Smallpools called their shot with “Dreaming” - in the ten years since their 2013 debut single, the trio’s experience has been nothing short of truly surreal. They’ve played festivals from Lollapalooza to Summerfest, earned RIAA gold and platinum plaques, amassed over 400 million Spotify streams, held their own in arenas and late night TV and, along with their peers and collaborators like Grouplove, Walk the Moon, Twenty One Pilots and Neon Trees, developed the sound that played a pivotal role to the development of the alt pop scene. They literally got “big in Japan,” where “Dreaming” became a #1 single in 2015.
But lead vocalist Sean Scanlon did not draw on these incredible, indelible experiences when it came time to write the next chapter for Smallpools. Rather, he time traveled to the period right before the self-titled Smallpools EP in 2013, when he worked as a valet in a garishly opulent Los Angeles high rise. Scanlon would sequester himself In a model unit that was completely empty, save for Fendi furniture and the piano at which he composed most of the lyrics that ended up on “Dreaming.” This was the seed from which “Night Shift” grew, the opener of their third studio LP Ghost Town Road, and also the first song of the rest of Smallpools’ lives.
Ghost Town Road begins in a properly cinematic state - “it’s the devil’s hour in a soulless town/and we’re all vampires,” Scanlon sings, a warning that feels more like an invitation to engage with an edgier, more focused Smallpools, one that’s out for blood. Arriving in two parts, Ghost Town Road embodies duality - a reaffirmation of Smallpools’ anthemic, genre-blending alt pop and also an elegy for a bygone era, understanding the allure of nostalgia while trying not to get stuck in the past.
As a project that splits time between Los Angeles and Nashville, Scanlon, guitarist/producer Michael Kamerman and drummer Beau Kuther reflected on the evolution of each city in the decade since “Dreaming.” “When the band first started, the goal was to play the free Monday nights at the Satellite, that's all we wanted to do,” Kuther recalls. Once proving ground for ambitious local indie bands, the legendary Silver Lake venue closed permanently on March 12, 2020, the day COVID was declared a pandemic. The Satellite was supposed to become a restaurant. Four years later, the space on 1717 Silver Lake Blvd. still lies vacant. Meanwhile, they’ve seen Nashville equally overrun by Brooklyn transplants, reality TV producers and bachelorette parties.
These are the images that inform Ghost Town Road, named after a street sign that Kamerman saw passing through a stretch of the Nevada desert with a fellow musician that came up with Smallpools. “There's not that many of the bands that we started with that are still doing it, so it feels a little bit like a ghost town out here now, especially post-pandemic,” he reflects. Yet, Ghost Town Road is as much a state of mind as it is a physical place, as Smallpools re-acquainted themselves with the Hollywood dive bars and restaurants that served as their communal, creative spaces in the early days. “Drive down Wilshire at night, it feels kind of like a ghost town as well,” Scanlon jokes.
After 2021’s self-released Life in a Simulation felt like the only logical reaction to both the tragedy and absurdity of the early COVID era, it’s only natural that Smallpools are searching for what’s truly authentic on Ghost Town Road. The majority of the record was written and recorded at Kamerman’s house in Los Angeles, with a few select friends brought in for collaboration, including colin creeV of Third Eye Blind and Mitchy Collins of lovelytheband. The results are rife with everything that fans have come to expect from Smallpools - arena-ready hooks, impeccable production, music that crosses genre barriers without ever losing its definition, suitable for parties or headphones contemplation, but never as background.
The trio continually returned to “timeless” as the unifying thread for the feel of Ghost Town Road - Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, Ella Fitzgerald, sounds and sentiments that would have felt as true in 1984 as they do now, or in 2054. Though, Smallpools grew up on The Album, digging through crates of vinyl and CDs for their musical education, they’ve fearlessly embraced the freedom of the streaming era to suit their new era. By splitting Ghost Town Road into two parts and releasing a stream of singles beforehand, “we can give each song their moment before it exists in the world as a complete package,” Kamerman says.
Indeed, though connected by themes of loss, memory and optimism in the face of all contrary evidence, every song on Ghost Town Road has its own story to tell. “Night Shift” explores a state of emotional conflict, lingering dreams trying to free themselves from our daily grind; the subsequent “Motorbike” reconnects with that visceral feeling of transcendence. “Fake a Happy Face!” and “Socio Empath” unpack the difficulty of separating social media from our “real” lives when they increasingly feel indivisible. “I just heard the worst thing I've ever heard in my entire life. But now I need to go talk to this person to be cool,” Scanlon jokes. The lyrics are rich with reference - 21 Jump Street, Dirty Dancing, The Wild One, “The Sound of Silence” - are employed not as sly winks, but rather reminders that these now canonical works were once every bit as new to pop culture as Ghost Town Road.
Ghost Town Road announces a bold new era for Smallpools, while also a spiritual heir to the 2013 EP that started it all. “I feel like that was a definitive body of work, we were dialed in, you know?,” Scanlon muses. “With this project, we're dialed back in.” Kamerman views it less like a sequel and more like a franchise reboot a la Halloween or Ghostbusters - “The other music exists and you’re free to revisit it,” he states. “But we're back and we mean it.”
Website | TikTok | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
