How To Start A Pop Punk Band

First off, you need band members. This is simple. You are the lead singer and rhythm guitarist. All you need is a guitar and something that sets you apart from the group, like dyed hair, or an oddball piercing. Maybe you wear a tie, or everyone wears white and you wear black (cause you're so deep). And don't worry about playing guitar. Just kinda strum and unplug your guitar, no one will know. Now, you need a skinny quiet guy with no personality (lead guitarist, so he doesn't hog your chicks), a big, hefty guy (bassist, to carry the shit before you get roadies), and a surprisingly good drummer, because they'll tag on to any band that's getting famous because they can't start their own (Also, never get attached to your drummer, since you should be able to replace him when you start getting famous for a better drummer. This isn't new.).

Next, you need a clever really, really random name. The bar has been raised so high now. Before you could just take a random verb and a number or a sporting statistic. Now you need to be not only obscure, but you have to get at least 3 words. You can either go with random articles of clothing to sound stylish, go controversial to gain ironic fans, but alienate an entire culture, or just start throwing shit at the walls. To play along, I will do the same with the wonderfully fun Band Automatic Name Generator. Proud Face Doofus. Fantastic.

So, now you need Proud Face Doofus to get popular with the local crowd. These are the 15 year old girls that need to be screaming via Twitter that they knew about you "SOOO LONG AGOOOOOOOO" (note: add an O in correlation of how long ago they SO knew about you). But you need a song. It needs to be a song that speaks to these girls. So make it about the girls running away with you for just one night. For sex? Hell yes no (until you're 18)! It's about a couple that just falls in love one for one night and doesn't ruin it with any stupid games or anything. You have to make sure this becomes your hit single. If it takes 2 albums to get famous, you need to re-release it or make a song exactly like it. Or make a career doing songs like it. Once this becomes popular, you're set with the ladies. Or you could fall into obscurity without getting famous while your best song gets misrepresented by bands like Taking Back Sunday and The Starting Line on Limewire.

Now you need a CD. The cover is simple. Have a weird ass drawing. Or random objects. Show the long shot of a city with a color filter. Or just put all the band members on the cover. Whatever. Now make the first song your peppy hit. Second, a harder song that gets the crowd pumped (you'll need this on tours). Then let the rest of the band/writing staff (your "entourage") come up with 3-6 and 8-whatever except the last one.

Now, this is very crucial. You know that really important love track you made that's deeply special to you. Make it vague and generic so it can apply to any girl. If it's acoustic, put it last on the CD, or even a secret song. If it's more upbeat, put it like 7th, in between that song the bassist wrote and the song that shows you're artsy side (that no one understands). If it's 7th, make the last song a slow song that only your true fans know (it'll be their favorite song, and they'll shun every fan that doesn't know it by heart). But if the last song is the really special one, you have you hit the jackpot. This is your second hit. This will be your encore song. It'll hit number 1 for like 5 weeks. You can then make the 7th song another peppy generic song and the label will pay for it to be overplayed so maybe you make a few extra bucks. Meanwhile, your love ballad gets overplayed until all the haters are screaming at you that you sold out and you use to be cool (when you never were, so hey, credit for that!). Then, you'll make enough money to buy decent clothes, and hopefully land some kinda C-list celebrity after she falls off the face of the earth (which is convenient, cause you will too soon!) Ultimately, you'll become a two-hit wonder, and you'll fall into obscurity.

Years later, around 2018, college kids will remember your music from when they were 9 and 10 and the nostalgia will make you a pseudo celebrity to them. You'll live off touring at local college campuses will continuing to play songs off your new CD that no one bought, except your now totally obscure wife, and will wait patiently for you to play the two songs they care about. Eventually, you'll get a job in an upstart label that signs young bands like you once were just to sign with bigger labels. But it was fun while it lasted, right?

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Fun notes I realized while making this:

I attended a show where two of the bands playing had CDs who's cover was just a couch in an odd location (Paramore's All We Know Is Falling and opening band The Invite's Daydream EP, which had a couch in the forest and on a beach, respectively).

I'd Do Anything by Simple Plan never charted (despite it being the only song I secretly enjoyed by them), therefore making them a two-hit wonder (Perfect and Welcome To My Life).

Panic! at the Disco brought back the exclamation point to their band. Guess we can cancel the Amber Alert on that one...

All-American Rejects are so generic, it makes me sick. They keep topping themselves. Gives You Hell just repeats the same lyric over and over. And I thought Swing, Swing was repetitive. When I was in Jr. High!

Okay, I'm finished. No seriously, I like some of these bands really. Just not Yellowcard.