FOR FANS OF: The Story So Far, We The Kings, State Champs
I chatted with Set Into Motion about their new EP, Something Exciting, which dropped last month, and about their band's origins, influences, and more. Set Into Motion are a pop punk band from New Jersey, a trio consisting of members Hunter Rich on vocals & guitar, Jesse Hickman on vocals & guitar, and Jake Vanko on drums. I love their music because it's classically pop punk. It brings me back to the days of middle school & high school, being so in love with bands like Allstar Weekend, Fall Out Boy, and Taking Back Sunday, and it's just brilliant.
Read on to get to know more about them!
1) I love your new EP, Something Exciting - it's so good! What was the inspiration behind it, and what was the recording process for it like?
Well thank you for enjoying it, it’s something we worked very very hard on. But the
inspiration behind at least the writing of the songs was being bored during the quarantine, so
each of us in the band wrote songs that kinda unleashed all the energy that we had to keep
inside. And the recording process was super easy, but it was also really memorable with lots
of fun times in the studio.
2) How did you all meet, and how did Set Into Motion come to form?
Well, Jesse and I (Hunter) met at the end of freshman year of high school in 2016 when
Jesse slid into my DM’s after I posted a guitar cover of the song “She” by Green Day. After
that, it’s all history from there. After going through some lineup changes over the couple
years, we finally landed on Jake as our drummer in fall of 2019. Jake immensely helped our
sound, and in turn we’ve recorded and released 2 EP’s since he’s joined, all within the span
of a year.
3) How did each of you fall in love with music? What made you want to become musicians
yourselves?
I think it’s safe to say that bands like Green Day and blink-182 are the reasons that all three
of of fell in love with music AND wanted to be musicians. We just wanted to do what they
did.
4) Who are some of your musical influences?
Like I said before, Green Day and blink-182 are up there, but also bands like All Time Low
and Neck Deep and Four Year Strong.
5) Who would be your dream collab?
Working with Alex Gaskarth would be an absolute dream, whether that’s just writing with him or having him feature or whatever. That man is genius.
6) Name your top 3 favorite records, each.
Hunter: American Idiot by Green Day, Nothing Personal by All Time Low, Life’s Not Out
to Get You by Neck Deep
Jake: After the Party by The Menzingers, Rise or Die Trying by Four Year Strong, What
You Don’t See by The Story so Far
Jesse: Nella Vita by Grayscale, All Killer, No Filler by Sum 41, Dookie by Green Day
7) Do you have any advice for budding bands?
Always, always, ALWAYS produce content. If you sit for too long without doing anything,
especially as a smaller band, people are going to move on from you. So make sure you’ve
always got some form of content to put out, whether it be music or videos or whatever.
8) What do you miss about live music?
Just feeling the energy of a crowd. There’s absolutely nothing like it. Seeing people jumping
up and down and moshing to our songs was always the best.
9) What's the rest of 2021 looking like for Set Into Motion?
After this EP, we’ve still got more music planned to come out before the end of the year, and
if the circumstances are good enough, an east coast tour, so look out for that ;)
10) What do you love about music?
What we love most about music is writing songs that people can connect with. People
message us a lot about specific songs of ours that they really connect with or just help them
feel better, and that makes us feel so good that we’re to do that with our music.