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You could probably fill an entire festival line-up with all the bands Mikey Erg has been in or is still a part of. Best known as the drummer and principal songwriter of the beloved Ergs!, he has since gone and played with The Dopamines, Star Fucking Hipsters, Dirtbike Annie, Slow Death, Pale Angels and more recently, Worriers. But lately, he has been also been focusing on his solo career and he is back now with his self-proclaimed “return to punk” on his brand-new, self-titled LP out Friday Rad Girlfriend Records.

Blasting through ten songs in 26 minutes, Mikey returns to his roots on his self-titled album, mixing his classic, pop-punk stylings with heavy, distorted guitars and melodies. Everything you loved about ’90s-flavored punk rock is alive and well on these ten tracks. And, he’s also included some surprises along the way.

About the album: "This record is pretty odd in that the songs all came to me very quickly in one afternoon. I initially planned on making up a couple songs to record during a little bit of a goof off jam session with my buddies Chris and Fid. Armed with a list of song titles I’d been collecting for a bit, I sat down and started messing about. I’d take each title, In order, and try to figure out what they needed to sound like. Soon enough I had the bones of eight songs written. I later refined the lyrics and we recorded the tunes in a few hours. Here’s a bit about each one."

Can’t Be Too Careless

Mikey: A quip our bass player Fid got from his father I believe. He said it once at a band rehearsal and I filed it away. Not sure what the song’s about. I wanted it to be the token mid-eighties mid-tempo indie punk album opener. Think She’s Fetching by Big Dipper or Flip Your Wig by Husker Du or any number of Big Drill Car opening tracks.

Spin The Black Circle

Mikey: Pearl Jam has always been one of my very favorite bands. Around the time Vitology came out, they did a series of radio shows and played a bunch of awesome stuff including a few things that introduced me to punk rock. I was running one morning and a thought popped into my head: “you will cover Spin The Black Circle and it will be track two on the record” much to the chagrin of my bandmates.

Rubin Hall

Mikey: An NYU dorm. This is, dare I say, perhaps a spiritual successor to dorkrockcorkrod.

Hey Marissa

Mikey: "Hey Marissa? It’s Frank Ricard."

Rumblestrip

Mikey: Inspired by the simple one word titles of the band Sinkhole. I’ve had the title Rumblestrip kicking around for years. A song about being tired of the road.

Got To Get You Back Into My Life

Mikey: A Love Song.

Denny Songs

Mikey: This is a song about how lucky I feel to have been able to finally see the band Sicko play live. No offense meant to Ean, in fact, I wrote the title “Denny Songs” down in my notes to be used later after I read a quote from Ean describing Denny’s new musical project The Drolls. I love the band Sicko so much y’all.

Going To Pasalacqua

Mikey: Those early Green Day records are, of course, undeniable classics. Sometimes you get to band practice, you plug your guitar in, hit an A chord, do those little hammer-ons, sing that first line and your band comes in and you play Pasalacqua spontaneously, perfectly from memory. And then you do it again. And then it becomes a staple of the set. Thanks, Green Day!

God Mic

Mikey: A term I learned from working in TV. This song’s about feeling lonely I think. Recorded in my bathroom and mixed on my couch. At the eleventh hour I realized “fuck, this needs cello”. Enter Heidi Vanderlee. Within minutes I had a wav in an email. Thanks Heidi.  Now, this song is perfect.

Give Up

Mikey: Every album has to have the overly long noisy dirge track. I think every guitar track has two big muffs. The silly guitar noises at the end go on for entirely too long, yeah, yeah. YOU try restraining yourself when you’ve got 30,000 watts of guitar amplification blowing your genius into a half-million cubic feet of studio live room. Be Thankful we didn’t break into House of the Rising Sun or Supernaut.