About
Some bands send us a polished press kit. Finally Awake sent us themselves. What we got was a guy who spent more than 500 days learning Japanese for seemingly no reason, a guitarist who plays chess when he isn’t screaming into a microphone, a metalhead who cannot stop playing pinch harmonics, a drummer building an entire Warhammer army despite never actually playing Warhammer and a bass player who originally learned the instrument because his friend’s band needed somebody and he happened to be around. Finally Awake is a five piece Pittsburgh band bringing together emo, pop punk, rock and touches of J-Rock. On vocals is Jared. He’s into pop punk, Midwest emo, loud Japanese cars and apparently had enough spare determination lying around to spend more than 500 days learning Japanese. Charlie handles rhythm guitar and backing vocals. In his words, that means singing, screaming and jumping around with a guitar. He’s into Green Day, The Wombats and Noah Kahan. He also plays chess. Somebody apparently forgot to tell Charlie that chess players are supposed to be calm, quiet and at least a little nerdy. Instead we got this guy. Just goes to show you, stereotypes are mostly trash. Lead guitarist Ben is the band’s resident metalhead, anime and manga fan, artist and, in his own words, someone who “literally cannot stop playing pinch harmonics.” After further research using my increasingly worn copy of Music for Dummies, a pinch harmonic is apparently when you pick a guitar string and lightly catch it with your thumb at the same time, producing that high pitched squeal you hear in metal guitar. Or, for those of us who still need that translated. You hit the string in exactly the wrong way, except somehow it’s the right way, and the guitar screams at you. Ben apparently does this a lot. Behind the drums is Andy. He’s influenced by Travis Barker and the emo and punk bands of the 2000s. He likes simple, powerful beats and freely admits he doesn’t spend much time practicing his rudiments. He is, however, currently 3D printing an entire Warhammer 40K Tyranid army despite never actually playing Warhammer. Priorities. And holding down the bass is Cook, who became a bass player the traditional way. His friend’s high school band needed one and Cook happened to be standing nearby. These days he spends his free time checking out local bands and seeking out what he describes as the worst dive bars he can find. So there’s clearly no shortage of personality here. But underneath all of that chaos, Finally Awake takes the music itself seriously. Their original songs explore both the bright and dark sides of life and aren’t afraid to tackle things that can be difficult to talk about. The band says they write these stories as “a home for anyone who may need them,” and they mean anyone. They’re proud to be LGBTQ friendly and want the people at their shows to know they’re welcome there. The bios made us laugh. The reason they make music didn’t. There’s something pretty great about a band that can be ridiculous together and still make room for the parts of life that are anything but.