Long Gone talks about new music, biggest inspirations, inside jokes, and more! - exclusive interview

Chicago pop-punkers Long Gone recently dropped their latest single “Wear Me Out” produced by Seth Henderson at the Always Be Genius Studio. Click here to check it out!

We sat down with Trevor from Long Gone to talk about the band’s new music, biggest inspirations, and future plans. Check out our interview below!

Be sure to keep up with Long Gone on social media!

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How did you establish your band name as Long Gone?

The name itself is purely just an inside joke between the three of us. At the start of the band, we spent way more time than we probably should have sitting with a bunch of different ideas. This one was kind of just thrown out half jokingly, but the longer we sat with it, it was the best sounding of the few that we were debating on, so it just ended up being what we stuck with!

“Wear Me Out” is such a banger! What is your favorite line from the song?

My personal favorite is the very first line, actually. “Pouring water down an endless well,” to me, paints a very clear picture right off the bat of just how much effort is put into someone or something that is then not reciprocated, and how exhausting it can be to continue to see no reward for as much effort as has been put in. Something else that I think really sticks out to me is how often we bring back the line “you wear me out, if you couldn’t tell.” We really liked the idea of a recurring lyrical motif a lot, and I think it really drives the point home and gets across the emotion and the message of the song.

What artists do the members of Long Gone have on repeat? What artists inspire your music?

Collectively, we all listen to a lot of State Champs, Seaway, and The Band CAMINO. I think what makes our band special is that although we do have a lot of artists that we overlap on and listen to and agree upon, there’s also individual tastes that sneak in that are specific to only one or two of us. Patrick is really into much more emo-leaning music like Movements or Free Throw, I (Trevor) am VERY pop-focused, Pale Waves and MUNA are two of my recent favorites, and I’d say Matt sits in pretty neutral ground between all of us and likes a bit of everything. Put that all together and I think it brings some unique and often more subtle influences to the pop punk music we make.

What have been some recent challenges you’ve faced as you are writing and recording?

I think we are learning to start getting better at actually preparing ideas for the studio ahead of time. I firmly believe that you should let the studio process inform what the song needs, be open to change, and allow the idea you come in with to breathe and take on its own life, but a lot of the time recently, we have gotten a little too comfortable with that mentality and find ourselves coming in with very bare-bones ideas and just filling in the blanks as we go. Sometimes that’s cool, because it ends up being very organic and honest in a way, but I think we’re working to put together more of a baseline before we bring ideas into the studio in the future.

What can we look forward to in the near future from Long Gone?

There will be more music released before the end of summer, and we’ll be back in the studio at the end of summer/beginning of fall to start on the next release as well!

Is there anything else you’d like to share with your fans or All Punked Up readers?

I would just say a huge thank you to anyone who has been listening for a long time, anyone who has just found us through “Wear Me Out,” or anyone reading about us here for the first time and then checking us out, haha. The response to this song has been overwhelmingly positive, and we’re all very very appreciative.

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Long Gone talks about new music, biggest inspirations, inside jokes, and more! — exclusive interview