Blasting songs in the van is as much of a rite of passage as it is breaking down. This time around, that looks a little different for Koyo, who are currently coasting along the highway toward Fargo, North Dakota, in an RV where the speakers are cooked. “It’s either the person who’s lying on the shitty bed getting destroyed with sound or the person who’s driving, but it doesn’t really make its way to the cabin, so we just don’t listen to music on the aux,” vocalist Joey Chiaramonte says, dialing in through spotty internet connection from the road. “It’s so funny. Everyone’s just headphones on, on their own little solo musical escapades.” Lately, he’s been zoning out to trip-hop and beat tapes — the kind of woozy, blissed-out music that’s the opposite of Koyo’s melodic hardcore.
“That’s definitely a large pocket of stuff I’m into,” he elaborates. “I used to tour with Vein.fm when they were still active. That was one of my first full-time touring ventures, and I just got into a whole bunch of that stuff by way of them. I literally remember, in real time, we were on a drive sometime in March of 2018, and we discovered Esthero’s first record. We were like, ‘Holy shit, this is insane, unbelievable music.’ I’ve been obsessed ever since.”
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On a Thursday in late March, the Long Island-bred five-piece are on the way to Fargo Civic Center, where they’ll play the 3,000-cap venue supporting Rise Against. “We will never play a show larger than this in Fargo. I’m almost certain of it,” he laughs. Despite the size (and the barricade), the gigs have been “unexpectedly lively,” with the band bellowing out a mix of soaring hits, old favorites, and singles from their upcoming second album, Barely Here, out next month.
“Opening tours that size, especially with bands that have very core fanbases, you don’t really expect anything,” he says. “You figure you’ll go home with some new people and people check out the band, but you don’t necessarily expect the sets themselves to be cool — and they have been on this tour, which is awesome. I think some of that is our people coming out to the shows, but a lot of it is really just Rise Against fans genuinely being down to play ball and give us some energy early.”
For the past few years, Koyo juggled such a tightly wound tour life that it’s hard to imagine how they got enough sleep, packing their schedule after they put out 2023’s Would You Miss It?. They hopped on dates with the Story So Far, joined Fleshwater in the U.K., and appeared at various stops of Warped Tour, but when Rise Against asked, it was impossible to say no: “They’re a direct byproduct of subculture, but before any of us were into anything like that, that’s probably one of the first alternative bands we were exposed to.” Their introduction came through guitarist Harold Griffin, whose older sister passed him CDs of 2000s alternative staples — Thursday, New Found Glory, Brand New — which then trickled down to Chiaramonte and bassist Stephen Spanos, who’ve known each other since second grade. “At that point, I only really liked classic rock. I was 12. I didn’t know any alternative music, really,” he remembers. From there, he fell in love with heavier sounds that’d eventually contrast the hard-hitting, tremendously catchy blend of emo, pop punk, and hardcore that they make now, perennially shaped by their hometown.
In case it wasn’t clear, Koyo love where they’re from, thriving in the Long Island scene that shot their forebearers into the mainstream during the early 2000s. “Literally the mission statement for the band was Silent Majority, Taking Back Sunday, and the Movielife,” Chiaramonte says. “Within the first year of the band’s existence, basically, we got to play with all of them.” Their origin story goes like this: Koyo were a product of COVID-19 times, formed from the ashes of other ventures and a desire to “expand the local palette.” After lockdowns lifted, their first tour was small, mostly taking place in living rooms and VFW halls that mirrored the ones Chiaramonte grew up seeing shows in (“It was definitely a tenure of going to weird places, but it was the best for that reason”). However, because of the timing, they also opened for Knocked Loose and Movements in huge rooms within the same six-month window. They’d play a house show in North Carolina and then, four months later, a thousand-cap room near the same location. “It was a weird double life,” Chiaramonte recalls.
Along the way, they won over their elders, from the tri-state and beyond, in quick succession. Frank Iero appeared in their video for “You’re On The List (minus one).” Glassjaw’s Daryl Palumbo and the Movielife’s Vinnie Caruana featured on Would You Miss It?. Having watched them night after night on tour, Rise Against’s Tim McIlrath recently shouted them out, telling AP, “Koyo are carrying the torch of hardcore-influenced music that is heavy yet unapologetically melodic, dynamic, and hooky. When I hear Koyo, I hear a nostalgic familiarity that comes from a band that know their history and have all the right influences. But where some bands simply regurgitate those influences, Koyo have built on them with a fresh take and a unique signature. I was not surprised watching them win over so many crowds. Their commitment to the live show, the songs, and their craft is infectious.”
