Hailing from the Upstate New York town of Mahopac, the pop/punk indie band Reckless Serenade‘s members Cory Brent (Vocals), Mark Neidhardt (Guitar), Matt Ruggiero (Drums), Rob Crews (Guitar), Will Prinzi (Bass), are all friends from high school. Pulling their name from the Arctic Monkey’s song of the same name, the five piece formed in 2012. Their latest video ‘Pretty Monster’ launched in June of 2015, and showcases the band’s dynamic sense of melody and rhythm, as well as their offbeat humor. After sitting with them at Vans Warped Tour, look out for the latest songs and a new record this fall.

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Mike O’Keefe: I wanted to start off by talking a little bit about where you guys are from. What would you suggest a first-time visitor to see when there?

Reckless Serenade: The band, as a whole, is from Mahopac, New York, which is in Putnam County. It’s about an hour north of Manhattan. It’s a pretty small town, but it has some incredible sights. There’s this one thing we actually mention it in a couple of our songs called Ninham Tower. It’s basically this old fire tower that they decommissioned, but people go up there on hikes so you climb up there and see the entire town, all the lakes and stuff. It’s really cool.

© Kyle Garrity

MO: Nice, that’s close to me in Orange County. So, is this your first year on Warped Tour? How’s it been so far? What’s the excitement been like leading up to the tour?

RS: Yep. It’s been awesome dude! I feel like there was so much anticipation going up to it, but we didn’t really know what to expect. Also, we’ve been grilling for all the bands after the shows, so we weren’t quite sure what to expect with how big it would be with the grill. I was just kind of super anxious and nervous getting up here, because I just had a whole picture of what it would be in my head. It was just completely different from that too, but it’s a good thing, because it was way better than what I thought it was going to be.

MO: That’s great when that happens. To switch it into travel, if you guys had a choice to perform in any destination in the world where would you choose?

RS: You see, as of right now, I think we would all want to choose something from across the pond. We’ve never gone to a [United Kingdom] tour or anything in Europe. So, I personally would love to see England and Scotland. As far as playing in the states, we always love Nashville.

© Moyan Brenn

MO: Cool. Yeah, I’ve heard great things. There is so much history in that city and so much music.

RS: It’s a blast. We’ve been there consistently three Monday nights in a row and each night it’s always packed. There’s always a live band in each bar. There’s like 15-to-20 bars in this one strip, it’s crazy!

MO: That’s good to keep in mind if I’m ever there. Just go to all the bars and find local music.

RS: Yes, exactly. A lot of good stuff there.

MO: Now looking forward, what’s next for you guys as far as music goes? Are there any shows coming up after Warped Tour?

RS: Mainly we are trying to get focused again on writing. We just released “Strange Soul”, our new EP. But, we’re really hoping that we can get back into the studio sometime in the winter and do a full-length [album]. So, we’re going to be doing that while splitting time touring. Hopefully, we’ll get our first European tour, as well.

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