ARCHBALD — Pop punkers Anytime Soon will be back next week with a single that they were planning on making a big summer song, but then, you know, COVID-19 happened.

“Jelly Donut Season” is the second single from the upcoming EP from the Archbald-based pop punk band. Called “Variables,” that EP doesn’t have a release date yet, but vocalist Mitch Evans told the Weekender that “Jelly Donut Season” will be out next week.

“It’s an upbeat pop punk song,” Evans said. “It’s reminiscent of the high school days of driving around and loitering in parking lots.”

Evans said that the song has a summery vibe, and is partially inspired by pop punk naming conventions.

“It kind of plays off the idea of pop punk and metalcore bands having names that have nothing to do with the songs,” he said.

While “Jelly Donut Season” may bring back the memories of the summers of millennial youth culture, Evans acknowledged that the songs is coming out a bit late in the summer.

This, of course, is caused by the shutdowns that came in the wake of COVID-19. Evans said that this is the reason for the lack of a solid release sate on “Variables.”

“It was really bad timing because we’ve been in the process of writing this new EP,” he said. “We finished the first half of it by March and released the first single.

“That’s when things started to shut down; we pretty much had to stop recording,” he went on. “We had to shut down shop for a couple months. We’re just starting to record music again.”

Evans said that, now that they’ve been given the green light to get back in the studio, Anytime Soon is making good progress on the record, saying that they’ve got a few more songs left to record.

In the meantime, Evans said it’s important to try to keep up engagement with fans online, to remind them that the band is still there.

“We’re not sure when we’re gonna have shows again,” he said. “It’s gonna be different. We had a pretty good fanbase, but are the same people gonna come out?”

The pandemic has had some major effects on the band’s release plans.

“We were hoping to have back-to-back singles and have the entire EP out there by now,” he said.

Now, with things as they are in 2020, Evans said that it’s more important than ever to be careful about when things are being released.

“You don’t wanna release your music at the wrong time, because there’s clearly more important things happening right now,” adding that those important things could prevent fans from seeing music had been released. “You want a fighting chance.”

And the band is hoping that next week will get them that fighting chance. “Jelly Donut Season” drops on major streaming services next Friday.