Every good story I have ever shared has started with friends gathered around a table eating baller food. Okay, maybe not every story, but come on, you kind of agree a little bit. Think back to high school. How many memories do you have from your lunch period? Stuffing a bunch of gross stuff into a container and daring your boldest friend to down it? Doing a milk chugging challenge? Filling up an entire section of your tray with the grease from your DISGUSTING school entree? A food fight? Don’t you dare make me feel alone in this, because you would be lying if none of these hit home haha

As I got older, my childish activities around the table subsided, but the sentiment always remained the same. There is something special about sharing a meal with someone. First date? Go to your favorite coffee spot. After work hangout? Go to the local bar for some mozzarella sticks and a drink…or seven. Special occasion? Go to a nice Italian joint and fill up on breadsticks before your meal even arrives. Midnight snack with your crew? Go to Sheetz (Sorry Wawa stans–We ride with Sheetz here on the Mason Dixon Line) and hit up those jalapeno poppers…Obviously, I could keep going with these examples, but I’m gonna get too hungry to finish this entry, and then Aaron is gonna yell at me for not finishing this and having no content to post to all the socials. You know he’s basically giving me homework? Like with deadlines and everything! Oh, the irony of an English teacher being treated like this. Okay…umm..where was I? Oh, yeah. Food and friends–what a dynamic duo. For my first blog post, I want to tell you all how we formed The Farside over one of our favorite meals.

Aaron and I, like most people, have our go-tos, so if you ever need to find us, the percentages are in your favor if you check one of like five places in Morgantown, West Virginia. This is where our story starts. In the miserable cold of December, we bundled up and met at The Greeks to satisfy our gyro cravings. Bruh, it’s incredible. And yeah, I got a side of fries with oil and feta cheese on top because I wanted to hate myself afterward. So here’s the scene–two nerdy white boys with awesome hair and killer Vans are digging in and using up the entire bottle of the chef’s signature sauce, just discussing our mundane, post-college lifestyle.

We hadn’t played a show with our band Wait For It in almost a full year, and we hadn’t released music in three. To say things were frustrating was an understatement. I had this surplus of lyrics, and Aaron was dying to make video content that wasn’t for his job at WVU. There were two things we could agree on: 1.) These gyros were absolutely smacking, and 2.) We needed a creative outlet of some sort.

Aaron had the idea of just writing music together like old times–back when we were sixteen and butchering All Time Low covers in his treehouse, and of course I was down for it. We really had nothing to lose at this point because we could make it a separate endeavor from Wait For It. That alone was an interesting point, and the more I thought about it, the more excited I got. (I mean, it could have been the fries talking. Who really knows?) But seriously, the idea of starting from nothing was the most exciting thing to me. We never knew what we were doing with our band in terms of branding, promotion, and our overall social media presence. A complete reinvention was just what we needed to get excited about music again. After all, our music tastes had changed a ton since we were eighteen, so it was only fitting to pursue something new. I can’t exactly explain the energy in that little restaurant that day, but it was palpable. I remember thinking to myself that this was the day we would look back at and say, “That’s where it all started.” And here we are…doing just that.

The Farside, named after a wing of Morgantown High School, Aaron’s alma mater and my current place of employment, is simple–just two friends putting our own spin on pop music. It’s actually a really fitting name. It’s the place where Aaron’s passion for music started and where mine eventually took up residence. 

Our next step was figuring out what “the sound” of The Farside would be. Let’s face it, pop-punk is dying (don’t @ me). Some of our favorite pop-punk and alternative rock bands are now putting out great pop music. Our high school selves would’ve grimaced at the thought of shifting our efforts towards this style. Well, times are changing and if I’m being honest, some pop music freaking slaps. We both have grown to love a good alt-pop tune, from the likes of Anarbor, Emarosa, The Band CAMINO – you know the jams. Our writing style, both musically and lyrically, has evolved into more hook-driven material. The days of chugging away on overly-distorted guitars with yelling vocals are over. Do we still use distorted guitars? You bet. Do we still like belting out some high notes? You bet my destroyed vocal chords we do. Our approach has just shifted into something we think is a lot more melodically and sonically attractive.

If you didn’t already know, we self-produce our music. Aaron has been getting after it in Pro Tools since early high school. We have a fairly modern approach in how we write music. I usually start with a few voice memo ideas, or Aaron will usually have some sick riff and we’ll get together and get something bare bones laid out in Pro Tools. From there, we probably sit on ideas for much longer than we should, making sure everything sounds as good as possible. We like to take our time, but we definitely won’t take another three years before releasing new material. A lot of our music is recorded and mixed in-the-box. That basically means, we don’t use A TON of hardware gear to get the job done. It’s 2020 and plugins have been taking over for more than a decade. Don’t fret. We still incorporate a lot of organic and live elements. 90% of our vocal harmonies and effects are live takes that we really build out. Same goes for the guitar parts. We really like to take a modern approach to pop music production but with a bit more of a traditional execution in live recording. However, when it comes time for adding “the sauce”, we’ve got a lot of great digital options that let us get the job done faster. We honestly love the songwriting process and would rather let you hear small chunks of what we have been working on rather than having a huge gap between releasing music. That is why we plan to heavily adopt the Single and EP model. A lot of musicians are going this route and we really think it’ll help keep errrbody entertained. Furthermore, this schedule always leaves us something to promote haha

Sooooo yeah. That’s The Farside. Now I could write some marvelous full-circle ending about food and nourishment and creativity and friendship, but that legit might be more embarrassing than the “I Knew You Were Trouble” cover Aaron and I did in 2013 but never released (#TSwift). I’ll save the sappy endings for another day. Anyway, if you’ve made it this far, you’re a trooper. Thank you so much for reading. Stay tuned for new music, progress updates, videos, and more. Hit us up on our socials. Tell your friends about us. Let’s do this thing! Also, if, by chance, you feel like you need some inspiration in your life, I suggest eating a gyro. It worked for us. Shoot. I came full-circle didn’t I? Ugh…

— Adam