A new era for Against The Current is upon us!
Since parting ways with their record label last year, the New York pop-rock trio went back to their roots with their newest single “blindfolded,” which marks their first independent release in seven years.
The fiery new song features the band’s signature sound that OG fans know and love with a premise about having your “eyes wide open” to your reality, even when something you don’t want to hear.
“‘blindfolded’ is really kind of about that duality of how the things that you wanted most can actually turn out to be your worst nightmare. That duality between the line of dreams and nightmares is extremely blurred in this song and it really just depends on where you are in your life and your perspective that kind of makes it so it’s one side or the other. It’s not binary,” front woman Chrissy Costanza tells Celeb Secrets reporter Juliet Schroder exclusively in a virtual interview.
“‘blindfolded’ was a song we all loved. It always in the back of our heads, however, it was a demo that we thought that could have been on our last album or something like that,” drummer, keyboardist and vocalist Will Ferri adds. “I was just messing around in the studio starting like a completely new track — ‘blindfolded wasn’t on my mind at all — and then Dan [Gow] walked through and he was just like, ‘I think [‘blindfolded’] would work over that perfectly.’ I just had that little piano loop in the beginning and I was like, ‘whoa, you’re right.’ So I pulled the vocal in and we just kind of arranged the song like that, which was really cool.”
And after receiving over 3 million streams on Spotify and playlisting on Spotify’s All New Rock and Fierce Femmes, Apple Music’s The New Rock and Breaking Rock, and Amazon Music’s Fresh Rock, the trio knew that they had to give the fans they wanted by showcasing the song in a reimagined way ATC does best — going acoustic — which they dropped last month (March 31).
“We love stripping down our songs and kind of doing these different versions of them. When we started our band, before we could tour or anything, we were just making videos online. We would do a lot of our favorite songs in these kind of stripped-down acoustic styles and it was one of the first ways we really connected with people before we even had our own music out. It’s kind of an homage to that where we go back and strip down our own songs and give them new life,” Chrissy says.
“‘blindfolded lent itself really well to that. It is a dreamier track overall, but we’ve done it with songs that are heavier like ‘weapon’ and you just kind of un unearth this whole new layer to them that you didn’t really see before when listening to the original. It’s one of our favorite things to do,” she concludes.
“blindfolded” is a taste of what’s to come for the band’s new era, as it marks the first time in almost a decade that ATC will have full creative control of what they put out for the world to hear. Teasing that this new era will show the band of twelve years’ growth and exceptional talent, it will also pay homage to their earlier work that led them to where they are today.
“It’s been a really natural transition. We formed this band by doing this on our own, so even while we were on a major label, we maintained a lot of our autonomy. We are really lucky that our team grew — it shrunk in one way and get in other ways,” Chrissy says of working independently versus with a major label.
“I don’t think being on a major versus being independent can actually make a difference, uh, all of the time in in how, you know, your release actually happens. It depends on the a the people themselves that are touching your project and how much they care and the passion that they have. And we’re really lucky that we have a super passionate team.”
“We’re buzzing because we just finished our next single, and just the freedom and flexibility to get it right without anyone breathing down your neck is just awesome. We’ve never been happier with our music,” Will adds.
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And although there’s a new song “good guy” tomorrow (April 21), you might have to wait a little longer for a full-length project. However, you can catch ATC on their Nightmares & Daydreams World Tour alongside Trophy Eyes with special guests Yours Truly this spring. Kicking off this Saturday (April 22) in Orlando, FL, the trio will be visiting major cities throughout the U.S. — including a huge hometown show in New York City — before wrapping on May 17 in Greensboro, NC.
“We never really got to do a full tour for our EP fever, so this is gonna be our first full US run since prior to the pandemic,” Chrissy explains. “We’re really excited to get back. Our New York show is sold out so we’re really stoked because that’s our kind of our hometown show. The back half of the year we’re going all over the world, so we’re always pumped about that too.”
With now 3 full-length albums, 4 EPs and a ton of singles under their belt, choosing the songs for the pop/rock trio is harder than ever.
“It’s so hard to choose because it’s not even just narrowing it down to a list of songs that are the most popular because sometimes not all of those synergize well together. And if we want to do it that way, we have to find the way to make that process happen on during the set. So even if you narrow it down to 20-25 songs, how do you then make the whole set flow together? It’s a lot harder,” Chrissy explains.
“I remember it used to be the bane of our existence having no music when we first started touring and being like, ‘we don’t have enough songs to play a full like headlining set and we were headlining,’ but now we have the opposite problem where we’re like, ‘oh my God, we have too many songs… how do we possibly play all the ones that everyone wants to hear?'”
For more on Against the Current, watch our full interview with the band below. Don’t forget to let us know what you think of their new music by either leaving a reaction at the bottom of the post or by sliding into our DMs on Instagram at @celebsecrets.
You can connect with Against The Current by giving them a follow on Instagram at @againstthecurrent.
Listen to “blindfolded (acoustic)” here:
