On “010103”, New York City’s Sky Castles take the memory of a near-fatal car crash and work it into a restless mix of early-2000s emo, guitar-driven alternative rock and post-hardcore, a well studied sub-genre with far more depth, grit, and stylistic range than it usually gets credit for.
Singer and guitarist Anthony Farina wanted the music to reproduce something he’d experienced when he was fifteen: the terrifying sensation of time speeding up and slowing down while he thought he was about to die. The song moves through longer, steady melodic passages, a more broken-up chorus in 7/8 and lyrics that start with the accident before turning towards some much bigger questions about life and the way people treat each other.
It’s taken Anthony twenty-three years to write about what happened. The crash took place on New Year’s Day 2003, when he and his seventeen-year-old sister somehow survived their car rolling down an embankment in western New York. The experience has stayed with him through adulthood, previous bands, friendships and family life. With Sky Castles, he finally found the right musical setting to revisit it.
“The idea had been lingering in my head for a long time, but I’d never found the right musical context for it. I also think it took getting older to really reflect on the experiences that shaped me and who I’ve become. This accident, for all intents and purposes, changed me to my core.”
The first version of the song had a wonderfully unassuming name: “Mid Tempo Vibes”. Bassist Maynor Guzman remembers Anthony arriving with several unfinished songs, and this particular riff became one of three tracks the guys used to get comfortable playing together. The original demo already contained the first verse and chorus, although much of what followed would change once everyone understood the story behind it.
Marcel Hamel, the band’s lead guitarist, is accustomed to receiving fairly complete demos from Anthony. Someone gets an audio file in the group chat, everyone has their say, and the four musicians gradually work out the parts together.
“We literally just get an audio file in a group chat and offer opinions. Things will always change, as musicians will almost always look for a way to add their own touch to things, and as bands iron out the mechanics of moving in lockstep.”
Drummer Nick Boyer joined when “010103” was already taking shape. Anthony sent him the old “Mid Tempo Vibes” recording and a later demo with the band’s previous drummer, giving Nick something to work from as he began rehearsing with the others.
“I could feel the pulse from the initial riff and as a group we all just fit right in musically with each other.”
Nick had already written his own drum part by the time he heard the full story of the crash. Maynor remembers that learning what Anthony had experienced changed the way the band approached the remaining arrangement. They rewrote the second verse and developed the bridge, solo and outro, keeping the parts of the song that were already working.
The backstory made Maynor a bit more nervous whenever he was driving Anthony to and from rehearsal, too.
Marcel has his own, considerably less technical explanation of how the band reacted.
“Nope. We are all very nice to Anthony because heโs our friend. After hearing about the car crash, we were a little nicer.”
That mixture of seriousness and ordinary bandmate humour runs through the way Sky Castles talk about making the song. They’re four musicians with different backgrounds, coming together around something Anthony had been trying to express for years. He wrote and produced the recording, handled the guitars, bass and vocal sessions, and mixed it himself. John Reid recorded Nick’s drums at Brick by Brick Studios in Brooklyn, with Matthew Barnhart handling mastering.
The music carries plenty of connections to the post-hardcore records its members grew up around. Maynor’s answer about the bands he keeps returning to is wonderfully economical: “Thrice, always.”
Nick was listening to Underoath’s “They’re Only Chasing Safety” while working on the drums. Marcel comes from a slightly different place. He grew up in Maine, where there was a thriving DIY post-hardcore scene and relatively little else happening musically around him. He’s spent plenty of time with the music that influenced Sky Castles, although he admits he hasn’t played all that much emo himself.
“Bad answer here, but: no. I grew up in Maine when a thriving DIY post-hardcore scene was pretty much the only game in town, and have spent loads of time around our influences but comparatively little time playing emo. I honestly spend my time trying to sneak in whatever Iโm practicing that week.”
For Anthony, the musical decisions eventually led back to a winter road in 2003.
