Sheer Mag is a rock band from Philadelphia. Their latest record, Playing Favorites, is out now on Third Man.
I don’t really like a lot of contemporary music — I mean, I do, but I definitely like it more when it’s made by my friends. So, my favorite of the year was by the Color Green, their new record Fool’s Parade. It’s just really exciting to have friends who are putting out good rock music. Sheer Mag plays with a lot of punk and hardcore bands, because that’s the kind of music that my friends normally make, but this is more like straight up rock & roll, in the vein of some of my favorites like The Band. So I’m really into this record, and I’m just excited that my friends are making this kind of music and that it’s something that I really like.
They played a few shows on the West Coast with us, and that was my first introduction to the songs. Then when the record came out, it was, “Oh, I remember hearing this and being really excited about it” — having that translate into being a good record is really exciting, because that doesn’t always happen. Playing electric guitar live — there are so many things happening at once that it’s not always easy to hear everything going on. And they do a lot of vocal harmonies as well that you can pick up better on the record. Sometimes seeing something live and hearing something in that format is completely different, and doesn’t always translate into liking it enough to keep putting it on and playing it, but it really did.
The first track, “Coronado,” is my favorite. I feel like all of my friends who have gone to see them or listened to the record are like, “This is the track,” when they hear it. It’s funny because when you’re a musician and you work on a song, sometimes you have a completely different relationship with it than other people just because of all of the labor that went into making it. Some songs come together really easily when you’re in that process, and sometimes it’s a labor of love that’s really torturous and it changes how you feel about it. So it’s always strange when there’s one that everybody is like, “That’s the song,” that everyone is always drawn to, but that’s not how the musician always feels.
It’s just a really good record, and it’s made me really happy to have something that close friends made that I enjoy. It’s really cool.
As told to Annie Fell.
Sheer Mag’s Playing Favorites is out now on Third Man.
