News

We are excited to premiere 'Bodega Cat', the first single off of Stay Inside and Good Looking Friends' upcoming collaborative EP, 'Balancing Acts'.

After 2 years of playing shows, touring together, becoming friends, and generally appreciating each others bands, Stay Inside and Good Looking Friends decided to release a split EP together. But after spending a weekend at mom and dad's house to record the songs, the split ended up being way more just a split; members of each band are on every track.

Good Looking Friends' guitarist/vocalist Zach Fischer about the collaboration:

"Our bands have been buds for a long time; Stay Inside were at some of the first shows GLF put on at Bushwick Public House. New York is a weird place to play. There weren't many venues where we felt like we were welcome, so we had to build out own little scene from scratch. Our bands' music is definitely different, but draws from a lot of the same roots and we were both so into what the other ones were doing. We joke about how it's a DBZ type relationship, where we're always pushing each other to new levels. Putting out a split seemed like a logical next step.

Originally, the plan was to each bring 2 songs and put out a conventional split, with an option to write a song together if there was time. We had 2 days to write and track everything at Zach's parents' house, but when we were all in the same room together, the split just naturally took on a more collaborative feeling. Bryn ended up playing on this song, which was supposed to be the "GLF" song, but it's unique in our catalog with her on it. All the songs are like that; it's hard to say "oh that's a Stay Inside song, that one's definitely GLF." I think we're all really surprised by how into the songs we are."

About "Bodega Cat":

"The song was pretty close to done when we got in to track; my girlfriend and I had been talking a lot about the toxic masculinity that pervades the scene, right around the time most of the call outs were rolling in for bands that both of us loved. Every thread we participated in online had a bunch of defenders of the abusers' behavior, which felt like insult to injury. Like, stop trying to hold onto something that's clearly bad because you don't want to change. Most of my femme friends were feeling like they were fighting an uphill battle just to be able to attend or play shows and feel safe. With GLF being all dudes, I felt like we were indirectly part of the problem and had to do a lot of soul searching on that. The song is in the style of party emo but is talking about how the sort of toxicity that follows that genre around isn't welcome, that there's nothing unique about hiding your chauvinism under the guise of "poor me" sensitivity. It's a diss track against the people who don't try to understand their friends' struggles because they've never had to face the same challenges. Also, about finding a cat that I would end up adopting and feeling like hanging out with her is more fun than going to shows and facing all this shit, but deciding to do it anyway."

Good Looking Friends is a post-everything band from Brooklyn, NY. In the past 2 years, they've released 2 EPs and a full length. Committed to DIY and paving their own way, their style of songwriting blends genre and punches guts. Touring frequently, GLF has played with Emperor X, Animal Flag, Retirement Party, Weakened Friends, World's Greatest Dad, and many others.

Stay Inside is a Brooklyn based band that combines the raw post-hardcore aggression of At The Drive-In with the emotional melodic instrumentation of post-rock bands like Mogwai. They recently released their second EP, “The Sea Engulfs Us and the Lights Go Out” on Old Press Records. Over the last year Stay Inside has shared the stage with Free Throw, Dryjacket, and Heart Attack Man, playing venues all over the eastern US and Canada.

The EP will be available on Bandcamp, Spotify, and on a limited run of tapes, sold at shows.