Article and photo by Astrid Elstrom
On October 9th, the pop-punk band Meet Me @ the Altar announced that they would be joining the Fueled By Ramen roster, alongside bands like Paramore and All Time Low. Let’s just say it’s hard for us to contain our excitement.
It is no secret that there is a problem with diversity in music, especially in the pop-punk and alternative scene; to be blunt, it's known to be overly saturated with white men. To see this trio of women-of-color signing to one of this genre's major labels displays that the industry is changing and making room for people of color to have a voice.
In an interview with Billboard, frontwoman Edith Johnson talked about the experience of growing up as a woman of color and how it influences things like booking shows and managing the band. She explained, “Growing up as women of color, I know all of us were taught in our households that you have to work for everything and things aren’t just going to be handed to us,” She adds. “That was just a subconscious thing.”
Meet Me @ The Altar is opening doors for people of color in the scene, even exemplifying that you don’t have to exactly be in the same state as your bandmates. They talked about how they would practice their parts individually and often playing their songs together on the night of a show to Billboard.
Guitarist Téa Cambell explains, “we’re mainly focusing on the stage presence.” Anyone who has seen the band perform live knows just how captivating and energetic their performances are, it’s honestly surprising that some performances are their first time playing songs together.
Everyone should be keeping an eye out for Meet Me @ the Altar because they are already starting to leave an amazing impact on the scene, and we wouldn’t want you to miss it. Huge congratulations to the band for signing with Fueled By Ramen, and we can’t wait to see what the future holds!
You can keep up with Meet Me @ the Altar by following them on Twitter @MMATABand, and you can support them by picking up some merch and/or watching their latest music video for their incredibly catchy song "Garden." If you want to see more coverage for this up and coming band, let us know by tweeting us @lgndsoftmrw!
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