Saves The Day

Since the mid-1990s, Saves the Day from New Jersey refined a power pop/rock approach that helped shape an entire wave of pop-leaning emo. Early departure from melodic hardcore led the group to emphasize hook-driven songwriting, confessional lyrics, and a sharply angled vocal delivery across 1999’s Through Being Cool and their commercial high point, 2001’s Stay What You Are. Lineup shifts and stylistic experiments marked later years, yet the initial recordings continued to shape successive emo-pop acts.

Singer and songwriter Chris Conley assembled the first version of the band at age thirteen, initially under the name Indifference and later Seffler. Adoption of the present title—drawn from a lyric in the Farside song “Hero”—coincided with the recording of their debut demo. Conley handled vocals alongside Eben D’Amico on bass, Ted Alexander on guitar, David Soloway on guitar, and Bryan Newman on drums for the 1997 Equal Vision release Can’t Slow Down, although D’Amico joined after the album’s completion. Captured during winter break of their final high-school year, the sessions featured production from Steve Evetts, known for work with Sepultura, the Dillinger Escape Plan, and Sick of It All.

Two years afterward, Through Being Cool expanded their audience and earned praise within select punk circles through its increased pop emphasis. A near-fatal car accident sustained while touring supplied much of the impetus for the darker yet melodic 2001 album Stay What You Are. Issued as their third full-length and first for Vagrant Records, the record enlisted Rob Schnapf—credited with Beck, Elliott Smith, and the Toadies—for mixing that yielded a more disciplined punk-rock sound. The release surpassed 200,000 copies sold, appeared on the Billboard charts, and generated two heavily aired MTV2 videos for “At Your Funeral” and “Freakish.” Extensive road work followed, including headline status on Vagrant’s 2001 package with Dashboard Confessional and support slots alongside Weezer plus the Pop Disaster Tour featuring Green Day and blink-182.

In Reverie arrived two years later as the band’s first DreamWorks album and introduced drummer Pete Parada. Vagrant simultaneously offered the archival set Ups & Downs: Early Recordings and B-Sides in August 2004. Early 2006 brought a renewed Vagrant contract and the official addition of bassist Manny Carrero. Sound the Alarm emerged that April, after which the group maintained an active schedule that encompassed that summer’s Warped Tour. Parada departed in March 2007; ex-Classic Case/Glassjaw drummer Durijah Lang soon took his place. Later the same year, Saves the Day issued Under the Boards, the middle installment of a conceptual trilogy launched by Sound the Alarm.

Before completing the three-album arc, the lineup underwent near-total turnover when Soloway, Lang, and Carrero exited. Conley recruited bassist Rodrigo Palma, guitarist Arun Bali, and drummer Claudio Rivera, then returned to the studio in 2009. After shopping the finished recordings, the band signed with Razor & Tie and delivered their seventh album, Daybreak, in 2011. With the trilogy concluded, they returned to Equal Vision for their eighth release, the self-titled Saves the Day, issued in summer 2013. Rivera soon left and was succeeded by drummer Dennis Wilson. The following year brought further touring, among them support dates with Brand New and a co-headlining run with Say Anything. In 2018 the group unveiled their ninth album, the aptly named 9. Largely conceptual, the record comprised songs that traced the band’s own history, each addressing distinct chapters across their preceding two decades.