Just a little over a year since the release of their debut album, Price of a Nation, New Jersey trio America Part Two have returned with their new EP, AP2-niverse today! Marking their first independently released batch of music since 2019, AP2-niverse finds the band flexing their creative muscles and finding new creative freedom. Taking a more natural approach with the writing and recording process, AP2-niverse found the band tracking all of the songs live in a homemade studio in a barn, and the result is something that feels incredibly organic and real.
With AP2-niverse out now, we caught up with America Part Two to talk about the EP’s writing process, their growth as a band and plans for the future. Read more and listen to the EP now below.
Prelude Press: You’re coming off of an exciting 2021, which included the release of your debut album, Price of a Nation. Now that it has been out for a little over a year and you’ve had some time to play it live, what are some of your favorite things about the album?
America Part Two: Firstly thanks for having us – Price Of A Nation was a lifetime in the making. We started recording it in 2019 and have been growing with it ever since. There’s so much emotion packed into these songs, playing them is like cracking open a treasure chest, and people have been reacting to that live. We tried to set the right foundation to be able to play anything we want after. We laid out the spectrum of our sound to be able to dive into any & all directions from here. Proud of how it came out.
You’re now following-up the album with your new EP, AP2-niverse! What goals did you have in mind when you first started working on the EP?
We were actually planning to do a second LP, but after having a batch of 14 songs in front of us, we realized that a classic 5 song EP was the perfect next step. And naturally, we went from Nation to Universe. Always expanding.
The EP also marks your first independent release since 2019. What sort of freedoms did this give you? Did it change the way you did things at all?
Absolutely – we’ve regained complete creative freedom. We can release a song tomorrow if we want to, and in this day & age, singles matter just as much as an album. It all matters. Release-style in itself is now a creative endeavor, and we like having fun with that. Best of all, we don’t have to clear anything by anyone to do what we want with our lives, and we are relieved of the weight of dragging any & all adult-children around as we learn to walk for the first time as a band.
Were there any lessons you learned when working on Price of a Nation that you were able to apply to the writing process of AP2-niverse?
POAN was the first thing we all worked on together, because s3mi joined during the writing process. so ‘AP2-niverse’ is our continued growth directly from that experience in the studio. We have been able to sift through ideas more clearly after our first recording experience, and have taken an even more natural approach to the new material. For the new EP, we created our own studio in a barn that we lived in for a month with the help of our friend Doug Gallo.
Sonically, was there anything you wanted to try with the EP that you haven’t had the chance to do in the past?
Everything that everyone else has not done yet EVER. We tracked live drums, bass & guitar through the whole record, no click. We messed with a lotta different global sounds for overdubs throughout the record, trying out anything we possibly could. We used every part of the animal.
You’ve released a few songs from the EP so far, most recently “The Same” – can you tell us a little bit about the song? What inspired it?
“The Same” was lyrically finished up at The Barn, where we made the record. It was kind of like a self-therapy session, a melancholy vibe about how when you’re an outcasted kid, you & your friends bond over how you’re not the same as everyone, but when you grow older you find yourself relating to the average person more and more. In a way it’s kind of making fun of our young selves for romanticizing our outcastism. And the chords are really fun to play – they piece together like a puzzle.
What would you like for listeners to take away from AP2-niverse?
It would be cool if people could recognize the balance, sonically, between the earth & space. I hope people listen to it alone in headphones and just really let it take you for a ride. Let go & be free.
You guys are also about to hit the road for the majority of the summer! What are you looking forward to at the upcoming shows?
We are actually in the van right now, show #4, day 5 out with Harbour. We’re looking forward to playing to real fans of music who wanna be rocked. We say this, because as evidenced by Harbour’s fans in the Midwest, we can tell there’s something special happening at these shows.
Do you have any other big plans for 2022?
We’re following up this tour with a support slot on the Melting Up tour with Brick + Mortar & Andrés for the rest of the summer. We’re gonna start recording again for our next release, and plan on dropping more music & videos for the rest of ‘22. Fall touring likely.
Thank you for taking the time to chat with us! Is there anything else you’d like to add?
If you’d like, come out to a gig in a city near you. If you wouldn’t like, we got nothin for ya.
You can support any of your favorite artists by buying merch, wearing it out, streaming their music & watching their videos. Bring it to life. You are the ones who make this life a reality. We love you.
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