Envy on the Coast

Envy on the Coast
Ryan Hunter and Brian Byrne of Envy On The Coast
Background information
Origin	Long Island, New York
Genres	Post-hardcore, alternative rock, emo, rock, active rock
Years active	2004–2010,[1] 2016-present[2]
Labels	Photo Finish Records
Associated acts	Anthony Green Taking Back Sunday 1ST VOWS The Hand That Wields It NK Quiett Dog Heavy English
Website	http://envyonthecoast.com
Members	Ryan Hunter Brian Byrne
Past members	Dan Gluszak Sal Bossio Jeremy Velardi

Envy on the Coast are a post-hardcore band from Long Island, New York.^[3] They released their second full length, Lowcountry, in March 2010.

History

2003–2005: Formation

In 2003, Sal Bossio and Jeremy Velardi met Brian Byrne while handing out flyers looking for a guitarist to join their 3 piece pop punk band at a local mall. Brian, Sal and Jer quickly became friends and started playing together. Around this same time, Sal and Jeremy befriended Ryan Hunter via the Long Island music scene. When Brian left New York to study at Berkelee College of Music, they met Ryan, who incidentally replaced Brian.

In the summer of 2004, while Brian was back home in New York between semesters, the band was faced with dropping off a show due to conflicts with their drummer at the time. Ryan refused to cancel, and instead played drums, suggesting that Brian play guitar for the show, since he already knew the parts. Enamored by Brian's playing, Ryan told Sal and Jeremy they were foolish to have kicked Brian out, and the band reformed as a 5-piece. In 2005, the band recruited drummer Dan Gluszak, who replaced their previous drummer, Alex Schatz. Envy on the Coast played their first show in July 2005.

2006: Self-titled EP, signing with Photo Finish Records

The band caught the ear of producer Bryan Russell, who recorded a five-song, self-titled EP with Envy on the Coast, which was officially released on September 19, 2006, on Photo Finish Records.^[4] Through Brian, the band met Will Noon (of Straylight Run, Breaking Pangea, Fun, Nate Reuss fame), who came to be the band's manager, and guided Envy on the Coast for much of their career. The band's goal was to build their reputation through touring, so Envy on the Coast turned down many major label offers, and opted for Photo Finish Records, a new label owned by renowned booking agent, Matt Galle.

Envy on the Coast spent 2006 supporting their EP on tour with Saosin, 30 Seconds to Mars,^[5] and Angels and Airwaves, before retreating to Windham, NY to begin writing their first full-length record.

2007–2008: Lucy Gray

Envy on the Coast's first full-length, Lucy Gray, was released in August 2007,^[6] and was produced by Bryan Russell. The artwork was done by dredg bassist, Drew Roulette. The song title "I'm Breathing...Are You Breathing Too?" is taking from a line of Robert Bolt's play A Man For All Seasons. The song title "...Because All Suffering Is Sweet to Me" is taken from the last words of Saint Therese. The album title itself is from the poem "Lucy Gray" by William Wordsworth. Envy on the Coast released two music videos from the album for the songs "Sugar Skulls"^[7] and "Mirrors",^[8] both directed by Travis Kopach. "

In the spring of 2007, Envy on the Coast took part in the first Alternative Press Tour,^[9] supporting Circa Survive and As Tall as Lions. In the summer of 2007, the band did a month-long stint on the Smartpunk stage on the Vans Warped Tour.^[10] Envy on the Coast spent the better part of 2007 and 2008 supporting Lucy Gray with tours in the UK, Australia, and the U.S., with the likes of Underoath, Thursday, and 30 Seconds to Mars. They also appeared at Soundwave^[11] Festival, Give It A Name Festival in the UK,^[12] and Punkspring Festival in Japan.^[13]

The band was featured in Kerrang! Magazine's July 2007 "Your 10 New Favourite Bands" issue. "Lucy Gray" was reviewed in Spin Magazine's September 2007 issue.^[14]

In November 2007, Envy on the Coast was forced to cancel their tour with From First To Last, and several college dates after lead singer Ryan Hunter's vocal problems worsened, and he needed time for treatment. However, instead of cancelling their hometown show on Long Island, the band took the stage without Ryan, and had the audience sing their set for them. The band quickly resumed touring once Ryand was healed, with a 5-date holiday tour at the end of December 2007 with Anthony Green.^[15]

On May 2, 2008, Envy On the Coast, supported one of the last The Receiving End Of Sirens shows.^[16]

Envy on the Coast supported Taking Back Sunday's holiday tour in December 2008, and headlined 4 holiday shows of their own in the New York area.

2009–2010: Lowcountry

In February 2009, Envy on the Coast announced that they parted ways with their drummer, Dan Gluszak.^[17] They spent the following 3 months writing and recording their second full-length record as a 4 piece.The band enlisted Sean Beavan (Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, David Bowie) to produce their follow up to Lucy Gray. They recorded the record at Red Bull Studios in Santa Monica, being one of the first bands to record a full-length record in the brand new facility. Although Ryan Hunter was now doing double duty, sitting in on drums^[18] after asking Dan to leave the band, the goal was to hire someone to play on the record. After countless auditions throughout the pre-production process, Sean Beavan revealed to Ryan that he had “known who was going to play on this record the whole time”, alluding to Ryan being the one to do it. Beavan claimed he was just allowing the process to go on simply to give Ryan the confidence to play on the record, as he was apparently daunted by the task.The band returned to NY to record a few more songs for the record, one of which was the bonus track, “Clean of You”, which was produced by Mike Sapone. In preparation for the release of their record, the band toured throughout 2009, doing scattered dates as well as multiple tours with Taking Back Sunday.^[19] The band received help on the drums from an array of players like Joe Zizzo (Sky Ferreria, Bob Moses, The Sleeping) and Matt Fazzi (Taking Back Sunday, Happy Body Slow Brain) before eventually finding a permanent fixture in Doug Rogells, via a YouTube audition.^[20] In March 2010, the band’s new LP, Lowcountry, was posted on the band's Myspace profile in its entirety, excluding the four bonus songs which are included in the digital pre-order. Justin Beck (Glassjaw) designed the cover art for Lowcountry. In March 2010, they toured alongside The Fall of Troy and Twin Atlantic on what would become the only tour they did to promote Lowcountry across North America. Released in January 2009, a photography book, Southern Comfort, authored and published by Emily Driskill, a Gold Record winning photographer, illustrated tour life with Envy on the Coast.^[21]

2010–2014: Breakup, hiatus and new projects

On July 12, 2010, the band announced via their Facebook page that they would no longer be playing together and continuing Envy on the Coast in its current form.^[22] Bossio and Velardi stated that they were no longer happy being a part of the band and left for other pursuits. Hunter and Byrne decided to move on to other endeavors rather than find musicians to replace Bossio and Velardi.

Envy on the Coast played three farewell shows on August 25, 2010 in Boston, MA at The Middle East, August 27, 2010 in Philadelphia, PA at The First Unitarian Church, and August 29, 2010 in New York, NY at Irving Plaza.

On April 4, 2011 Brian Byrne and Ryan Hunter released “Basement Tapes #1”, their first EP with their new project, North Korea, which featured Billy Rymer (Dillinger Escape Plan) on drums and Michael Sadis (The Rivalry) on bass. They followed up with “Basement Tapes #2” on February 21, 2012.^[23] Both EPs were offered as free downloads. On August 10, 2012 Ryan Hunter released a 5-song EP entitled “Rough Drafts” under the name Quiett Dog, his first solo endeavor.^[24] He supported the release by playing shows in NY supporting Bad Rabbits. In 2013, North Korea (now going by the name NK), released their first full length, “Nothing to be Gained Here” via Triple Crown Records on May 21, 2013.^[25] The album was produced by Mike Sapone and Ryan Hunter, and did not feature Brian Byrne, who left the band to work on new endeavors. Sal Bossio and Dan Gluszak went on to form Heavy English, and released their first single “21 Flights” on July 30, 2013.^[26] The song had much success on Sirius radio^[27] and the band performed shows in NY supporting their new project. In December 2015, after moving to California, Ryan Hunter released a new project, 1ST VOWS. The Red EP was released on April 7, 2015, which was followed by The Green EP on December 11, 2015.^[28] The EPs have received more than 2 million plays on Spotify^[29] and Soundcloud.^[30] The 1ST VOWS live band has featured numerous players including Nate Mercerau on guitar (Sheila E., Wove, A Million Billion Dying Suns), Javier Torres on drums (Gavin Castleton, Happy Body Slow Brain), Gray Robertson on bass (Gavin Castleton), Darien Dorsey on keys (Rapheal Sadiiq), Isaac Bolivar on guitar (Seal, Banks) and Brian Byrne, who also collaborated with Hunter on multiple 1ST VOWS songs.

On July 28, 2016 Brian Byrne released his new project, “The Hand that Wields iIt”, with a 4-song self-titled EP which he produced. One of the songs, "Inertia", features a guest vocal from Hunter.

2016: Reincarnation

On April 4, 2016, Ryan and Brian performed "Gift of Paralysis" and "Like I Do" as an encore at a 1ST VOWS show at Webster Hall, marking the first time they performed EOTC songs in over six years.The band followed up the performance with a post on the EOTC Facebook stating "We love creating/playing with our current projects, but we didn't anticipate how incredible it'd be to play these songs again. This is a sensitive matter to us, 'cause EOTC, as a band, was the sum of its parts. That being said, we have incredible musicians in our corner (as you can hear) and we miss playing these songs. We want to play these songs again. This is the best we can do right now. If this is something you'd like to see happen, w're listening..."^[31]

In May 2016, after limited activity on all of the band's social media pages for the previous 6 years, Envy on the Coast changed their Facebook bio to read, "We are a rock n roll band from Long Island, NY", replacing the previous "We were a rock n roll band from Long Island, NY" and also changed their Twitter header to be a series of number which later revealed to be correlated to dates for shows.^[32]

On May 17, 2016, Envy on the Coast officially announced reincarnation shows via Facebook.^[33] The shows would be held in New York City on August 16, Long Island, New York on August 18, and Boston, MA on August 20th. In response to the overwhelming reaction to the announcement, the band added more dates in Chicago, Philaldephia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit.^[34]

Following the announcement, a statement from Salvatore Bossio was posted on Sal's personal Facebook page, which revelaled that he and Jeremy Velardi would not be a part of the shows, nor would original drummer, Dan Gluszak. The post claimed that there was a discussion to reunite with all original members, but "reuniting to do shows was collectively discussed at length, though we were unable to reach a unanimous decision about how exactly we would move forward, if at all."^[35] In a later statement posted on Bossio's Facebook page, he revealed that disagreements over what songs would be performed may have led to the reunion talks dissipating, stating "there is a small batch of songs on Lowcountry that directly allude to the period of time when internal band relations were at their absolute, indisputable worst. The three of us requested that those songs be omitted from the set, with the entire remainder of the catalog still available to work with."

Hunter and Byrne responded to Bossio's statement via an interview with Alternative Press,^[36] verifying that it was conversations over songs that the other members wanted to omit, as well as other disagreements over the capacity in which they were to reunite that ultimately left Byrne and Hunter with the decision to move forward without them.

For the shows, the band enlisted Doug Rogells who played drums on the brief Lowcountry tour cycle and farewell shows, Gray Robertson (1ST VOWS), and Dan Ellis (Kid Napkin).

In the same Alternative Press interview,^[36] Brian and Ryan alluded to new EOTC material, stating: "We were sitting on this batch of songs that didn't really belong with [follow-up project] NK, they didn't belong in Brian's project or in my solo project, so they just sat. And upon revisiting them, we realized that they were Envy On The Coast songs. The way of thinking; how we wrote, with my sitting behind the drums and then Brian coming in; us collaborating lyrically. These are Envy On The Coast songs."

On December 28, 2016, Hunter and Byrne played a holiday show in NY, a tradition EOTC, used to do annually, where the two performed songs from all their respective projects throughout the years. In addition to their own material, they played covers strictly by female artists and donated a large portion of the proceeds to Planned Parenthood Nassau County.^[37] They were joined by Will Noon, former Envy on the Coast manager and drummer Fun/Straylight Run, for a cover of Sheryl Crow's "Strong Enough" and were joined by Billy Rymer and Michael Sadis for two NK songs as well as a cover of "Always Be My Baby" by Mariah Carey.

On January 20, 2017, Envy On the Coast announced their first headling tour of 2017, including a performance at So What? Music Festival, celebrating the 10 year anniversary of Lucy Gray and alluded to an upcoming release within the year.^[38]

Band members

Current members

• Ryan Hunter – vocals, guitars, drums, bass, keyboards (2004–present)
• Bryan Byrne – guitar, vocals, keyboards (2004–present)

Past members

• Salvatore Bossio – guitars, keys, vocals (2004–2010)
• Jeremy Velardi – bass (2004–2010)
• Dan Gluszak – drums (2004–2009)

Live band members

• Joe Zizzo – drums (2009)
• Doug Rogells – drums (2010–present)
• Gray Robertson – bass (2016–present)
• Dan Ellis – guitar, vocals, keys (2016–present)
• Matt Fazzi – guitar, vocals, keys (2016–present)

Discography

References

External links

• Official website
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube