When Brendan Alferez, vocalist of Los Angeles band Senior Year, is asked to describe their sound, he hits No Echo with this: "Think Stick to Your Guns meets A Day to Remember with a hint of that WWF Attitude-era angst." In other words, hooks and mosh are plentiful in their sonic world.
Brendan got under the hood and broke down Senior Year's influences: "Our sound is really about breaking the unspoken rules of having clean vocals in hardcore and doing heavy parts in pop-punk. We do our music the way we want, how we want. I believe we pull from so many different musical influences like Hatebreed, Terror, Stick to Your Guns, Counterparts, and ADTR."
After years of opening for the likes of Norma Jean and The Story So Far, Senior Year finally dropped a trio of singles this year, including "Hit Squad," which features a guest appearance from Corey Dunn of Goliath.
Senior Year's forthcoming debut EP, Family Values, was produced by longtime friend Morgothbeatz (SHAV) and includes features from such local musicians as Taylor Barber (Left to Suffer), American Idol’s Alejandro Aranda (Scarypoolparty), and Los (Desmadre), showcasing the group's deep connection to their music community.
Of the Senior Year songs already released, Brendan is especially excited about one in particular. "I'm most proud of is 'Stockton Slap' which also features my big brother Los from Desmadre, whom i've been going to shows with dating back to 2010. The direct point of this song is being passionate about the hardcore community and protecting it! The songs deeper background refers to individuals using the hardcore community as a means to solely get famous and use others to 'climb the ranks.'
"This song is rooted from real-life incidents with certain individuals and bands. I call out the hypocrisy where this band I would encounter would be outside smoking during a local show, talk smack, only going inside the show when their band plays. One of the individuals in this band would quit on bands that brought him up to 'climb the ranks' into more popular bands.
"The lames didn't stop there and would steal ideas, riffs, and did not look out for other bands, I had enough and wrote this song. Los let me know before saying yes to the feature that everything has to be authentic and if he doesn't feel it he doesn't do it. So it meant the world to me when he put his stamp of approval and said yes to the feature after listening to the song. I guess real recognize real!"
Speaking of Senior Year's local scene, Brendan offers up his take on the state of things in and around the Los Angeles underground music community. "Los Angeles is killing it right now! So proud of what we're doing from the Young Brothers out in Granada Hills, Xavier from Upon Stone, Xibalba from the same area running SOS Booking, Desmadre now doing full US tours, and now us joining the mix.
"I've been able to see those before us hold it down, call negativity out at shows, stand up for what's right so we have a good blueprint on how to keep the community going. We have big shoes to fill and the big brothers are moving on to big things so we're ready to be 'up next' (pun intended) in the scene and keep it alive and well!
"Man, some other bands that people should know is Bathala, Barrio Slam, Provoke, Bad Mouth, 97 minutes, Honorable mentions in the outskirts of LA ninexdeuce, Load tha nine, FaceFacts!! This is an awesome part of the question because any opportunity I can, I love to give bands their flowers."
Before our No Echo's conversation with Brendan draws to a close, the vocalist wanted to touch upon one more aspect about his band that he's proud of.
"It's crazy how we formed and managed to stick together even through living in different areas. From South Central, Pacoima, Compton, San Fernando, and Granada Hills, we represent so many different parts of Los Angeles and bring that to our music. Including our ethnic backgrounds.
"I'm Mexican, Ricky C (guitar) is Mexican, Miguel T (bass) is Filipino, Nick G (guitar) is Sicilian, and Ian D (drums) is African American. It's living proof and a prime example on how our community should be, which is united."
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Senior Year on social media: Instagram
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