Four Year Strong

Four Year Strong

Four Year Strong is an American group from Worcester, United States, active since 2001. It is associated with alternative rock, easycore, melodic hardcore and pop punk, and its sound is also described as popcore, combining pop punk, hardcore punk and power pop. The band forms around vocalists and guitarists Dan O'Connor and Alan Day, bassist Joe Weiss, drummer Jackson Massucco, and synthesizer player Josh Lyford, although later membership includes Ardie Petsas, Chris Pigao, Chris Curran and Jake Massucco.

Career

The band starts in 2001 and develops a fast, motivational style built around easycore influences. It first records as a post-hardcore act, then shifts in 2004 towards more synthesizer-led songs and a blend of power pop and hardcore punk. Its influences include Lifetime, Saves the Day, Gorilla Biscuits, Blink-182 and New Found Glory.

Four Year Strong releases six studio albums. Rise or Die Trying appears in 2007 on I Surrender Records and reaches number 31 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart in its first week. After growing in profile, the band signs to Decaydance Records in February 2008. In 2009 it issues the covers album Explains It All, which includes guest appearances from Keith Buckley of Every Time I Die, Travis McCoy of Gym Class Heroes, and JR and Buddy of Less Than Jake. The band says the record reflects songs it grew up with.

Enemy of the World, the third full-length album, follows in 2010 on Universal Motown Records. Its first single, It Must Really Suck to Be Four Year Strong Right Now, references the final line of a review of Set Your Goals. The album sells 12,400 copies in its first week and debuts at number 40 on the Billboard 200.

In 2011 Josh Lyford leaves after the band removes synthesizers from its sound, and the group continues as a four-piece. That year it is recording its fourth studio album with producer David Bendeth at House of Loud in New Jersey. The album is titled In Some Way, Shape, or Form, with songs including Stuck in the Middle, Falling on You, Just Drive and Fairweather Fan circulating around the release. The band later continues to record and tour as an active group.

Touring and collaborations

Four Year Strong tours widely in North America, Europe and Australia. It shares bills with The Starting Line, Slip On It, Hellogoodbye, From First to Last, Every Time I Die, Meg & Dia, Hidden in Plain View, Alexisonfire, All Time Low, Mayday Parade, New Found Glory, Bayside and Steel Train. It also appears on the Taste of Chaos tour in 2009 with Thursday, Bring Me the Horizon, Pierce the Veil and Cancer Bats.

The band co-headlines a summer run with Set Your Goals, Fireworks, The Swellers, Polar Bear Club, A Loss For Words, Drive A and Grave Maker. It plays the Soundwave festival in Australia in 2010 alongside artists including Faith No More, Jane's Addiction, Placebo, Alexisonfire, A Day To Remember, Paramore, Gallows, Enter Shikari, Anti-Flag, Comeback Kid, Dance Gavin Dance and others. It also plays Vans Warped Tour 2010, appears at The Bamboozle, and later headlines the Tonight We Feel Alive! tour with Comeback Kid, The Wonder Years, American Fangs and Mountain Man. In 2011 it co-headlines the Kerrang! Relentless Tour with Good Charlotte and supports Blink 182 in the UK, then joins Rise Against and Bad Religion on a US summer tour and returns to Australia for Soundwave Revolution.