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I caught The Spins, a northern New Jersey-based four-piece billed as emanating from the Appalachian Mountains of the Garden state, as the opening act for Jack Manley at the Mercury Lounge in NYC several weeks ago. The show, a 9pm gig on a Tuesday, provided a semblance of sanctuary from the heat wave dismantling the tri-state area, though the humidity on this particular day was excessively abysmal.

Once settled in, after a somewhat successful attempt at cooling the back of my shirt under the bathroom dryer, The Spins took the stage. Almost immediately, I was struck by a sense of cohesiveness.

Lead singer Nick Coombs, an unpretentious performer with a stage presence that was both candid and refined, sung with an astute level of restraint through the first half of the set before brandishing his unsuspecting grunge-leaning register in the latter half of “Shotgun,” arguably their signature tune to this point. 

Drummer Freddy Smith maneuvered the kit with a resounding stoicism reminiscent of his musical muse, Neil Peart of Rush, even as he dominated the field amid a stellar Cage The Elephant cover and additional instances of notoriety. Bassist Phillip Dunphy and guitarist Jimmy Barr traversed their selected sides of the stage, with Dunphy providing a majority of the vocal accompaniments to Coombs’ lead. There was a sense of security in place, though not in an elementary sense. They were there to do a job, and it was clear they were more than prepared to perform it. 

Operational for close to a decade, The Spins have experienced several roster shifts, but have maintained Coombs’ general vision as one of many Jersey acts blurring the line between alternative and contemporary (they reside just a town or two away from the hometown of Jeremy Zucker, another Jersey figure who has managed to blur that line successfully). Their top tracks, including “Shotgun” off their 2020 project Tank’d, and “Vibe Police” and “Lucky Cig” from 2021’s Not If, But When, serve as more textbook pop-punk as opposed to the experimental, uninhibited nature of NI,BW’s “deadboi” and Tank’ds six-and-a-half minute myriad “This Room.” 

Tracks off their latest studio effort Left Behind, their first extended release in four years, including “The New Me,” “Left Behind,” and “Rain or Shine” showcase the most adventurous arrangements of the project. Coombs’ rougher, masculine vocal tone, a comically contentious topic of discussion amongst the four members midway through this interview, serves as a healthy obstruction to the relatively pop-driven format of music behind him. With stacks of vocal layers reminiscent of The Beach Boys and sensible repetition of the proficiently concrete hooks developed for the tunes of the shimmering, affluent front half of the project, lead producer Ayad Al Adhamy, who is graciously credited by the band over the course of this conversation, would not allow the band to rest at what they perceived was “enough.” He pushed for more out of them, and they gave it to him. 

The latter half of the project, kicking off with “Break It Off,” a middling Neck Deep or an ultra-reflective Green Day-like song (the kind that sounds the same whether it was on American Idiot or Revolution Radio) is a sudden shift to the downtrodden. The band elaborates on their valid creative decision to lump these types of songs together, though, from a critical perspective, it is unwarranted, particularly for a band choosing musical substance over lyrical substance as they typically form their lyrical content around premeditated musical content. However, closing track “Tides Turn” auspiciously pivots from the all-consuming and multi-sensory to the sparse and deliberate… a hunk of musical ground Coombs admits will likely continue to be built on for future work.

The conversation below is, at times, amusingly off-the-rails (by both parties), though it immaculately portrays the dynamic of four friends vigorously working towards a life under the knife of the cutthroat music industry, but not without some laughs along the way. Read it in full. 

OnesToWatch: Do feel like you have taken inspiration from other acts in the New Jersey scene? 

The Spins: Nick – I was inspired by the local scene in Vernon, NJ, which is where we ended up banding together. In Vernon, they had a pretty cool post-hardcore/emo revival era around 2013. I’d frequent a band called Losing Streak’s shows at the VFW. Seeing my friend who was the singer of the band, I was inspired to be in a band because it made me realize how possible it was for a couple guys to get together and do something cool like that. 

You’ve been doing this for 9-10 years. Are you guys still balancing 9-5’s outside of this?

Phillip: [Begrudgingly] … yes. 

Freddy: We all do. We meet after work twice a week, then on the weekend… 

Nick: About 15 hours or so a week, in total… 

Phillip: I produce for other artists on the side too, outside of my 9-5 and the band. So, a lot of music.

Are there any plans to take a step back from the 9-5 going forward? 

Phillip: I’m diabetic, so I need my benefits. I’m holding on for dear life. But, if the moment arises that it makes sense, I’m gonna try it out.

Freddy: The ultimate goal would be to just do music. If we went on a full tour, we’d take a step back. But, as of now, we’re still working those jobs to fund everything, and live, until we can focus on music full time. 

Nick: It’s kind of necessary though, because a lot of artists lose inspiration when their lives become fulfilled. 

