Let us paint a picture for you: It’s late, you’re out drinking with your friends, enjoying your summer when suddenly the realization of life, responsibilities, and adulthood hits you. What do you do? Keep drinking? Take an Uber home and cry yourself to sleep? How about writing a fantastic pop-punk track all about overcoming those overbearing anxieties?
For Pennsylvania newcomers Merit, that all-too-real scenario was what helped guide vocalist/guitarist Mike Dougherty as he put together the band’s new Free Throw-like single “Mediocrity Gets You (Des)Pears.”
“‘Mediocrity gets you (Des)pears’ is a song about sitting on my porch drunk at 3am by myself feeling stuck, depressed and frustrated,” says Dougherty. “I was so fixated on the thought of slipping into a cycle of normality – ‘failed musician works a job he hates for the rest of his life’-type thoughts – that I almost up and quit everything that night. I almost quit my bands. I was too depressed to write anything and I felt like I was hindering our progress of the record.”
Doughtery went on to add, “I figured they’d be better off without me. I almost quit my jobs. I was working at a place that seemed like it was consuming all my time to a point where I didn’t even have the energy to be creative. I just was mentally and physically drained. I felt like I could almost see into my future of working dead-end job to dead job my whole life.”
“So in short,” Daughtery finalized, “this song’s pretty much about one big inebriated panic attack triggered by the thought of being a lifer in the restaurant biz.”
To check out Merit’s relatable new track which is premiering exclusively on The Noise, be sure to check out the band’s new music video that follows them as they make their Merit / Imprint Brewing blood orange, cherry, pineapple milkshake IPA “Pop-Punch!”
To pre-order Merit’s forthcoming five-track EP Living With The Low (produced by Matt Brasch of The Wonder Years, mixed by Nick Steinborn of The Wonder Years and mastered by Bill Henderson of Thursday) before it hits stores July 26th, head here.
