Pop Punk is no longer just about white dudes crying for their girlfriends
Meet Me @ The Altar wants to be the band they could never have as an example, in a musical genre dominated by white men.
If bands like My Chemical Romance, Paramore, or Panic! At The Disco are part of your generation, you will like to know that there is already a new band taking over the internet. What makes it different? It brings together three women of color and wants to be the band they never had the opportunity to have as an example, in a musical genre dominated by white men.
Meet Me @ The Altar are the most recent hot band in pop-punk’s scene in the United States. They met on YouTube while producing music at their own homes and became one of the big bets of Fueled By Ramen, the same label that signs big names in rock and pop-rock like Twenty One Pilots, Paramore, Fun, or Fall Out Boy. Even if 2020 was a challenging year for the music industry, the band was selected by the Black Creators Fund, a project created by the American singer Halsey to monetarily help new black artists, following #BlackLivesMatter initiatives.
Let me introduce them: the young, sweet but at the same time full of energy voice is from the 19 years old Edith Johnson, from Atlanta. She studied classical music and grew up listening to a mix of sounds from Aretha Franklin to Dave Matthews Band. Ada Juarez, also 19, takes the drums. She is from New Jersey and has no musical professional education. Daughter of a drummer, she spent a lot of time in recording studios with her father since she was 4 and that's how it started. She is one of the founders of the band, together with the guitarist Téa Campbell, 21 years old. Téa is from Florida and she learned to play on her own after receiving an electric guitar on her 7th birthday.
The musical genre that became popular in the late 90s and early 2000s thanks to bands like Green Day, Blink-182, or The Offspring is now changing, and Meet Me @ The Altar wants to be part of it. In an interview with The FADER, the band said they hope to "encourage young people, especially black girls" by having a "different world perspective from most pop-punk bands of white dudes crying for their girlfriends". Edith Johnson added that “It is a dream for all of us who grew up listening to music without anyone who looked like us on stage, so we want to inspire all young black girls out there that want to make music”.
Téa Campbell added in an interview with Music Week magazine that “the world is dominated by white men, and pop-punk is no exception”. According to her, the band had to put aside fears of not fitting into the industry in order to continue producing music.
“We know what awaits us and we are ready to face everything so that young people like us do not have to do it”, she said.
Their latest single is called Garden and came out at the end of last year. According to the band, it is about being close to those who need the most in our life and intends to be an “energetic song that makes you want to sing and jump”.
