Nashville’s Secondhand Sound are releasing their new single “Dominoes”, produced by Alec Stanley (Wanderwild, Lo Talker) and mixed by Matt Martin (COIN, Faye Webster). On “Dominoes” the band of 20-21 year old musicians bring big bright Pixies distortion and a 90s alt-rock nod to a lyrical retelling of a summertime evening drive with a longtime crush sitting in the passenger seat. “Dominoes” aims to capture the feeling of the butterflies in your stomach right before you kiss someone for the first time, and does so with each gut-wrenching fuzzed-out guitar line.
The four members of Secondhand Sound all came together through music, forming the band when they met in college in 2018. They’ve all since dropped out, taking jobs at coffee shops, restaurants, and a car dealership to make rent and save money for touring and recording. If it sounds like a leap of faith, the long history between band members gives them ample reason to believe in each other.
Lead singer and guitarist Sawyer John Estok met drummer Collin Plank in high school in Maryland. “Plank and I ended up hanging out a bunch and hatched a grand scheme to start a band,” remembers Estok. “Long story short, nobody in town wanted to join. So we started Secondhand Sound as a two-piece. We honestly just pretended we were the Black Keys for a few years.” At that same time in southern California, lead guitarist and keyboardist Cameron Schmidt and bassist Teagan Proctor had practically known each other since birth on account of how close their families were to each other. Proctor, who would take a gap year between high school and college, ended up settling on Nashville as a destination, which led Schmidt to do the same. “Had I gone to college the year I was supposed to, I wouldn’t have been able to room with Cam across the hall from Sawyer,” muses Proctor. “Fate – am I right?”
Within the first month of freshman year they began to play together and the connection was instant. They recorded and self-released a couple of EPs and started making a mark on the Nashville music scene with their incredible live shows. “There is nothing more fulfilling than playing a good show with my bandmates,” shares Schmidt “where we’re all sweating and screaming and jumping and dancing. I feel very lucky to be in this band.” That absolute devotion to their performances led to a top finish at a Lightning 100 sponsored Battle of the Bands, and won over audiences across Music City as they also started to branch out with shows around the midwest and on both coasts. The band could feel they were at a turning point and made the decision to drop out of school and pursue Secondhand Sound full-time, and the four of them are all-in on the decision. “We have no Plan B,” relates Plank, “and are determined to make this dream a reality.”
Leaving school and life as students has had the side effect of throwing the band into the “real world”, which paired with the ability to focus on their songcraft full time has given them the space to explore themselves as individuals as well as the kind of music they want to make. “I work a service industry job,” says Proctor, “so I get into a lot of conversations about the band with the tables I wait, and the most frequent question is always ‘so who do you sound like?’ I will be the first to say that a lot of our previous singles/EP’s were directly inspired by and mimicked other artists we listened to. But if you ask me about the music we’re writing now, I’d tell you it sounds like Secondhand Sound”
Estok for his part, feels as if they are more confident in the shoes they are looking to fill. “I’ve gotten more confident in just being myself,” he explains. “I’ve learned and still am learning how to step into the frontman/storytelling role as me, and not a bad imitation of various people I look up to. I’ve also generally just learned to better realize and understand where songs come from and how to find them. Finding the character, setting the scene and then building a playground for the listener to attach their own feelings and experiences to. If I can tell you how a room smells without telling you that the room I’m talking about even has a smell then I’ve done my job. That kind of song takes work, hours and willpower.”
Secondhand Sound are ready to take on the world with their new songs, and like all other artists, looking forward to getting back in front of an audience. They’ll play their first show in a year this June, and they couldn’t be more thrilled. For them, the future feels limitless, and anybody who listens to their new songs will understand why.
Stay tuned for new music and updates on Secondhand Sound in the coming months.