You find that being busy and having to stretch yourselves is beneficial for your writing? 

Nick: Yeah, and I hope it’s inspiring to other people too. People will ask me for advice on music, which is funny, because I don’t feel like I’m in that position, but I always just tell them, ‘Don’t stop.’ That’s where we’re at now. People seem to like it, we’re having fun. 

Jimmy: I also feel like that we do have to work, because, like for most artists, art comes with pain, it makes us so much more relatable. Everyone has to work a shit job, but the fact that we work a shit job but we have this other thing going on, and people get to come and let loose with us, because we’re all together. It’s finally the weekend for all of us. That’s why smaller shows are better than bigger concerts. It’s like when we got to open for Drake Bell once. Such a cool thing to tell people… 

Freddy: [Interjects] There was like, nine people opening for Drake Bell.

I saw him play at Jones Beach on Long Island when I was 11. He was wearing a suit, and it was like, 100 degrees out. 

Freddy: Yo, bro is COMMITTED.

Nick, your stage mannerisms… making eye contact with people around the room, pulling back from the mic on things you were really going for, etc., were incredibly natural onstage. What areas of performance do you feel like you’ve grown the most in, and what’s one thing you feel like you need to work at? 

Nick: I feel like there’s so much to improve on, but I appreciate the compliments. When I started singing, I was really into Pat The Bunny. He was a homeless artist traveling around playing DIY folk and punk shows. I’d play his songs a lot on the guitar, and I’d mostly be screaming. Eventually, when I put a mic in front of me, I realized I was way too loud and that I had to dial it back. When I do it, I know I need to move away. If I could improve anything, it’d be my banter, and the way that I move or charm a crowd. I like how some artists feel confident enough to get everyone to move to the front of the stage. People are mostly agreeable. A part of me wants people to just naturally want to do that, but it’s more about the presentation we need to work on. 

Phillip: I want to add that Nick has always been great at screaming, but I feel like, especially on this new record, he has really started to dig into the falsetto. [Looks at Nick] You’ve been doin’ that a lot, and it’s good. 

Nick: [Shrugs] Thanks. Yeah, I like Radiohead. 

How would you describe your vocal tone? 

Nick: I guess, just like, I don’t know, Appalachian alternative rock [The band laughs collectively]. We have to make a whole new genre. I do prefer yelling, but sometimes it’s out of my range so I’ll opt for something that works better… more laid back. I guess… what’s my tone? I wouldn’t say grunge… kind of rock and alternative. I like The Killers and Modest Mouse. He’s [referring to Isaac Brock] different… he has a lisp in there. 

Phillip: I feel like if you mix Modest Mouse and, like, screaming… 

Freddy: Indie alternative meets Midwest emo… 

Phillip: Kind of like grunge

Jimmy: I’d say Modest Mouse meets Brand New. We have songs like “Car Crash,” but we also have “Acid Rain,” which are two completely different genres of music.

Freddy: We have a large spread of influences, and a lot of different vibes in our catalog. 

Phillip: I’m the third bassist in the band, so before I came in, Nick had a lot of the songs figured out and written, and the production was a similar thing amongst those two EP’s. Then, once I I joined, we ended up going with a new producer, and so many more influences came through, and we all wanted to try new things. That’s why it got so diverse. I wanted everything to be based around jazz chords and be super pretty, but Nick is like, screaming. 

I saw a lot of love for Cory Wong, Peach Pit… I saw Cory play with Jon Bellion recently and it was the craziest shit I’ve ever seen.

Phillip: [incredulously] WOW!! 

Nick: I’m sorry, who’s that? Who’s Jon Bellion?

Phillip: He’s this AMAZING songwriter and artist… he’s written songs for like, Justin Bieber 

Oh he knows! 

Phillip: You watched the Daniel Wall interview I’m sure… 

Oh yes, for sure.

[More Bellion conversation ensues] 

Freddy, I was drawn to you during your Cage The Elephant cover, and a number of other moments, during the show. Devon VonBalson from flipturn becomes a different human being while he’s playing, but I felt like you were very much within yourself. Wow would you describe your individual take on drumming?

Freddy: Drums were my entryway into music. I used to play a lot more, technically, crazy shit like double bass pedals. I also really liked normal pop music and grooves. I found that the most fun to play. Now I feel like, for our music, I try to combine the two and really get into the pocket and come up with cool grooves that are still a bit more melodic in their drum parts instead of just playing one thing the whole time. 

What would you say is the process for the building of an instrumental, specifically background vocals for songs like “Left Behind” and “The New Me”? These songs that have peaks and valleys, but also have moments the listener can pinpoint when a change is happening.

Nick: Most people know there is a very generic songwriting structure… an expected way to make a song. When we’re working on the record… we’re always changing things because we don’t want to make the same song twice. Once we find that basic song structure, we’re always like, ‘Ok what can we do to make the songs unique?’ 

