Over two years, thousands of miles, and countless Zoom calls in the making, Grand Rapids rock band Finding Amelia released their debut album, Onwards and Upwards, on New Year’s Eve.
Celebrating the album, the New Year, and the start of an exciting new chapter for the band, they will host a release party at The Pyramid Scheme Jan. 4.
Doubling as the band’s official live debut, the show will introduce the five-piece to a new audience, although longtime fans of the local music scene might recognize some familiar faces.
Finding Amelia lead vocalist Sam Mann previously fronted GR pop rock act Mannhattan while he and bassist Joe Joel attended Calvin College, now Calvin University. That band gained quite a bit of attention, eventually signing with Pennsylvania indie label Prodigious Records. But after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and put a pause on live music, they parted ways with their previous drummer and lead guitarist who moved on to other things in their lives.
Working closely with their former roadie and studio engineer, Mark Townsend, as their new rhythm guitarist, they brought in lead guitarist Ethan Bilby, and one of Townsend’s oldest friends, Brandon Seliga – who also worked as a studio engineer for Prodigious Records – as their drummer.
There was only one problem. They were spread out all over the state, and all over the country. Townsend was in GR. Bilby was on the East side of the state, and Mann was in Ann Arbor for grad school. Joel was in med school in the Caribbean, and Seliga was in Santa Monica, California.
“A big part of this album is it’s a new band with a lot of the same people, but you put one different person in a band and that can drastically change the tone of what you’re going for,” Townsend said. “And I think a big part of this album, the goal was to figure out what our sound is.”
The band chose to start with an album, rather than a number of EPs like a lot of bands release first right now, because they wanted to find that definitive rock sound that they feel like is missing in today’s music.
“I think that with us, because we are a very diverse group of people, because we have such a collaborative process, and we draw from so many different genres, we really focused on just like rock ‘n’ roll,” Mann said. “We’re not trying to play to one of the subgenres. We’re not trying to play to a culture. We’re just trying to make rock. And we believe that rock transcends all.”
Describing Onwards and Upwards as “a raw and honest exploration of the challenges and triumphs of adulthood in one’s mid-20’s,” the 10-song album mixes modern rock, with metal and pop influences that feel right at home for the band that has played countless covers over the years, and has become obsessed with music.
“I think that it all hinges on the fact that even though this project is new, we have years of experience working with each other in other contexts,” Mann said. “So we understand each other very well, and we can communicate. It’s not like we’re learning who one another is with this distance between us. We already know each other very well, but we’re trying to learn how to create art in this space. And I think that it was a challenge, but it was kind of a unique opportunity to step into a different form of creativity in that way.”
Despite endless hours behind their respective computer screens – often working in different time zones – the endless emails back and forth led the band to work collaboratively on every level, with no one person writing all the music.
“For the first, probably year of writing this album, half the band was nocturnal, and the other half was not because of work,” Townsend, who worked third shift at the time, said.
Late one night in a group chat they had discussing flights and how a loose aviation theme might fit the band, Mann woke up at 2 a.m. with the name Finding Amelia, after the famed lost aviator from the golden age of aerospace.
At that point the band had the song, “Paper Planes,” written with a huge, soaring chorus filled with lead guitar and a breathtaking violin part that serendipitously fit the aeronautical name without aiming for it, so they went with it.
While the album release party Jan. 4 at The Pyramid Scheme will mark the Finding Amelia’s first official show, they said that part of the reason they’ve taken so long is that they’ve re-engineered how their live performance is done, so that it’s more streamlined from a technical standpoint, making them ready to play anything, anywhere, anytime.
“This is going to sound like hyperbole, but it’s not,” Townsend said. “If somebody wants us to go play Madison Square Garden tomorrow, or Mulligan’s tomorrow, we can show up and be completely prepared.”
Looking to play as many gigs as possible in the New Year, Finding Amelia has finally synced their schedules so they can finally play together here in West Michigan, opening for other bands, or out on tour.
“The album has had 10,000 steps to completion,” Townsend said. “But in what we want this band to be, it’s really just step one.
Finding Amelia Onwards and Upwards Album Release Show
Wsg. Smothers
The Pyramid Scheme, 68 Commerce SW, Grand Rapids
Jan. 4, 7 p.m., $10, All Ages
Finding-amelia.com, pyramidschemebar.com
