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The Bay State is what happens when a bunch of kids from the Bangor area start making the kind of infectious pop rock that has become a sensation with the social networking generation. They combine catchy hooks, peppy instrumental work and tight production to carve out their own niche in the tight-knit world of pop-punk bands. Frontman Tom Tash’s expressive, occasionally auto-tuned vocals resonate with MySpacers everywhere, propelling these Mainers onto the national scene.
Along with drummer Drew Hooke, violist and University of Maine student Evan James and bassist Susanne Gerry, The Bay State have taken the leap from local to mainstream in what has been a whirlwind year for the band. After writing a song for the New York clothing company Glamour Kills called “Hey Hey Glamour Kills,” the band has gained a massive amount of exposure.
“Since then it’s been a crazy avalanche of cool things happening,” Tash said. “We’re the only unsigned band on [Glamour Kills’] roster.”
The band is ranked amongst giants in the genre such as Cobra Starship, Say Anything, Boys Like Girls and All Time Low. They played the Warped Tour this past year and will continue touring throughout the Northeast, with a couple dates in Minnesota and Michigan, in the next few months.
Tash, Hooke and Gerry went to high school together in Lincoln — James went to high school in Orono — but this was not the band’s original lineup. The Bay State started with just Tash and his acoustic guitar while he was in college at the University of Maine in Machias. He started jamming with Hooke, who was attending UMaine at the time.
James, currently an elementary education student at UMaine, joined the band after Tash and Hooke saw him playing on campus. James said he was playing with a more indie / folk group at the time.
“They asked me to come to a practice and everything kind of clicked,” James said. “They asked me to become a full-time member, and there was a lot of chemistry, so I said yes.”
“We kind of just puttered around for a few years and worked on writing songs and stuff,” Tash said. “It wasn’t really anything we took too seriously, but we wrote and played around New England.”
Gerry joined the band on bass after spending most of her time selling merch and helping the band out. She often takes on lead vocals in songs, channeling female pop-punker Hayley Williams of Paramore.
Much of the band’s success was accidental, according to Tash. After playing a venue in Boston, the band met a manager that liked their live show. Tash said the manager said their songs needed work, but he liked their live show, stage presence and the dynamic of having a viola player.
With the help of their manager, the band has been able to publicize themselves and reach their widespread audience. They recorded their “Let’s Turn This City On” EP in Baltimore with the help of producer Paul Leavitt, who has worked with All Time Low, Senses Fail and more.
Their latest EP, “Haunted,” was a much more localized effort, largely recorded by producer Mike Flannery at 32 Central in Bangor.
“He didn’t at any point ever really try to take control, which sometimes producers can really jump in and cover your vision with their own,” Tash said. “He had some really good ideas and he was always willing to throw stuff out there. You could tell he was thinking very carefully about what would actually benefit the songs. He wanted to do everything by hand. He wanted to do 37 tambourine takes to make sure it was perfect.”
Like many pop-punk bands, the internet has been crucial to The Bay State’s success.
“The Internet has really been the biggest thing for us, especially after the Glamour Kills thing happened,” Tash said. “Meeting people online and that whole networking thing has really been the best part of getting the word out for us.”
According to Tash, another band with the clothing line was vocal about The Bay State on Twitter, giving the band’s Myspace page thousands of hits per day. The band has also received support from a YouTube celebrity named Mitchell Davis, who has upwards of 300,000 subscribers.
According to James, who will be graduating this year, the band has been a great outlet for him during school. Although it has been a challenge to balance both, he said he is glad he will have his degree to fall back on.
“The band has been my biggest passion, but I went to school because I know education is important,” James said. “At the end of the year I am going to be pursuing my dream, touring with the band.”
During their off time, the band is scattered around. Tash resides in Portland, Susanne in Lincoln, James in Orono and Hooke attends the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, but is off for the semester. The band has performed in Portland alongside other national acts and hometown heroes Sparks the Rescue, with whom the band is friends.
No matter where their success takes them, Tash says the band will always return home to Bangor at least every couple of months.
“I always plan on playing the [103 Ultra Lounge],” Tash said. “We’re all Bangor-area kids and that’s home for us. For a few years, it was hard to get kids to come out in Bangor and now we can come back and we know there will be a ton of awesome kids, and we know a lot of them by name.”
Bangor Daily News