Freddy: In regard to the background vocals… for a while now, we’ve written the music first and structure the instrumental into a song. We’ll have a full song, no vocals [or lyrics] or anything… 

Nick: [Interjects] Well, typically, in the demo we’ll have a vocal melody idea… 

Freddy: Yeah, then we’ll add a vocal melody, the main vocals, on top of that. Typically, for this record, the background vocals and extra production came last. We had the songs done, then we’d add background vocals and other things in to compliment them in the end. 

Phillip: The songs that go into their third gear… it’s because our producer Ayad would be like, “More layers!” He has been making records for so long… he knows to do that whereas we’ll just be like, “We’re good, we don’t need anymore.” He says, “No no no, we’re not done.” That comes through in his production style. 

Does having all those layers added to it present an issue playing it live? 

Phillip: [Laughs intensely] Yeah, I’m not as good of a singer as he is [points to Nick]. 

Nick: Something I’ve been thinking about… I’d like to incorporate a synth and some in-ear monitors into the mix for our live performances, and there can be a lot of programmed sounds.

Phillip: [Rolls his eyes] 

Nick: I guess I should relay this information to Phil… I’m sure he’s excited. 

Phillip: Super. 

Nick: It does propose an issue with us promoting this record over the next six months to a year. I want to be able to present the songs in the best way possible outside of practicing the way we have them now. Find a way to intrigue people. 

Does writing the music first allow you to write without a pretense and not worry as much about the minute details of writing lyrics? 

Nick: No… I’m definitely still plagued by my perfectionism. That’s where these guys come in. I feel like I wouldn’t get much done without them… I find myself to be more motivated and inspired when I have an audience in any sense. When left to my own devices, I let things slide. But with these guys, if I’m experiencing writers block, they come in to say if something is good or bad from an objective standpoint. That’s how we move forward as a team. It used to be I’d just write shit cause I was a moody teen. I was such a cheesy kid… I wanted to write a song for a girl, and I was like, “Oh, this wasn’t that hard.” Now, it’s not the same process. The Spins isn’t my own music anymore. 

What’s the mantra of The Spins? What’s the mission statement? 

Phillip: … dayum 

Nick: [First to answer following a short silence] Fight together, die together. Live, breathe, spin! 

Freddy: We’ve never really thought about it. We just try to make music that feels real, and that is relatable to a lot of people through those experiences everyone has in life. 

Phillp: We’re just trying to make people feel something 3-5 minutes at a time… 

Nick: But also, not to take ourselves too seriously. Like, our ego. The process is the pleasure. I used to be really goal-oriented. I’d be like, “I’ll be happy once the band reaches THIS level” or “ … once we achieve THIS,” but now I’m realizing that it’s just the journey. I appreciate that I have a place to come after a hard day’s work to chill with the boys and write some songs.

What was the thought process of putting all the summery, vibey songs on the first half of the album and the introspective, more somber ones on the back half? 

Freddy: We were listening to what things felt like going into each other. It’s cool that it works out like that, but there were some we knew where they’d fit. “Left Behind” we knew would be better in the beginning, “Break it Off” towards the end. Then we just filled in the gaps. 

Nick: When we took into consideration the tracklist for Not If, But When, our first real record, we assembled it to follow a storyline… the arc of the emotions we want the listener to experience. But, it backfired. The statistical probability of someone getting further into the record these days is low. We went with the top-heavy album belief. All the bangers on top. 

Phillip: Ayad had mentioned, “Every record I’ve worked on, the song with the least amount of streams was the last song…” 

Nick: That works in our favor now because “Tides Turn” sort of represents a new chapter in a way. It gives a hint as to the future of The Spins, which I think will be more like that song. I imagine in the future we’ll be using more plugin instruments, more keys… 

Phillip: That was a sample I’d made that wrote the song around. Ayad had a whole other idea for it… he had the huge delay on the drums and the super spacey guitars. And there’s no real bass on it, it’s all sub bass. He was a synth player in Passion Pit, so it adds up that he’s adding more synths where The Spins would add more guitars. That’s taste for ya.

Why did this collection of songs feel like the most authentic version of you after four years of not putting out a project? 

Nick: It represents that we’re moving forward, but still the same. We haven’t strayed far from our roots. It’s evident we’re still deep into this grind and this world. I hope people see that we’re still out here trying to do our thing, and that they’ll want to listen and tag along. 

Freddy: We had 50 songs that we’d written since the last album, then Ayad helped us cut those down to pick the best ones that fit together. So, they’re over such a long span. We’ve worked on them more than any other song we’ve recorded… reworking, writing, finishing them. We’ve put our full effort into these songs to make them how we really wanted them to sound. You can hear that more so than most of our other projects. it just feels better, and more thoughtful.

Listen to Left Behind, out now: