A band whose music has matured from pop-punk to emo to indie rock, Tigers Jaw have earned a growing following for their melodic but insistent music and emotionally powerful lyrics. Tigers Jaw were formed in 2005 in Scranton, Pennsylvania by guitarist and vocalist Adam McIlwee and guitarist and vocalist Ben Walsh. The two began working up material and recruited bassist Dennis Mishko and drummer Mike May; a keyboard player dropped out before the group’s first show, and through mutual friends, Brianna Collins was invited to join the lineup. Several months later, Mike May left the band, and Pat Brier took over on drums, solidifying the band’s membership. In 2006, Tigers Jaw recorded their first album, Belongs to the Dead, on a portable recording rig in an attic where the band rehearsed; the album was released by Summersteps Records, and in 2008, the band went into the studio with producer and engineer Joe Loftus to cut their second full-length, simply titled Tigers Jaw, for Photobooth Records. Tigers Jaw’s popularity began to spread, despite the group’s touring opportunities being limited by the members’ academic commitments, and in 2010, they signed with Run for Cover Records, who brought out their third album, Two Worlds. (Run for Cover would also reissue the band’s first two albums.) A split EP with the group Balance & Composure was also released the same year, and Tigers Jaw would release split singles with like-minded bands the Sidekicks, Tiny Empires, and Code Orange over the next few years. In 2013, Tigers Jaw released a new single, “Hum” b/w “Cool,” but the group soon made the announcement that Adam McIlwee, Dennis Mishko, and Pat Brier were leaving the lineup, and the band was going on hiatus. While many believed Tigers Jaw was breaking up, Ben Walsh and Brianna Collins made it clear they were keeping the group together, and they set out on a tour with the help of guest musicians Derrick Sherman (guitar), Andrew Fisher (bass), and James Fisher (drums). McIlwee, Mishko, and Brier agreed to rejoin Tigers Jaw in the studio to complete their fourth album, and Charmer was released in the spring of 2014.
If you’ve ever looked at an old document and noticed brown spots on it, what you are seeing are signs of aging. It’s not exactly clear what specifically causes them, but one day, the page will completely brown over and be no more. This is called foxing.
A group of St. Louis musicians took this idea and turned it into a band. “From the conception of the band, we realized: we’re not gonna be around forever,” says Foxing singer Conor Murphy. “There’s classic literature that over time grows really old. But hopefully, you can make something that meant something at some point and will mean something down the road, even if it is aged and dated. That’s always what keeps me going, the idea that we’re writing something now that we won’t be able to write in ten years.” At only 21, Murphy is wise beyond his years and Foxing’s debut album, The Albatross is indisputable proof of that.
Although The Albatross has a distinctly timeless quality it about it, Foxing recognize that while they’re proud of the album, it won’t hold up forever. Much like their namesake, the pages their words are written on will eventually brown over and fade away. “The thing that binds everybody together is the idea that death is completely imminent. age is an ever-looming idea that we can all agree on,” notes Murphy. “We make this music, we release it, and then, one day, it dies.”
