Crøss Our Hearts And Hope To Cry
Let’s take a trip down nostalgia lane. Back to the days of tight black jeans, heart crushing lyrics and when being a little screamo was a way of life. Not that it still isn’t, cause between you and me I’ll forever be outside of your window with my radio.
On a more serious note though, the influence that this particular scene and genre had was quite epic. We found comfort in the sadness, it opened up whole new doors musically, and honestly, even though the music was quite melancholy, it made us feel okay to not be okay. Years later we still see bands and artists influenced by this gem of a genre and some even still mix the style into what they create today. One group, a computercore duo from Philly, have seem to do just that with their new project and single. Allow me to introduce, Crøssed Hearts.
The two talented gents that make up this fantastic duo are Mikey Lince, former face/voice of To All The Crowded Rooms and vocalist of Heavensake and Julian Carbone, former member/guitarist of the South Jersey band Pointless.
The twosome, having left their former music projects, became roommates and decided to start making some musical magic together.
They formed Crøssed Hearts in 2021 and once you listen it’ll be hard not to feel the nostalgic, yet also refreshing vibe and sound. They dropped their debut single today entitled ISOLATE. It packs a wicked punch and you’re immediately hit with a familiar, but also unique sound that is sure to warm even the coldest of screamo hearts.
To dive a little deeper into this dynamic duo, Mikey and Julian were awesome enough to answer a few questions for me about their background, recording, and of course influences!
1.) To kick things off, can you give us some Crøssed Hearts history? How you guys came to be, have you always been close friends and is this the first time you two have made music together?
Mikey (@hottoxic): I had a podcast called “To All The Crowded Rooms” where I would interview legacy scene artists. Eventually, I was completely burnt out trying to keep the channel afloat and needed a new creative outlet. Around this same time, I needed a roommate in my house in Port Richmond. Julian ended up sliding into my DM's. We knew each other from playing gigs in the Philly scene. He played guitar in a pop punk band called Pointless, and I sang for an emo band called Heavensake. Over the pandemic, Julian taught himself how to record music. He would stress to me how important it was to be able to produce from a home studio.
Julian (@juliccho1): I moved in during the pandemic, and I wasn’t playing in any bands anymore. I had been dialing in super hard, learning how to make music on my PC. Mikey and I hit it off right away. We’d play acoustic pop punk /emo covers, watch music videos, and talk about genres and aesthetics we liked. Pretty soon we just started writing songs and laying them down on my computer. It kinda just came together naturally.
2.) Who would you say are some of your biggest influences when it came to starting Crøssed Hearts? Is there a particular band or artist that has been most influential?
Mikey (@hottoxic): As a vocalist: Screaming, I'd say Casey Calvert (Hawthorne Heights RIP), Peter Rono (Kaonashi), Connie Sgarbossa (SYSC), David Siebold (Verses The Mirror). For my clean vocals, Nik & Zak (Man Overboard), Ben Jorgenson (Armor For Sleep), Lil Lotus (If I Die First). I drive around and listen to these artists everyday in my car and practice singing like them.
Julian (@juliccho1): Rock stuff ranging from 00’s Pop-Punk, Post-Hardcore, Drive-Thru records Emo, Mall Screamo, Crabcore, Tumblr-core Pop Punk. And also a lot of electronic stuff: Myspace-era electronic music like early Metro Station and nevershoutnever, and recent hyperpop / emo rap artists like 93FEETOFSMOKE and Capoxxo. We’re definitely inspired heavily by a lot of artists that produce their own music at home. All time fav vocalist and guitarist might have to be Spencer Chamberlain (Underoath), and Fred Mascherino (Taking Back Sunday, The Color Fred)
3.) Your first single ISOLATE is out and boy does it pack a mean, nostalgic, screamo punch. Can you give us some insight to where you recorded and is ISOLATE the first single to an upcoming EP or album?
Julian (@juliccho1): THX fam! That’s def what we were going for. When we wrote it, we were on a Senses Fail, Silverstein, Hawthorne Heights kinda kick. We wanted to try and capture the vibe of that era, but also incorporate more extreme production inspired by things like Joey Sturgis metalcore and bands like Belmont and Oceans Ate Alaska. We were just having a blast putting way too much screaming, double kick, guitar noises, and just making it absolutely insane lmao. The song was made in my bedroom at Mikey's old place in Port Richmond. We make the majority of every song on my half-broken PC on Reaper.
Mikey (@hottoxic): We have done studios before. There are a lot of perks that come with working with professionals and using top of the line gear. However, we like to go at our own pace and have complete and final say of every single part of the music. After we record the music, we send the stems over to our mixing engineer, Pete Zen. He does fantastic work. We have no plans in releasing an EP or full length of a consistent genre. We’ve made a wide variety of songs and plan on dropping them once the visuals/content are ready. Another side note - I edited the ISOLATE music video. It was one of the hardest learning experiences I ever had. I am super happy with how it came out!
4.) And lastly, if you could go back in time and catch any Warped Tour what year would you choose and why?
Mikey (@hottoxic): Great question! I went to every Warped Tour over the years since 2006. There were a few artists I regret missing. I would probably have to say Warped 08, specifically to see Katy Perry. I am a huge fan of Katy Perry. Teenage Dream is one of my all time favorite albums. The fact she played Warped when she was still an up and coming artist is insane to me. It really bums me out that I missed her. Also, Warped 2009 because I missed the phenomenon that was “BC13 Get Crunk!”, Brokencyde!
Julian (@juliccho1): HAHA ok, I don’t think I can top that, but I think I gotta say 2003. I have probably watched the YouTube videos of Taking Back Sunday, Rufio, AFI, and Avenged Sevenfold playing Warped ’03 like 1 million times each.
It's safe to say that Crøssed Hearts is a duo that you should definitely not sleep on. They’ve rolled out quite the banger of a first single, they’re a group that seems to be very passionate about what they create and they’ve given us the major sign that this scene was most definitely never a phase. Please give these talented gents a listen, share their tunes, follow them on socials and smash the link below to check out their new single/video!!!!
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