WILKES-BARRE — The Menzingers’ new album releases this Friday, and you’re invited to the after party.
At 4 p.m. Feb. 4, the Scranton punk band will play and take part in a meet-and-greet at Gallery of Sound, 186 Mundy St. The performance comes one day after the release of their fifth full-length, “After the Party.” The band has released three singles from the album — the titular track along with “Lookers” and “Bad Catholics” — but guitarist/vocalist Tom May is excited to get the rest of the record’s tracks into the hands of fans.
“We can’t wait, we’ve been sitting on it for so long — we’ve never sat on a record for so long before,” May said. “Everybody’s heard a couple songs here and there, but i really can’t wait to hear what everyone thinks of the entire thing.”
May said he and his fellow band members — guitarist/vocalist Greg Barnett, bass player Eric Keen and drummer Joe Godino — wanted to make the ultimate bar jukebox record. On “After the Party” they draw influence from their Electric City upbringing, waxing poetic on their version of the city’s night scene — and how they find their Scranton in each city they play.
“That scene in Scranton we came up in has kind of been emblazoned into us,” May said. “We always end up finding the bars that are like the ones in Scranton in every city that we go to across the country. it just feels kind of down homey — nothing pretentious, not showing off, there’s no shiny whatever everywhere. I think that scene totally is in every single one of the songs on the record because it sat the setting for it.”
The setting for their Wilkes-Barre performance, Gallery of Sound, features a small stage in the back corner of the record store. May said to expect a “really personal” atmosphere, as well as a few stylistic changes so the band can take advantage of their intimate venue.
“We’re going to do a combination of stripped down versions of new songs and a couple of the old classics with acoustic and electric put together,” May said. “It’s something we experimented with recently and we had so much fun making it that we came up with a special set for it. It should be a good time.”
The Menzingers’ Feb. 4 Gallery of Sound date is the last on their short stint of record store shows that includes stops in New Jersey Feb. 1 and New York Feb. 2. After that, the post-album routine kicks into gear, with the band embarking on to-be-announced tours to support “After the Party.” May said 2017 is shaping up to be a busy year for the band — and for the punk scene that supported them since their first demo hit the Internet in the mid-2000s.
“It seems like the rest of the world is a little nervous and a little strained about things to come,” May said. “We’re ready to kind of be a part of that and do the best we can to make everything good.”