Infectious is an apt description. Their communal shoutalongs deliver the sharp edges and gleaming melodies of Long Island’s rich tapestry, one that all of the members have reverence for (Griffin’s first tattoo was Neglect lyrics; “Timberwolves at New Jersey” was the first song that TJ Rotolico learned on guitar; collectively, the band learned Glassjaw’s “Midwestern Stylings” and almost covered it at their first show). Translated live, their hardcore foundation bleeds through immediately. Crowds pack into tight corners, bodies fly, and the energy’s bright and impassioned. For their next album, Barely Here, they wanted to double down on those strengths, not pivot away from them. “Not that it’s always this conscious, but I think some bands do go, ‘OK, let’s depart on this record. Let’s go do something different explicitly.’ We were very much coming from a place of, ‘That’s not the vibe. That’s not the MO.’ Let’s consolidate what makes the band awesome. Let’s really focus on the things that we love about the music that we’ve historically written, and let’s just go harder and dial it up even more. We wanted it to be a quick foot to the floor. Just a banging record, no real true ballads. ‘What I’m Worth’ is maybe the closest thing, and that song is two minutes.”
Koyo are all about catching a vibe. Even through a screen, Chiaramonte glows with warm, easygoing attitude — the kind of friend who instantly lifts you up through sheer chillness. “Oh no, you’re chilling,” he responds when I mention not wanting to take up too much of his afternoon. On their latest single, “You Hate Me,” out today, it’s a distinct switch. “Can anybody hear me?/Pleading, screaming/I think we’re going down,” he shouts, his big, gritty voice surrounded by a rush of pummeling build-up before the mosh-worthy revelation hits. A lot of the songs go like this, resulting in a ripping fun but melodically savvy half-hour that prioritizes instinct over nostalgia. Long Island still enlivens them, always, but they aren’t stuck in it. “Although I don’t think we as explicitly point to all of that when we’re writing anymore, it’s because we don’t need to,” he says. “It’s just understood.”
In February, Koyo led off the album cycle with “Irreversible,” an enraged callout anthem with furious energy. It came alongside a video indebted to the scene that raised them, filmed at a house owned by the Smith family, whom the band called “a staple and centerpiece” of Long Island hardcore. (You may remember Taking Back Sunday playing an overflowing backyard show at the spot in 2023, a callback to their early 2000s days.) “Among a million other things, they’re very deeply involved with Long Island music and also have been a place to go,” he says. “They’ve thrown parties over the years, like Christmas, New Year’s, Halloween. You always just ended up at the Smith house.” After talking it over with Chris Smith (Backtrack, I Am the Avalanche, etc.), the band sent out invites over DM, and enough word spread to attract roughly 300 people.
“We had to cut it off hard between friends and people we didn’t know, and then we extracted a few stragglers who traveled, but it was nuts,” he reflects, his enthusiasm burning bright for his hometown scene and the way people showed up for them. “It was a beautiful day and encapsulated everything that is dope about Long Island. It’s the best.”
Given the huge, unending love that Chiaramonte has for Long Island, it’s surprising to learn that he no longer lives there. Recently, the Koyo frontman relocated to Los Angeles with his girlfriend, shuffling back and forth between the two cities on band business. It all happened fast: She moved out to New York for him about two years ago, but then got a job offer that she couldn’t turn down, bringing her and, by proxy, Chiaramonte to the West Coast. More specifically, Culver City. “I’ve had a secret normal life in LA,” he shrugs. “It’s not craziness. It’s not clothes. It’s not aspirations for industry networking or any stupid crap like that. I live in a dope little neighborhood. It’s comfortable, cozy, by the people. I love it.” Either way, the distance can’t dampen their brotherhood. The friend group that surrounds Koyo is the same one that formed in middle school — an anomaly that speaks to how comfortable they feel with one another and the effort they’ve put in as the years continued to stack.
“Now we’re all pushing 30… Call it peak suburbia culture, but our friend group just preceded forever,” he laughs.
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