Sorority Noise

Joy, Departed is more than just the best iteration of Sorority Noise to date; the album also marks a creative shift for Boucher, who draws musical influence from a diverse crop of acts spanning Regina Spektor and jazz trumpeter Chet Baker to The Smiths and Broken Social Scene—and previously spent time fronting screamo band Old Gray. In some ways, the singer says he approached the creative process like writing his very first album.

Boucher started Sorority Noise in late 2013 with friends as an outlet to explore musical styles outside his work in Old Gray. The group then recruited Ackerman and issued their debut full-length, Forgettable, in May 2014. Much buzz—and tours with buzz bands Modern Baseball and The Hotelier—followed, as did a split 7" with Somos and the arrivals of Singer (whom Boucher had played with in Old Gray) and McKenna.

Artist Feature

Friends of Feed The Beat had been telling us for months that Sorority Noise's new album Joy, Departed, was going to be a game changer for them - and once we heard it, we knew they were right! About to hit the road again, we chatted with the band about the excitement of tour and a new record:

Tell the Feed The Beat community about Sorority Noise in one sentence: Two dudes from New Hampshire and two dudes from New Jersey playing 2006 revival rock.

You just wrapped up a tour with Fireworks and Turnover (two fellow Feed The Beat artists!) and you're headed back out on the road this July. What are you looking forward to the most about your upcoming dates? We're going out with Motion City Soundtrack and The Spill Canvas in July! I've been listening to those bands since I was in 8th grade and it's truly an honor to be able to see them play every night for about a month! Its going to be truly wild!

What's your favorite song to play live? "Your Soft Blood" off of the new record!

Speaking of... your new record Joy, Departed just came out this past week. What is something about the album that you're really excited about? I'm really excited to finally be able to play it live a lot. We've had these songs written for 7-9 months and it's just really awesome to be able to play them for people who might have heard them!

What is the band's biggest "must have" while out on tour? We've been talking about this lately. I, personally would have to say either other people's pretzels (nothing tastes better than pretzels that aren't yours) and dry shampoo, haha.