to our shores in the first part of 2019.

"Yep, definitely next year," he says when asked when we can expect a return visit from State Champs. "I wanted to make it happen this year, but I guess we've got so much going on, and that kind of threw us off guard and off our planning. I think you can expect us back in Australia early in 2019, it's been too long since we were back there."