Philadelphia rockers Out of Service have built a healthy following across the East Coast, balancing honest lyricism, heartfelt and accessible storytelling and an engaging alternative rock influenced delivery, drawing comparison to the likes of Thrice, Manchester Orchestra and Citizen.

Please list all of your band members and their roles in the band.

Bryan (Teebs) Williams - Guitar

Brian McGovern - Bass

Kenny Bond - Drums

Mike Capuano - Vocals

For starters, what bands were you guys a part of prior to Out of Service? How long has the band been around?

Out of Service actually started as a three piece band in 2002 when Bryan, Brian, and Kenny were all teenagers. Mike joined as lead vocalist about a year later. Since we were all so young, OOS was pretty much our first serious band, but while we were playing together we all had other on and off side projects. The band had members come and go over the years and ultimately broke up in 2008. Then, in 2016 Bryan started the group text that brought the original line up back together and we have been writing and playing more than ever before.

What’s the origin of that name and have you changed the band’s name before?

We came up with the band name before we had the band actually haha.  We used to go to the movies a lot together and always saw these signs on the chairs that said “Out of Service.”  I think one day we just said, “you know that would be a good name for the band.”

Who writes your songs? What are the main themes or topics for most of your songs and do you think these topics will change over time?

For our newest album, Burden, the band got together specifically to write each song. This was a contrast to our last release, Morning, where most of the songs began with the guitar parts and were built from there. Writing collaboratively was a great experience and we feel like Burden, as a whole, is the strongest set of songs we have ever put out.

Once the music was written and demoed, Mike set out to write the lyrics. The album focuses on themes like anxiety, depression, mental health treatment, and living your daily life with these issues. While our music over the years has covered a litany of themes and topics, it is a safe bet that these mental health issues, that are so important and relatable to many people out there, will continue to be a focus for us.

What bands are currently inspiring the music that you’re making?

The funny thing about our band is we usually don’t know what bands we are borrowing from until after the songs are done.  Now that the record has been done for a while I can see some of the things we were borrowing from. For this album, instrumentally, we were borrowing more from 90s emo bands like Mineral and American Football, and even early Clarity era Jimmy Eat World. There’s one song on the record “Ash,” that Teebs wrote after going to see Silverstein perform their album “When Broken is Easily Fixed.”  The song was originally a lot slower when he brought it to the band, so we decided to speed up and it ended up taking on a life of its own.

Was there a particular band/artist or concert that inspired you to start a band?

Teebs: One of the things that made me want to reform this band back in 2015-2016 was falling in love with the bands Manchester Orchestra, Citizen, and The Hotelier.  Those bands and many others from the emo revival definitely played a big role in me wanting to reform the band. Falling in love with that style of Indie rock, made me realize that i just wanted to make music again, and I’m super thankful we’ve had the opportunity to record 25 songs over the course of the last 3 years. 

What do you do to prepare for a show? Any flexing, exercises, etc …

Before a show our singer Mike does a ritual in order to prepare.  He drinks tons of water and tea all day, he makes sure to warm up throughout the day, and he also makes sure he takes an anti inflammatory and has Ricola available.  The rest of us pretty much just show up. 

What has been the biggest highlight of the band’s career so far?

Writing, recording, and releasing Burden has certainly been a highlight for us. We are really proud of this record and have been touched by all of the feedback we’ve received with the release of each of the singles.

This past fall we also had the opportunity to open for some of our favorite artists, like All Get Out (Nathan Hussey, the lead singer, produced and mixed Burden) and Mat Kerekes (Citizen) on their respective tours. This gave us the opportunity to expand our audience and we were grateful to be included.

If you could tour with any bands, past or present, who would they be and why?

We would love to play with Manchester Orchestra. They put on one of the best shows out there right now and we would be able to learn so much sharing the stage with them. Looking back to the past, although sonically our sounds are very different, playing with Elliott Smith would have been incredible. His influence on every band we’ve listened to (including us) over the years comes through loud and clear when you hear his music.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Just want to say thank you for including us on the Kill the Music “Unsigned Spotlight.”  We are really excited to share this new album with people, and we hope that they are able to take something from the record and connect with it.