CINDERS AND THE ART OF GROWING UP

I’ve had the privilege of watching Salt Lake City based trio Cinders grow up right before my eyes. This is their story, but actually, it’s mostly mine.

It seems like it was just yesterday that I was sitting with Montana and Adrian (I’ve somehow never met Brad?) in their basement studio “recording” my band’s EP. I say “recording” because I was so bad at playing bass that we literally had to piece together each and every single song note by note.

But just like me, they’ve come a long way since those wonderful Taco-Bell-filled nights. Only they were and still are significantly better musicians than me. Hence, why I’m writing about music to distract myself from the fact that I find my job soul-sucking at times, and they’re still creating dope-ass grooves.

​I have somehow made this feature more about me and less about them, so I’ll get to the point.

On the five year anniversary of their debut, self-titled album, Cinders release three more songs off their upcoming album. As you listen to these new songs, you can hear how they’ve grown in the last five years while still maintaining the core sound of their band.

And I think that’s the best way of describing Cinders. They’re about growth. Growth in music and in life. They’re the musical embodiment of what it’s like to grow up in your twenties. Their first album was full of confused college students navigating their way through life and love. Their second album gets more serious as they deal with the heavier topics we hit in life. That time in your life when you feel obligated to do certain things because you’ve reached a certain time in your life and that’s what you’re supposed to do.

It felt incredibly relevant to my own life as I took an internship with the Utah Attorney General’s Office. Holy shit, it was so goddamn boring. I quit after two weeks. Thank God my old job took me back. I wanted to gouge my own eyes out. Sorry. Again, making it about me. Moving on.

Now, with their upcoming third album, they’re accepting that this is life, and it’s fucking boring if you take it too seriously. Growing up sucks! It shouldn’t even be allowed. See what I did there, guys? Now that’s some big J journalism.

What am I even talking about? I have no idea if any of this is true. You think I consult with any of the bands I write about before posting? Of course not! I don’t have time for that stuff. I just write whatever comes to mind. It’s the heat of the moment. That’s a song by Asia. The band. Not like the whole continent came together in one “We Are The World” type production to make a song. Though that’d be sweet. Get BTS together, BLACKPINK, that guy who did Gangnam Style, and dammit, I’ve only named South Korean artists.

Third time’s a charm. Back to Cinders.

You know what rocks the most about Cinders? They have one of the coolest celebrity fans in Josh Radnor. That’s Ted Mosby! And even cooler, he directed their most recent music video ‘Afternoon,’ starring the one and only Abigail Spencer aka Blah Blah! (See video below)

I mean, Ted Mosby, Dr. X himself (never confirmed). He discovered Dishwalla! You know, that one song that goes “Tell me all your thoughts on God. 'Cause I'd really like to meet her.” 🤯🤯

This would all be fun and great if it weren’t for the well known fact that Ted Evelyn Mosby is a piggy-back stamper! Regardless, it doesn’t matter that Ted has never had an original take in his life because someone had good enough taste to show him Cinders in order for him to take all the credit himself with one fateful tweet nearly fiver years ago.

Now that I’ve completely lost you in a bunch of How I Met Your Mother rhetoric, I just want to tell the one person that has made it this far and hasn’t stopped reading yet to go listen to Cinders! They’re a dope band and are really making some of their best music right now. I can’t wait for the whole album to drop. Hopefully, their career continue to burn bright like a trash barrel full of cinders. Wait…