back on top for the first time

It’s 5 pm in New York City New York City and Brian Sella, lead singer for Front Bottoms, is sitting upstairs in Irving Plaza. It’s the first of two sold-out shows the band is playing here and, if the line of waiting fans that has stretched around the corner for the last hour is any indicator, things are about to get crazy. Later, during the show, the inside of the venue will be heaving, full of sweaty bodies desperate to get closer to the stage and have their voices heard by the New Jersey band.

This indie rock band literally started from playing music sitting on a bucket with a complete DIY gig system to now being able to play sold out shows and own their own tour bus! The band is made up of Brian Sella (guitar and vocals), drummer and co-founder Mat Uychich, trumpeter/guitarist/keyboard player Ciaran O’Donnell, and bassist Tom Warren. These guys have worked so hard in the past eight or so years and they have finally made it.

“You know,” says Sella, “you go from touring in a car to a van, and then a van with a trailer. But this is going to be different. When we would go on tour, we’d go on tour for what would feel like years. And it was a grind. You didn’t have a place to sleep. You were waking up and 7 o’clock in the morning so you could go make the show 12 hours away. It was a total hustle. And I’m not proud to say this, but the way we kept sane on tour was with drugs and alcohol.”

The reason that people like the Front Bottoms so much is because of their proximity to reality. The lyrics of every song are real, they don’t distance themselves far from what your average fan could be going through. “I believe,” he says, with a cheeky smile on his lips, “it’s the fact that people can see us onstage and say, ‘Oh, okay—I think I could do this.’ Because I always liked music when I was a kid that sounded great but there was also a sense that it was maybe the kid who lived down the street that made this, or the kid at college, or something like that.”

check these guys out