Happy Abandon

Happy Abandon

Online

Happy Abandon’s Facepaint is a collection of heartfelt, melancholic melodies that simmer under the surface toward an ever increasing crescendo of orchestral indie rock. Facepaint is out now via Schoolkids Records.

Despite featuring songs about loss, Peter Vance (vocals & guitar) is quick to point out that Facepaint is not a breakup album. He explains “if the album were to have a subject, it would be the relationship a person has to loss and loneliness, which can manifest itself through breakups, homelessness, familial abandonment, and death”. These relationships provide the outline for Facepaint, from the emotions they conjure, to the settings in which they exist and the face paint we all hide behind to make those heartbreaks a little more palatable. Vance’s lead vocal soars throughout, combined with powerful lyrics and a dynamic string arrangement to create cinematic pop music at its best.

Forming in early 2015, Happy Abandon’s Peter Vance, Justin Ellis (bass & vocals) and Jake Waits (percussion & vocals) met at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Within a few weeks of performing together, they worked their way onto bills at local shows before taking off to tour the east coast of the US and Canada. It was at SXSW that the band initially hooked up future label head Stephen Judge, playing multiple slots at his annual SXSW party. From there, a relationship was born that would eventually lead to Judge’s offering Happy Abandon a recording contract via his freshly rebranded label Schoolkids Records.

Happy Abandon’s album Facepaint is out now via Schoolkids Records.