Founded in Boston yet headquartered in Los Angeles, the Rare Occasions channel their cross-country roots into sharply crafted songs whose brisk energy fuels both angular melodies and clever wordplay, all anchored by bright, accessible California pop refrains. Garage rock and indie pop supply the core palette, while a measured punk-pop streak adds tuneful bite that balances the group’s spiky edge. Their 2018 debut album Into the Shallows mapped this approach, and the 2021 follow-up Big Whoop tightened its focus; that same year the single “Notion” delivered their first major commercial success.
Brian McLaughlin, handling lead vocals, guitar, and keyboards, and Luke Imbusch, on drums and percussion, started the band after years of friendship that began during high school in Providence, Rhode Island. They first collaborated in a local jam band; post-graduation plans sent McLaughlin toward electrical engineering and Imbusch toward music studies. Both ultimately landed at Boston-area colleges, preserving their songwriting partnership. At Tufts University, McLaughlin connected with guitarist Peter Stone, while Imbusch met bassist Jeremy Cohen at Berklee College of Music. The quartet launched in 2012 as the Custodians before adopting the Rare Occasions name. They quickly gained regional notice by winning the 2013 WBRU-FM Rock Hunt, a Rhode Island battle-of-the-bands event. Their self-released 2014 EP Feelers contained five tracks, among them “Dysphoric,” which earned Song of the Year honors in the 2015 John Lennon Songwriting Contest. A second four-song release, Futureproof, arrived in 2016 and introduced the earliest recording of “Notion.”
Into the Shallows marked their first full-length effort in 2018, by which point Imbusch had settled in California to pursue film and television scoring. Remote file sharing and FaceTime sessions kept the band writing and rehearsing until McLaughlin and Cohen also relocated to Los Angeles; Stone remained in New England and eventually departed. When the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns halted the music industry, the Rare Occasions leveraged their prior experience working across Massachusetts and California to complete most of Big Whoop. While promoting the album, “Notion” resurfaced via a TikTok video that propelled it to viral status. By October 2021 the track had amassed nine-digit streaming totals and charted in Canada, England, and Ireland, prompting Elektra Records to reissue it. Capitalizing on renewed interest, the band delivered the six-song EP Attaboy in November 2022.
