Our favorite indie rock band is back and sooner than we would have thought!
You Me and Everyone We Know are back with a brand new self-released single, “F.I.N.E.”
Vocalist Ben Liebsch says of the track:
“For current fans, “F.I.N.E.” is the “Carolina Heat” of the next release, the why and how we got here. For everyone else, “F.I.N.E.” is about finding the enlightenment we all seek during the healing process after a traumatic experience.”
No one expected YMAEWK to get back together, least of all the band.
Following the band’s last show in 2017, Liebsch immersed himself in work outside the music industry while sorting through personal issues that plagued him for years.
“I was coping a lot through food and energy drinks,” Liebsch told AltPress in November. “Just managing, really, and by that, I mean surviving. I was full-on coming into my own as a personal trainer and digging into the lifestyle of business ownership as a way to keep myself busy and distracted. I was working too much while trying to deal with everything, and then I was retraumatized. Anyone familiar with P.T.S.D. knows there is a whole litany of symptoms that are not just mental, but physical, and it all came to a head last December when a broom fell in my bathroom. My body was so overwhelmed by stress and physical activity that it just hit a hard shutdown button. I woke up on the floor five minutes later with blood everywhere, and I quickly realized I was exhibiting the signs of a concussion. That is when things with music picked up again.”
He continued, “I’ve always told my therapists that whenever I’m performing, I sort of disappear. There is a loss of self and ego in those moments where I become a part of what is happening in the room. Ram Dass, one of the people I discovered through reading Comedy Sex God, says that feeling of losing oneself is something to be cherished. The work we do to reach that point is important, and I realized that if music is my way to get there, then I needed to find a way to do that without hurting my physical or mental health.”
The answer Liebsch found is a combination of things he learned from following hip-hop. YMAEWK is choosing to release singles instead of E.P.s and albums, and the group is being highly selective about their performances.
“Touring is not going to happen unless someone comes to the band with an offer [that] replaces all of our incomes. The music industry has been historically unwilling to do that for any band, let alone my little enterprise here. In all likelihood, we will be playing roughly six shows a year. We may do more if something exciting comes our way, but right now, that’s our plan.”
The band has two upcoming shows in March:
3/15 – Tulip’s Place (Grand Rapids, MI)
3/27 – Creep Records (Philadelphia, PA)