He’d spent the holiday week at his father’s house and was travelling to meet his mother halfway. His sister was driving her compact Toyota Paseo, loaded with Anthony’s snowboard, guitar, amplifier and a bag of clothes. It was cold and overcast, with freezing rain and sleet coming down intermittently.
They were travelling along the winding NY-60 at roughly 50 to 60 mph when the tyres hit black ice.
His sister desperately grabbed at the steering wheel, shouting as she tried to regain control. The car spun 180 degrees, crossed into the path of oncoming traffic and began travelling backwards towards a large embankment. Anthony braced himself for the impact, convinced he was going to die.
“It felt as though everything slowed down and sped up simultaneously.”
According to investigators, the car rolled six or seven times. Anthony remembers the glass shattering and metal bending as it repeatedly hit the ground, with moments of strange silence between the impacts. He was holding his breath, waiting for the next collision.
Then it stopped.
Anthony had been thrown from the vehicle, which travelled approximately 250 feet down the embankment. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and still doesn’t know whether he went through the windscreen or sunroof. The roof above his seat had been crushed inward, leaving him with the question of what might have happened if he’d remained inside.
He was lying outside in freezing rain, snow and grass. His sister was screaming his name, searching for him. She had found one of his shoes on her side of the wreckage, but couldn’t see him anywhere and believed he was dead.
Anthony had taken a heavy impact to his chest and couldn’t breathe properly. When he eventually managed to call out, his sister found him slowly sitting up. She broke down crying, apologising and telling him how relieved she was that he was alive.
The siblings somehow got back towards the road, where a stranger had stopped to help. Anthony was freezing, muddy, covered in blood and missing a shoe. The man turned up the heating and let him sit in the back of his car until the ambulance arrived.
“I distinctly remember feeling bad about getting his car dirty. I guess my parents taught me good manners, haha.”
Paramedics put him in a neck brace and took him to hospital. Both parents rushed to find them, and Anthony eventually made the two-hour drive home with his mother. Every time the tyres touched snow or ice, he could hear and feel it. Something he’d been accustomed to his whole life had suddenly become frightening.
That stayed with him for years. He became, in his own words, the world’s worst back-seat driver. When travelling with previous bands, he’d volunteer to take the wheel for long stretches, however exhausting they might be. Being in control helped him feel safer.
There were other questions he kept returning to. How had the car missed him during all those rolls? Would he have survived if he’d stayed in his seat? And how had both siblings managed to walk away?
“I spent years questioning it. Why didn’t I wear it? How did the car never roll over me? How did we both survive?”
The survival of both siblings also brought an enormous sense of gratitude. Anthony remembers the stranger who stopped, the emergency workers who cared for them and his parents rushing to find them. He’s especially grateful for the life he’s been able to share with his sister since then.
For years, she blamed herself for the accident and the trauma it caused. They’ve talked about it countless times, sometimes crying, sometimes managing to laugh about it. Their relationship remains extremely close.
“My sister is one of my best friends. We have an incredibly strong, unconditional love for one another, and surviving something like that together created a bond that nothing could really come between.”
As they’ve got older, those conversations have gradually become about everything they’ve been able to experience together since the crash. Anthony has always reminded her that they both survived, and the two have learned to find some light, and even a little dark humour, in what happened.
He was born on 4 November, but considers 1 January 2003 a second birthday. Writing the date as “010103” gives him a permanent reminder of that second chance.
There are very literal memories buried in the song. “And time it stops, just like they said it would” refers to the distortion of time he experienced during the accident. Another line, “And the glass it breaks, I heard every single word from you”, goes back to the sound of his sister screaming while the car was rolling.
He remembers those sounds with remarkable clarity, even after more than two decades.
The chorus also ends with “The sky is much too high to fill our empty lungs”, a line Anthony connects to temperance. People will always want something more, something different or something they haven’t achieved yet. He’s become more conscious of how easily that pursuit can distract them from the relationships and ordinary moments that make their lives worthwhile.
