The Methadones

The Methadones, a Chicago pop-punk outfit, bear a name that signals weary, clear-eyed punk with a gritty undercurrent akin to Social Distortion or X. Listeners receive precisely that outlook from the band, yet the songs also weave in a bright, bubblegum-tinged power-pop streak that draws equal favor from followers of the post-Green Day mall-punk wave.

Dan Schafer, better known as Danny Vapid, formed the group after his late-’80s hardcore band Sludgeworth dissolved. He had spent subsequent years on bass and guitar while co-writing material for the pioneering pop-punk unit Screeching Weasel and its offshoot the Riverdales. Fellow Lookout! Records veterans joined him: bassist B-Face, previously of the Queers and the Groovie Ghoulies, and drummer Dan Lumley, who had played with Squirtgun and several other acts from the same circle. Adding Screeching Weasel guitarist John Jughead, the musicians first operated as the Mopes, issuing the 1998 EP Low Down Two-Bit Sidewinder! and the 1999 full-length Accident Waiting to Happen.

Following the 2001 dissolution of Screeching Weasel, Schafer converted the Mopes into a permanent project renamed the Methadones—an appellation he had used for occasional early-’90s live dates without recording under it—while parting ways with Jughead. The reduced trio delivered its debut album, Ill at Ease, in September of that year. Because B-Face resided in Boston and Lumley in Lafayette, Indiana, Schafer assembled an entirely Chicago-based replacement lineup featuring former Vindictives guitarist Mike Byrne, bassist Pete Mittler, and drummer Mike Soucy. This configuration recorded the band’s second album, the gritty Career Objective, in 2003.

Not Economically Viable appeared in 2004 and, according to Schafer, functioned as a concept record drawn from the tense, violent Michael Douglas film Falling Down. The set shifted noticeably toward brighter pop structures, showcased guest backing vocals by Amelia Fletcher of the British twee-pop legends Talulah Gosh and Heavenly, and closed with the track “Straight Up Pop Song.” The 2006 release 21st Century Power Pop Riot took the form of an all-covers collection celebrating Schafer’s devotion to the initial punk and new-wave era, presenting faithful renditions of songs by Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, the Records, Nick Lowe, the Jags, and Cheap Trick.