‘Forever a punk band’: The Menzingers bringing ‘maturing’ sound to Archer Music Hall

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — The inherent limitation of punk rock music since its late 1970s founding was that it never got to grow up.

Founded by young, DIY bands who played energetic, stripped-down music that rejected the overproduced corporate sound of the time, punk seemed forever trapped in the simplicity of immaturity.

Seminal acts such as The Ramones never progressed, or burned out quickly — The Sex Pistols after just four years, and even the more sophisticated The Clash lasted just 10.

Fifty years after punk’s founding, Scranton-born, Philadelphia-based punk band The Menzingers seem to be changing that.

The group’s recent albums — 2019’s “Hello Exile” and 2023’s “Some of It Was True” — have given a glimpse of what punk could become if it matured.

And the group is ready to release an eighth album that will take that even further, The Menzingers singer/guitarist Tom May said in a recent phone call from his South Philadelphia home.

Before that record comes out, The Menzingers will headline a show at Allentown’s Archer Music Hall at 6 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 24. Doors open at 5.

Due to the impending snowstorm, the time was changed from 6:30. The performance is scheduled to end by 10:05 p.m.

Fewer than 100 tickets, at $48.05 for general admission standing, remain available at the Archer websiteor the venue box office at 939 Hamilton St., Allentown. Elevated seating is nearly sold out.

“Some artists talk about reinventing themselves,” May said. “We didn’t reinvent ourselves and we didn’t reach back into the past and try to recreate something we’ve already done.

“[But] we have been practicing and learning more instruments, so there’s a lot more instrumental depth to the record.

“Musically, I think it’s a very good representation of where you would think our career would be going as a fan of the band. We’re really, really excited to share.”

‘Figure out who we are as a band’

May said that music came from The Menzingers taking off the entire second half of 2025 to write the songs.

“We got to sit down and really spend a lot of time digging in and trying to figure out who we are as a band this many years later, you know?” May said.

“It’s been almost 20 years as a band and we’re still a punk band. It’s kind of an interesting thing to me to be in our late 30s and still doing this.”

But even with punk remaining the band’s touchstone, The Menzingers now have experienced enough of life to have a different perspective, he said.

“So much has happened,” May said. “When I was young, my dad always used to say, ‘The bigger the kid, the bigger the problem.’ And I kind of feel like that hasn’t stopped.

“And bigger, beautiful things — like there’s, [vocalist/guitarist] Greg [Barnett] from the band had a kid, they’ve been able to take some time off.

“There’s been divorces, there’s been family members and friends passing away.

“But there’s also been a new peace has happened. We’ve gotten to see much of the world and been able to really reflect on our career up to this point.

“So that’s been kind of the good parts. We try to reflect that in the record. So I’m really, really excited about it.”

Playing bigger venues

The Menzingers arose from Scranton’s ska-punk scene and quickly became one of the area’s most popular bands, but relocated to Philadelphia en mass more than 15 years ago.

The group had its breakthrough with its 2017 disc “After The Party,” which peaked at No. 67 on Billboard’s overall Albums chart [No. 2 on the Independent Albums chart] and was included on many music critics’ lists of best albums of that year.

It found continued success with 2019’s “Hello Exile,” which — while still definitely punk — included hints of Americana and country.

“Some of the earlier records were big successes in that they completely changed our lifestyle at the time,” May said.

For example, he said with 2012’s “On the Impossible Past,” “We were immediately able to headline our own tours and make a living as a band.

“We put out ‘After the Party,’ and we really started to play bigger venues and really started to get more of a global reach.”

Courtesy

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Epitaph Records

‘A big step’

But May said it was the 2023 album “Some of It Was True” that “Of all the albums that we did … for me changed my thinking about music production and songwriting more than any of the other ones. That record for us was a big step.”

He said that working with Grammy-nominated producer Brad Cook, who also has worked with Bon Iver, The War on Drugs and others, also changed The Menzingers’ approach.

“We had to do things a certain way,” he said. “Like the norms of any type of industry or art process.”

But he said the band told Cook it “wanted to make, like, a punk record, right? Like The Replacements of something like that. And we went in and he kept on there.”

May said the band “recorded that record actually in two weeks — it’s the shortest amount of time that we ever spent.”

“Most of the tracks were [recorded] live,” he said. “And from that, we took that experience of ‘We do these things in a way that is how you’re going to end of playing it live.’

“There’s actually a lot of more musicality in things that are imperfect. And not speaking for the whole band, but that’s how it was for me: On ‘Some of It Was True,’ we finally kind of smashed that paradigm that existed, at least in my mind.”

Forever a punk band

Despite The Menzingers’ growth and new “maturity,” May said it will always be a punk band.

“I feel that way so much,” May said. “When you’re younger, some older people in your life or authority figures, when you’re getting into punk rock [they say], ‘Oh, it’s going to be a phase’ or ‘You’ll get over it.’ And a lot of people do.

“But it’s funny. I still listen to The Ramones at least once every couple weeks. The Clash constantly. And I revisit some of those older punk bands that I never really listened to.

“But it’s also the idea that friends or people who live by each other or whatever can get instruments and then play them, and the focus isn’t necessarily on the musicianship or who’s the most technically proficient. It comes down to a bunch of emotions.

“And there’s something about people getting together, being that loud, being at a show, having the release — whether it’s the moshing, or all of those things that kind of exist at shows. I think that’s just never going to go away.

“Also, like the romanticization of the things that happened in the past are always going to be reinterpreted and pushed forward.”

May said, “Anybody can get a guitar, some way or another, and there’s always going to be groups of people who come together and do that.”

Twenty years into The Menzingers, May said, “to me it feels incredible.”

“The fact that we are able to do this, stay best friends and be family for 20 years, and touring with the same crew members, like, it is look at it like a legitimate career. It is a lifelong career.

“Doing something that started out in youth and it’s typically strained by the fact that it’s a youthful endeavor, and we’re still at it 20 years later.

“But that time element doesn’t really exist for us, ‘cause we continue to change the way that we write music and change the way that we reflect our lives in the lyrics.

“You can’t stay the same. There are some bands I love that stayed the same, but I feel like most of them that stayed the same, I feel like most of them just had an explosion — released everything in a few years and called it quits.

“You got to incorporate your experiences into what you’re doing.

“And here’s to 20 more. I love it. It’s an incredible life, and I’m so … damn lucky to be able to have it for this long.”