When vocalist Tony Kovacs (Shot Baker) teamed up with his longtime friend Andy Maggio (No Enemy) to work on songs together, they decided to loop in former Shot Baker members Chris Gach (also of The Dorks) on drums and Nat Wright (also of 88 Fingers Louie) on bass. Thus, Pretty Atomic was put together with three members of Shot Baker. But there was one catch: Kovacs now lived in Fort Collins, Colorado while the rest of the band was in Chicago.
“We immediately began sharing song ideas and demos by uploading them to a cloud drive. Each of us would add parts as we tweaked and developed these songs,” explains Maggio. “Once happy with the songs, we recorded drums at Chris’s house and sent those tracks around, each adding our parts again. We’ve never all been in the same room together since the inception of this project.”
With members who knew each other so well, it wasn’t hard to make music over distance, and the quartet put together their debut EP with a little help from Dan Precision (88 Fingers Louie, Rise Against) who mixed the EP in his Bombshelter recording studio. The resulting EP, Idle Age, is due out on June 6.
Today, Pretty Atomic are debuting the lyric video for their first single as a band. The joyfully melodic “Life Now” has a classic style that brings to mind the smarter side of pop-punk like Jawbreaker and Osker. The found footage lyric video brings out the sense of nostalgia inherent in the song’s melody, creating a warm and fuzzy pop-punk experience that feels wholly satisfying. Check out the video below.
Idle Age is out on June 6 and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp. Follow Pretty Atomic on Instagram for future updates.
Photo courtesy of Pretty Atomic
