Yo! Diving into the rad world of running a music blog that’s all about boosting pop punk culture for French-speaking peeps is like waking up one fine morning to an email from a band itching to get their tunes out there. Sometimes, it’s a miss, but other times, it’s like striking gold. And that’s the vibe I got when I scored an email from ‘Safe At Second’. These guys hail from Calgary (Canada) – a band I hadn’t heard of until they hit me up with a couple of their tracks, which you’ll find linked at the end of this interview.
Just one listen was all it took for me to catch the real deal vibe from their musical chops. Especially their track “99” – it’s got all the hallmarks of a killer pop punk anthem. It’s already blasting through my “News Pop Punk Universe” playlist. So, I didn’t think twice. I started my site, Pop Punk Rock Universe, for this very reason – to discover and share fresh sounds. I reached out, and Mike, the band’s frontman and founder, was cool enough to sit down and spill the deets. Here’s what they had to say (hit up the French flag icon up top for the VF version).
Band origines and influences
- Can you tell us about the formation of the band. How long have you been playing together, and your beginnings in pop punk music? Is the local music scene conducive to the development of your band?
First off. Thank you so much for having us for the interview and for the shares on your playlists! Safe at Second formed probably around 2017. It was originally just a solo project that I (Mike) wanted to create to express my pop punk side. I had been playing in a hard rock band and still do but I felt it was necessary to create pop punk project for an outlet. I had a few songs that I was proud of, but we’re basically still at the demo state. Showing them to a few music friends, and that basically was the foundation and the start of Safe at Second becoming a real band with members. Those demo songs would later be re-recorded and become our first EP “Memories”.
- What are your main musical influences and how do they reflect in your music style? Why pop punk?
All of us in the band have diffferent musical tastes, but most seem to be in the rock genre. For example, our guitarist Nic grew up on Green Day but also loves some classic rock like Black Sabbath. Our bassist, Jamie, loves bands like Silverstein and Enter Shikari, while our drummer, Jordan grew up in the hard-core scene and loves bands like Madball and Terror, but also enjoys music like Kygo or country. As for myself, my main musical influence is blink-182. If it wasn’t for blink-182, this band would not exist. Blink is the reason I wanted to play guitar and form a band. But I’ve always had this love for fast music. I remember first hearing the Offspring on the radio and absolutely loving it and then playing, Tony Hawk pro skater 1 , that soundtrack of punk rock music changed my life.
- Can you describe your songwriting and creation process? Where do you draw your inspiration from?
Our songwriting process is quite simple actually. Most of the time songs are created in a basement or a studio by one member, and that member will show the rest of the band their idea, and from there on out the song will be worked on until we all love it and agree it’s ready. Usually a song will start as a riff and build from there. Melodie’s are always worked on after the skeleton of the song has been laid out. From there, it’s just feel, whatever the song makes us feel is what we typically write about.
- What is the message or main theme you want to convey through your music?
Almost all of our songs are really upbeat, up tempo songs. I personally love music that makes me feel happy and energetic and I get that feeling from bands, like blink or the Offspring
or New Found Glory. Even sometimes if the subject matter or the message in the song Isn’t exactly happy, but the rest of the music sounds happy, I love that. Some of our songs like “In the Moment” are like that.
Challenges and Outlook
- What have been the biggest challenges you’ve faced as an emerging band trying to break into the music industry? How do you work to overcome them?
I think when we were younger, we all had that dream of what if, what if we could do this for a living, you know. But as we all grown, we’ve come to realize that just playing shows, and being together up on stage for that hour or hour and a half is truly what it’s all about. That, and having people listen to our music that we’ve created. We’re all really proud of the music we created and really want others to enjoy it.
- Tell us about your experience on stage. How long have you been performing shows? What does it mean to you to play live and interact with the audience? Is a tour of Eastern Canada planned or envisaged?
We have never toured as a band. We’ve only played locally but playing out east sounds phenomenal. A few of us went to Rockfest 2016 in Quebec and the whole atmosphere out there on the East Coast was incredible.
Probably the best experience we’ve had on stage and I think I speak for all of us when I say this is, we had the opportunity to play the halftime show for a Calgary Roughnecks game in the Saddledome which for people who don’t know, it’s Calgarys arena that holds 19,000 people. We played a medley of classic pop punk tunes for eight minutes and it was dream come true.
- What are your plans to grow your audience and make a name in the industry as an emerging band? Do you have any specific promotion initiatives or collaborations planned to support your growth?
Our plans to grow our audience is basically just keep releasing music that we love ourselves. If we love the music ourselves, then we hope others will find it and love it too. Obviously, that can only take you so far so promoting on Spotify playlists really helps or landing an opening slot for a touring band coming through Calgary. I’d like for us to have a music video for one of our upcoming songs as well and to promote that on YouTube. It’s really hard to break the algorithms as a self sustaining band but I’m really proud of what we’ve done so far with the release of “99” and “In the Moment”. For example, “99” is almost at 2000 plays on Spotify less than two months.
“The pop punk scene is really cool right now”
- How do you perceive the evolution of the pop punk scene and your place within it?
The pop punk scene is really cool right now. I feel like it’s kind of come full circle. It went away for a little bit maybe in terms of popularity, even though it was always there, but now it’s becoming more popular again. This might be a hot take because he’s a divisive figure, but I think Machine Gun Kelly releasing Tickets to My Downfall had a big part in pop punk becoming more popular again in terms of mainstream.
There’s the big bands like Green Day and blink, who just released new albums that are great and bands like Neck Deep that have continued to put out awesome material. I’m just happy Safe at Second has the ability to create and write pop, punk songs, and release them for anybody to hear.
- What lessons have you learned while trying to break through as an emerging band? What are your recommendations for other bands embarking on the same journey?
Oh man, I think we’ve all learned so much since we first started playing in bands over 10 years ago, but I think the most important thing is to just stay true to yourself and write music for you. If you like it, that’s really all that matters. If the art you’re creating makes you happy then that’s the most important. We also have a motto, friends first, and we do our best to always keep that in mind. Our friendships is what’s most important.
- Finally, can you share an anecdote or standout moment from your journey as an emerging band so far? I’m also curious, I noticed in your Spotify artist profile you’ve mentioned “pop punk dads.” Should we assume you are (all) fathers? Do your kids follow you into this pop punk musical universe?
This story kind of relates back to when we played the Saddledome halftime show. But it was the late stages of the pandemic, and none of the band had been together in almost 2 years. I was grocery shopping, and get this text from an unknown number that’s says “hey are you still in a band?”, “Do you guys want to play at the Saddledome?” I read that text like three times and I really thought someone was just pulling my leg but I responded and was like hey who’s this and what’s this all about? Well, sure enough it was a real opportunity to play at the Saddledome in the bar which then grew into the opportunity to play in the centre of the arena in front of 1000s of people.
We’ve all seen so many shows by our favourite bands at the Dome so it was a special moment to be able to play there ourselves.
And yes, we’re old now, haha. 3 of the 4 of us are fathers now and the I’m sure all of our kids have heard our music and our pop-punk musical tastes a few times by now!
Thanks for having us
I hope this interview has whetted your appetite for Safe At Second. You’ll find their latest two tracks below, so don’t hesitate to listen and share. And keep living your passion for pop-punk by supporting small emerging bands.