Then the bridge asks a much simpler question.
“What have we become?”
It was the hardest lyric for Anthony to get right, although it contains only four words. Part of it is directed inward, questioning whether he’s become the person he imagined he would be when he was younger. The rest concerns the world around him.
Growing up as a millennial, he’s watched society change in ways that trouble him. In his view, people seem meaner, more cruel and less connected than they once were. Surviving a near-death experience made him intensely aware of the value of life, yet he now finds himself questioning how readily people disregard that value in others.
“There’s something strange about surviving an experience that makes you appreciate life so profoundly, only to find yourself questioning the direction humanity is heading.”
That concern is shared by the other members of Sky Castles. Nick is explicit about the issues they care about, including the wars and humanitarian crises in Palestine, Sudan and Congo, the actions of ICE, climate change and women’s rights.
“We all see the world the same way: Palestine, Sudan, Congo, ICE, climate, women’s rights. I don’t write the lyrics myself, but I know they carry those issues.”
Anthony tries to connect his personal experiences with larger questions about morality, mental health, mortality and the way people respond to injustice. He sees those concerns as closely related, especially when thinking about the limited time people have and the choices they make about how to spend it.
The name Sky Castles comes from his belief that many of the structures people live within, including the ones they impose on themselves, are human creations. He also believes people have the ability to make meaningful changes when they work together.
“And as far as Iโm aware, we have the capacity and agency to make meaningful change; if we do it together.”
The band have been developing those ideas through their first collection of songs, with a planned EP tentatively called “If This Was the Last Light”. Anthony has been writing about appreciating the people in our lives, looking after each other and finding a useful response to collective anger when confronted with injustice.
There’s plenty of New York music history behind the current lineup, too.
Maynor previously played in post-hardcore band They Are Dancer, while Anthony was part of Ghostly Times. Their groups shared stages at Mercury Lounge and Arlene’s Grocery back in 2017, years before Sky Castles came together.
Almost a decade later, Maynor ran into an old friend called Collin, their former drummer, who had recently moved back to New York. Maynor asked whether he was still playing, and that connection eventually brought him and Anthony together for a new band.
Anthony already knew Marcel from another project where they’d worked as what he calls “hired guns”. The two had kept in touch. Nick joined after the previous drummer moved away, having been found through an NYC musicians’ Facebook group.
“Nick, we were wildly lucky in that we found him on an NYC Musicians Facebook group after our former drummer moved away(yes, we still use Facebook ha).”
Those old connections eventually gave Anthony the musicians he needed to finish “010103“. The original riff survived, Nick put his own ideas into the drums, and the four worked through the arrangement until the music could carry the story Anthony had wanted to tell.
The accident has also changed a lot of smaller things about his everyday life. He’s usually one of the first to arrive somewhere and among the last to leave. He makes a point of saying goodbye to everyone, gives long hugs and regularly contacts friends he hasn’t spoken to for months or years.
He’s also become more careful about the people he spends time with. His wife and close friends share his values, and he tries to give his time to relationships that really mean something to him.
“I don’t think the lesson of the accident was to live every day like it’s your last. That’s a pretty exhausting way to live, haha. It’s more about appreciating the ordinary moments and the people we tend to take for granted.”
For Anthony and his sister, those ordinary moments now add up to twenty-three years of shared life after a day they very nearly didn’t survive. They’ve continued talking about the crash, laughing about it when they can, and reminding each other of what came afterwards.
“That gratitude has probably been the most lasting part of the experience. Hugs feel better when you know they couldโve never existed.”
Sky Castles released “010103” on 3 November 2026, with the single available through Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp. Their first EP, currently carrying the tentative title “If This Was the Last Light”, is still being worked on. The song came out one day before Anthony’s actual birthday, with the date of his second birthday sitting right there in its title.
