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Hudson Valley, New York’s Spoils System releases its sophomore album The Nope Out via Sweet Cheetah Records today, July 11. The Nope Out finds the band leveling up the swirl of shoegaze shimmer and power-pop punch—Think Swervedriver meet Death Cab with a hint of Blinker the Star sparkle.
Spoils System’s Dan Coutant (vocals/guitar/keys) says, “Making The Nope Out was a landmark experience for me and Sean (Hansen). It started out as writing songs for a side project with an old friend of ours and that sort of allowed us to let our guard down, and approach the writing with a 'free and easy' attitude. It wasn’t really supposed to be a Spoils System record. We stuck to what we do best, which is unapologetic guitar power pop with a little dissonance mixed in.
"We had just come out of a six or so month period where we were playing some old songs to promote a reissue of Joshua‘s first EP. I think that recalibrated our approach to songwriting and pushed us in a more aggressive direction than the first Spoils System album. The thing about this band is that we are not bound to any specific genre, we just want to write and play songs that we like, anything is fair game stylistically. We might sound like Big Star for a song, and then Portishead for another, and then Steely Dan, and then Failure… and so on. But I feel like there’s a common thread, and somehow it all makes sense together.
"The new album is much more of a cohesive work overall than LP1, but there’s still a little genre hopping going on. That side project I mentioned was tentatively called The Nope Out, so we just kept that on as the album title to tie it all together. Human nature forces you to give meaning to things, so for me the meaning of that title has taken on a form. I think it describes the feeling we have as aging rockers, seeing how the business has changed and how the dissemination of music, and the definition of an artist has really changed. The new model of social media marketing for musicians is a paradox to us. There really isn’t a clear path or opportunity to do it if you’re not in certain categories. Those categories include your age, the way you look, the way you sound, the way you market yourself, how many followers you have, and so on.
"There’s also the fear of AI infesting the artistic community, and how tragic that is. So The Nope Out is a commentary on people like us opting out of participating in any of that, and just playing and writing what satiates our souls and not conforming to any of it. The songs may sound dated or fly over some heads, but we’re doing it for us and we genuinely hope it will connect with others and make somebody somewhere happy. Not to mention that we got to work with Kellii Scott from Failure on a couple songs, which is pretty darn cool as shit.”
The band are Dan Coutant (vocals/guitar/keys), Sean Hansen (guitar/vocals), David Fateman (bass), and Mark Frankel (drums). They initially delivered their stellar debut, Smoke Signals, for New Granada Records. Additionally, Coutant and Hansen both cut their teeth in early 2000s emo outfit Joshua, who rolled with The Get Up Kids, At the Drive-In, and Jets To Brazil. Hansen also helped shape The Ataris’ Welcome the Night.
Engineered by J. Robbins, Tom Hill (Bookhouse Studio, London) and Paul Carabello, the album also includes a two-song collaboration with drummer Kellii Scott from the band Failure (“Force For Good” and “Hall of Forgotten Names”).
