Revelation Records and Calling Hours are excited to announce the release of "Say Less" , the debut showcase from the east coast punk/rock band featuring veteran vocalist Popeye Vogelsang ( Farside ) and members of Don’t Sleep . An outcome of various col laborations, Say Less revisits the band members’ melodic punk sensibilities while working in a decidedly contemporary direction . Produced by the legendary Brian McTernan (Turnstile, Hot Water Music, Thrice), Say Less is also a deep dive into the feelings of displacement and discomfort that punctuated Popeye’s move from Ca lifornia to Pennsylvania a few years back — a meditation on th e intersection of sense of place and sense of self.
Listening to the Album: https://open.spotify.com/intl-pt/album/2u7bWeiLCvO65BsCV3TdO3
Accompanying the announcement is the windows - down, heartland punk of “ Curtain Call ,” an obvious single choice to lead the album because it begins with Popeye’s unmistakable vocals being heard front and center. “It’s an instant reminder to Popeye’s fans from his days singing in Farside that his voice is simultaneously uplifting and heavy, soulful and gritty, and powerful and vulnerable,” bassist Garrett Rothman said . “For many of his fans, hearing his voi ce on ‘Curtain Call’ will be like running into an old friend you haven’t seen in years – all the good feelings from the past will immediately come rushing back to you.” Watch the mu sic video for “Curtain Call” on YouTube.
The official story of Calling Hours more accurately begins in 2021, but for vocalist Popeye Vogelsang , the story actually unfolds a few years earlier.
“I was living alone in a one - bedroom apartment in a 1940s building in Los Angeles,” he recalls. “It was a seven - minute walk to Trader Joe’s, an eight - minute walk to my bank, and a nine - minute walk to the post office. I was doing voiceover work full - time. When I had free time, I’d walk to one of the local parks and have a sandwich under a tree. It was like li ving inside of the Andy Griffith show — like I was living in Mayberry, where every day was a sunny day.”
As an established fixture in Southern California — both personally and creatively as the former frontman for melodic hardcore greats Farside — there was little in his routine to suggest at that point that Popeye’s life was headed for any sort of major change. It felt like an ideal life, in fact, until it didn’t. “It was very solitary, and I guess I was OK with that — or at least I told myself that I was OK with that — until I met the woman who is now my wife,” he explains. “ That absolutely changed everything.
As an established fixture in Southern California — both personally and creatively as the former frontman for melodic hardcore greats Farside — there was little in his routine to suggest at that point that Popeye’s life was headed for any sort of major change. It felt like an ideal life, in fact, until it didn’t. “It was very solitary, and I guess I was OK with that — or at least I told myself that I was OK with that — until I met the woman who is now my wife,” he explains. “ That absolutely changed everything.
Among those changes, Popeye uprooted his entire life to move cross - country to the decidedly less metropolitan city of Scranton, P A , where he would eventually come to meet the rest of his new band — guitarists Thomas McGrath and Tony Bavaria , bassist Garrett Rothman , and drummer Jim Bedorf — at the tail end of 2021.
That’s when The Commercials, a band of local heroes featuring McGrath and Bavaria, i nvited Popeye to open a New Years Eve reunion show they were planning. That invitation quickly evolved into the duo offering to become the core of a backing band for Popeye to play with that night, and then eventually, into the idea of becoming a new band altogether — bringing in Rothman and Bedorf from Don’t Sleep.