New Hampshire's COOL PARENTS brings back nostalgia-soaked pop punk/powerpop on their new album "Who Cares?"

With 16 jams about ghosts, bigfoots, draculas, clickbait, 3D Doritos, “Who Cares?” by COOL PARENTS may sound a bit like a modern version of tongue-in-cheek pop punk acts (think super early Blink-182), but it’s way more than just that. Designed to keep the tone light and put smiles on faces, the band’s nostalgia-soaked powerpop is built on catchy party jams with infectious hooks that will be stuck in your head for weeks on end whether you like it or not! These fellas also have a weekly comedy podcast featuring Curtis and Justin that drops every Wednesday! Today, we’re giving you a full profile of the band through their own words, including their backgrounds, more insiights about “Who Cares?”, their take on COVID-19 pandemic, local music scene and loads of other artists worth a check.

The album officially came out on April 20th, 2020. This is the band’s first vinyl and cassette release. It’s available to stream and download on Spotify, Google Play, Apple Music, and Bandcamp. Physical copies available on cassette (courtesy of Bitter Hearts Records) and vinyl (self release).

For fans of: early Blink-182, The Lillingtons, Weezer, Alkaline Trio.

<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span><a href="http://coolparents.bandcamp.com/album/who-cares" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Who Cares? by Cool Parents</a>

Recorded by Ryan Stack at The Noise Floor in Dover, NH. Mastered by Nick Zampiello at New Alliance East. Album art by Curtis Charles. Cool Parents is: Justin Furtak – Vocals/Guitar, Curtis Charles – Bass, Nick Avery – Drums, Mike Norton – Guitar

Justin Furtak (lead vocals, guitar) comments on how the band came to be:

“In 2015 I had been playing in shitty hardcore bands for 7 years and decided it was time to do something else. After a long night of drinking boxed wine with a friend I picked up my acoustic guitar and improvised a very simple song called “Skateboarding and My Girlfriend.” It got a laugh from my friend so I started writing these silly pop punk songs about being 13. I always found it funny that Blink-182 was writing songs about high school when they were in their late 20’s, so I took it a step further and started writing songs about all the things I loved in middle school but when I was 24/25. Then one night I ran into Curtis, whom I hadn’t seen in a couple years, at a party and I played a couple of my joke songs and people laughed. That night we decided to do something with them and over the course of a few months we recorded some poor quality demos with god awful programmed drums and put it up on Bandcamp. These songs were not good by any means but they were catchy as hell and for whatever reason when we posted them there was a small demand for us to re-record the album with a full band. So we went into the studio with some reluctant musicians we knew, recorded it, put it up on bandcamp and played a few small basement shows. That was it for a while. There never was a real lineup at that point and reliable drummers are very hard to come by so it just sat in limbo for a long time. We tried out 2 drummers and tried to keep it going, but they both bailed on us so we just dropped it for a while. During the time away I started playing a lot of music with Mike. We both had tons of ideas and we’d record riffs on our phones and expand on those, but we never had any real direction until I asked him to join CoolParents. Shortly after Mike invited his cousin Nick to join the band, I moved in with Curtis, and we were off to the races writing tons of demos for what would eventually become our new record “Who Cares?” and everybody lived happily ever after.”

Curtis Charles (bass) adds:

“I’ve played bass since middle school but very rarely played with anyone until Justin came up with the concept for Cool Parents somewhere around 2015. I happened to have some rudimentary recording knowledge, so I started recording demos with him. The whole thing was really just a joke at the time, but then we slowly started taking it more seriously. Never too seriously though. My contributions to the band expanded and I started writing a lot of the lyrics while Justin handled the musical side. I also dabble in visual arts such as graphic design and videography so I naturally incorporated those interests into the band’s overall image by making show fliers, artwork, music videos, etc. Early on in the process, Justin moved in with me and we started the Cool Parents Podcast, a comedy podcast that we release every Wednesday to this day. A lot of our song ideas actually come from bits we’ve done on the podcast. So, between Cool Parents the band and the podcast, I stay very busy and I love it!”

Mike Norton (guitar, backup vocals):

“I started with the band in 2016-2017 area. Justin and I have always written music together on the side. We really didn’t have any direction for any of it. Oi songs, Weezer covers, and plenty of phone recordings of any riff that sounded good to us. While we were sending songs to each other, I was playing bass in the Black Metal/Crust band Ramlord. That time was definitely one of the best experiences of my life, but eventually we called it a day. Once there was an opening for guitar in Cool Parents I hopped on. It wasn’t a challenge to write or play anything since Justin and I had been doing that together for years. There were only pluses. I guess the toughest thing was now we had to throw shit away if we felt it wasn’t good enough. Everything was good enough before then. We needed a drummer next. Justin asked if I knew anyone who could play with our style. I mentioned that my cousin is a great drummer but lives in Portland, ME. I never thought he’d be down to drive that distance on top of work and school. I messaged Nick about coming down twice a month and he said he could do it once a week! I was pumped. The first practice we had as a unit made it even more clear he was absolutely the drummer for the role.”

Nick Avery (drums):

“ I started playing drums around 2006-2007, but I didn’t really take drumming seriously until co-forming the band Machete (2010-2017) with some friends based in New Hampshire. We started the band as a homage to the movie ‘MACHETE” featuring the legend Danny Trejo. It was stoner thrash metal in the vein of Soundgarden and Queens of the Stoneage. We basically wanted that Palm Desert scene sound that happened in the early ‘90s. Kyuss, shit like that, with some heavy fast riffage. We recorded one live album with Will Killingsworth at Dead Air Studios in 2014. I was living in Portland, Maine for the majority of the band’s duration. Making an hour and a half commute to practice and schedule conflicts a difficult task. This project eventually fizzled out around 2017. It was good timing to get a text from my cousin, Mike, saying he was in this band called Cool Parents and they were looking for a drummer. I am pretty sure I immediately said yes without even knowing what the band sounded like. Growing up and seeing him play guitar at family parties and discussing music, I was quick to learn we had very similar taste in music. I figured that any band that he was a part of would be fun to back. Plus he is family, which is a bonus. I then watched the music video for “Pizza Party” and immediately knew it would be a perfect fit. It had that perfect skate-punk blend of Blink-182 and Weezer with the lyrical genius of Tenacious D. Making my hasty decision to join all the better. Mike then got me in touch with Justin to talk about new material they have been working on. He sent me some demos they recorded, which I would listen to and learn over the next week or so we could jam them at their next practice. I got together with them in their jam space and it felt pretty seamless, like we’ve already been jamming for awhile. I guess the rest is ‘Who Cares?’. Ba-dum-tsss*”