Your favourite Drunk Uncle is back from Texas and he’s come to visit you with a new EP titled Fiction Years ii. Finally, a sequel that lives up to the hype of the original. Their second album in the trilogy is Fiction Years ii which marks a new beginning of sorts for the band as they’re now back to rocking a three piece on this release. Fiction Years ii is packed with even more midwest emo-noodly riffs packed into a summery upbeat vibe to remind everyone that emo isn’t always the stereotypical sad and angry. In fact, this is a release that will get you singing along at the top of your lungs on a sunny day car ride with your friends for every song (or in your room by yourself if you’re like me). Both options are acceptable.

At the core of this release we’ve got the rhythms that are chock-full of hefty energy throughout the five songs. With a runtime of fifteen minutes, these tracks jog along at a hoppy pace, (our protein). Lighting up those punchy rhythms by having them sautéed in bright and twinly riffs, (the noodles and veggies), then drench all that in the impossible-to-not-to-sing-along-to lyrics, (the sauce), and you have some strange sort of pasta analogy for the new EP.

Now if you’re comparing the second album to its predecessor, you’ll hear a decent upgrade in the audio production since Kieran Krebs from Overcast Recordings mixed and mastered the album, he was also the session engineer that shaped up the quality on this release while efficiently maintaining the DIY vibes on their recording throughout, and it really translates into their music sounding better than ever before.

Their guitarist and vocalist, Peyton, tells us this release was heavily influenced by early Modest Mouse, Algernon Cadwallader and the fuzziness of bands like A Country Western. “A lot of this EP, thematically, revolves around change and stagnation -- sort of the pace in which you want to live your life at and how that can affect you.”

“This was the first release we actually set foot in a studio for. All of our other releases we've tracked the instruments in a garage and DIY'd the recording and mixing. For this release, we wanted to see what it would be like to step back and just focus on playing the music. It was an incredible feeling, live tracking the drums and working with an engineer who really pushed us to make the best sounding EP we could rather than letting us settle for less than ideal takes.”

SO HOW DID YOU ALL WRITE FICTION YEARS II?

“We sort of have a different process for the process of writing an EP, like Fiction Years ii, versus writing an LP like ‘O, brittle weather!’ last year. For the LP, we're trying to really curate an atmosphere for the band to be in and write together. For this EP, I think we were trying to find our writing style again as a 3-piece (we began as a 3-piece but have spent the last 4 years as a 4-piece).

I would bring a song to the session and we would work on fleshing it out and really try to make the most out of our 3 instruments rather than coming up with a foundation and blowing it out with a bunch of instrumental add-ons.”

“AS GOOFY AS THE TITLE ‘FICTION YEARS II’ IS I THINK IT REPRESENTS A LOT TO US. THE FIRST ALBUM ‘FICTION YEARS’ WAS US JUST GETTING OUR FEET WET WITH BEING AN EMO BAND AND THE COVER FEATURED A PICTURE OF JAKE’S DAD.

‘FICTION YEARS II’ REALLY FEELS LIKE AN EVOLUTION OF WHO WE ARE AS A BAND AND AS PEOPLE FIVE YEARS LATER AND THIS ONE FEATURS A PICTURE OF WILL’S DAD. NO MATTER WHAT WE DO IN THE FUTURE, WE KNOW WE HAVE TO COMPLETE THE TRILOGY.”

- PEYTON @DRUNKUNCLEATX

SO HOW DID THE COLLAB WITH ROSE CEREMONY HAPPEN FOR THE CLOSING TRACK BARCODES?

“Rose Ceremony and Drunk Uncle share similar roots in the scene. Our drummer, Jake, was in other bands with Kyle (Larry & The Bears) and Josh Boyd of Rose Ceremony, and we had already released a split with them so it was only a matter of time before we had them come onto a track officially.

When I was writing this song, and imagining the outro/beatdown thing, there was a screaming register in my head that I recognized but knew wasn't within my range. After a couple of days of thinking about it, I realized I was imagining the voice of Rose Ceremony's drummer Carlos Cartagena; specifically, his vocal work in his solo project, Faceturn. He said he was down so we just ran with it and it turned out pretty much exactly as I had hoped.”

SO WHAT MORE CAN WE EXPECT FROM THE BAND THIS YEAR?

“Write another album, book another tour. Just happy to be doing it.”

ANY CLOSING WORDS FOR THE READERS?

“Really grateful to be a part of the Austin scene right now, there's a lot of diversity and different voices that have been super influential to us and a band and as people. OH and of course fuck ICE, fuck white nationalism, and free Palestine.

And while we're at it, fuck Nico Harrison!”

The EP will be put out on a limited run of 50 cassettes by Tiny Sounds Collective. The cassettes also contain their first ever release, Fiction Years, so it's kind of a BOGO situation. Fiction Years ii released on March 14th so grab a tape while ya still can!

Drunk Uncle is Peyton Heinig on guitar and vocals, Will Gore on bass, and Jake Rhodes on drums.