a chat with runaway after dark

Runaway After Dark—a local rock band from Boston, Massachusetts—(virtually) sat down with me to talk about how they got started, their dream to empower every soul they meet, and how they’re growing in quarantine. Check out our conversation below!

Go ahead and introduce yourselves, if you will.

Jo: I’m Jo, and I sing and play bass.

Kayla: I’m Kayla and I play lead guitar.

Bella: I’m Bella and I do rhythm guitar.

Aidan: I’m Aidan, and I do harmonies and drums…I don't know why harmonies came before drums.

Alright, cool. So how long have you guys been together as a band?

J: I think it's about five years.

Wow, that’s kind of a long time! And you’re all fairly young, aren’t you?

J: Yes, so I'm the youngest, I’m seventeen and the rest of the band is eighteen.

That’s really cool! You guys have been doing something you really enjoy for a while now. What are your guys’ personal inspirations for doing music and also your musical influences [as a band?]

J: We’re kind of a mix of a lot of different things because everyone in the band has such different music tastes, but they all go hand-in-hand when it comes to the writing process. We have a lot of older influences like Led Zeppelin, Heart, maybe a little Nirvana. But then we’ve been compared to Paramore and My Chemical Romance. Those are also big influences for us.

What inspired you to be a musician?

A: I was three the first time I got a drum kit. Prior to that, I kind of just played on my own because my dad is a drummer. That was my initial introduction into music. I just kind of had it my whole life.

J: Kayla, Aidan and I have known each other for a really long time; I think almost thirteen years now. But Kayla and I—ever since we were younger—always wanted to be in a band. We actually found this CD from when we were maybe nine of us pretending to be in a band. So it’s been a really long time of us wanting to do that.

K: I still have little songs we wrote in fourth grade. They’re not good, but I have them!

That’s so cool that you’ve known this was something you wanted to do for so long.

J: And I’ve always sang. I was always attracted to music when I was really really young. Singing is my main forté. When I joined the band when I was around twelve, I started getting more into writing, and then I [was] just constantly songwriting. So singing and songwriting...that kind of became my gateway for the band. It helped me [to] realize my passion for music and passion for the band.

As far as the writing goes, is that a group thing that everyone contributes to? How does that work for you guys?

J: It’s a mix, honestly. I typically write the lyrics, but recently, Kayla and Aidan and everyone [have helped]. But I will write the majority of the songs, and then when I have the music, I come up with a basic structure. When we come to practice and we’re learning new music, I’ll just give it to them and be like “do what you want.” In a weird way, they can read my mind and see the vision for the song. We all kind of have that chemistry to, like, share the same vision. [It’s as] if the songs are written by all of us. They have a flare of each of us in it.

What is it that you hope to portray through your music?

J: I think for me, when I start writing lyrics, a song is always based on personal experiences. There’s this joke that every time I’ll write a song, the [band] all ask “Oh, so who is this about?”I feel like when you’re writing based on personal experience, it’s the most relatable. One of [my] main goals is to have something that’s like a safe haven when people listen to it, and to have people be like “I know this exact feeling” or “I can pinpoint when this happened to me.” It's also, in a sense, a lot of women empowerment, because you look at us and we’re a majority girl band and a lot of people don’t expect our sound or expect us to be creating the music that we do. Kayla will just be ripping solos and tearing it on the guitar. It’s just a great group dynamic that you wouldn’t expect from teenagers, and teenage girls at that! Also when I’m writing lyrics, there’s a [familiar feeling] of heartbreak, but I try to write it where it tells a story with a triumph at the end. I think it’s mostly just trying to be empowering and relatable to people.

K: The songs that I’ve written are all really really personal. I'm always hoping that if someone is listening to the lyrics that it’ll help them and they can relate to it.

A: I think just writing in itself is very cathartic. I feel like if anyone can hear that and get some semblance in that… if we can have someone else capture that feeling that we had when we wrote it. All of our music is very personal, I feel like.

J: My favorite thing is those times that we’ve been performing and you see a glimpse of the crowd and you see people wiping away tears. It's crazy to see that your writing and something you created—individually and as a group—has that kind of effect on other people who don’t know you.

K: When people are singing the words to your songs…

B: That’s always so crazy! I cried the first time.

What do you see for your futures as individual artists and as a band? What are your musical goals?

J: I think for us, it's mostly just about reaching as many people as possible and playing as much as possible and just getting ourselves known. [It’s about] using our platform to spread the message of empowerment and to find people.

B: And we’ve always wanted to go on tour—even if it's a small one—just to spread our music.

K: Yeah, just to play to as many people as we can.

J: I think it was crazy to find you guys [at Underground] and even do this interview. Just reaching as many people as we can and getting the word out about us...just having people gravitate towards us is something.

What do you have coming up? Any plans that the band has? J: I think after this whole mess is over, we’re just hoping to play as much as we can. [We’ll be] slowly easing into it because of the state of the world. We’re definitely going to be releasing more music in the near future. It’s very exciting! We have a single hopefully coming out in the next month or so, and then we’re planning on an EP after that. That’s the main plan that we have right now.

Because of the state of the world right now, what do you think you’re personally learning as an artist as a result? How can other people be using it to their advantage?

J: In a weird way, you go from having school and working and having such little time to put into music to having all the time in the world. You can use your surroundings, other people’s experiences, and what other people are going through and put it into music. [You can create] another sense of relatability because everyone is going through the same thing right now. I'd say it teaches a lot of patience and [how to] be able to sit down and observe the world around you. No one had much time for that before, but now everyone does.

K: I’ve been able to write a lot more. I don’t think I’d written this many songs in my life until now. It's good to be able to sit down, think through things and write about things that never crossed my mind until now.

A: I think it just forces you to sit because you have so much time and to think things out.

J: It also gives you more time to craft the song and to put as much work into it as you can.

B: It's also [made me] realize what we all took for granted. I just realized how everything was so easy to do...even just going to see my band every weekend and writing songs. Now I can’t do that anymore. It's kind of like, “How can we make music during this time and how can we do it together?” I’m hoping after this, people are going to appreciate what we have and what we’ve been doing and how we can make the most of that.

I think a lot of things that are coming out of quarantine—whether that’s music or art or writing or what have you— are going to be really powerful because everyone is feeling the same things at the same time. I think a lot of people will really gain from this if they learn how to use it. It can be a really powerful thing, and people will really see that when this is all over, we’ll learn to appreciate it a lot more. I think this time is great for teaching yourself to hone in on your craft, whether that's your writing process or the way you play your instrument. [That is,] if you can take yourself out of your personal situation and see the bigger picture here, of course!

I want to thank you all for taking the time to talk with me today. I really look forward to seeing what’s to come!

Keep up with Runaway After Dark here.

Words by Tanya.