Cleveland, Ohio It has been a true pleasure to see Signals Midwest subtly develop into one of Cleveland’s most significant do-it-yourself exporters, whose music is equally suited to soundtrack your existential crisis at three in the morning as it is to shake the walls of a punk house.
With the publication of their appropriately named new album, Layovers, last month, the group collected years’ worth of unreleased material, and singer-guitarist Max Stern is reflecting on their storyline with a unique clarity.
Not precisely out of nostalgia, but rather for a more purposeful, grounded reason. Something was earned. Not merely a break between albums, as the name suggests.
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In a Zoom interview from his Philadelphia home, Stern told Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer, “We don’t tour like we used to.” That is simply a reality of our personal development.
With special guests 84 Tigers, Five Hundred Bucks, and Model Martel, they will be performing at the Grog Shop in Cleveland Heights on October 10 after performing hundreds of times around North America, Europe, the UK, Australia, and Japan.
In a way, it’s a homecoming as well as a de facto hometown release party for Layovers.
These days, we all have a lot of obligations. Physically, spiritually, and emotionally, we are not all at the same position. According to Stern, the glamour of being in a band fades.
On certain days, logistics take up 90% of your time. However, for a brief period, it is a transcending experience. He said, “And you remember why you’re doing it.”
Coming home will be enjoyable.
The group started out in a basement on Grandview Avenue in Cleveland Heights, which is a common location for Midwestern emo and post-hardcore bands.
Max chuckles, “We called it the Milk Crate.” We would arrange performances, bring in out-of-town bands, and crash on floors. Our goal was to be a part of a scene, not to create one.
A number of records that followed the band’s development in real time followed.
It is audible in their playing. in the song’s lyrics. According to the story, Stern began by shouting in order to connect and eventually developed the ability to sing clearly and purposefully.
“We were all just trying to be loud enough to be heard back then,” he adds. What we want to say and how we want to communicate it are more important now.
Stern frequently discusses striking a balance between energy and aim, as well as between urgency and reflection. He uses a grounded, ritualistic, and sometimes tactile approach when writing songs.
Without a guitar strapped on, I am unable to sing. He said, “I’ve been doing that for ten years.” The weight of it somehow makes the words fall more easily.
During layovers, you sense progress, gratitude for the experience, and forward motion:
Stern clarified that the album is not conventional. It is an archival compilation of songs that were never recorded. In a sense, it’s a scrapbook. or a passport that has been stamped.
However, it doesn’t sound like leftovers, much less layovers in airport lounges.
The tracks that make up Layovers originate from various moments in Signals’ history.
The song “Whole Half Century” was taken from the 2015 At This Age album sessions, which were produced by Evan Weiss and recorded at Atlas Studios in Chicago (Into It. Over It.).
Stern remarked, “I hear us stepping into who we are as a band here.” The sessions from which that song originated have influenced every creation we’ve developed in the past ten years.
One of the best songs the band has ever released is “Two Magnets,” the lead single. Although it is specific and connected to a pier at the end of Overlook Park Drive in Collinwood, it opens up to something universal: memory, emotion, and the pull and pull of people.
Layovers is truly about that tension, the middle ground.
Max refers to liminal space. Airports, driving, and the waiting period between one’s current location and one’s destination. I write the most of my work during that time.
For a band that has always existed on the brink of something greater, as well as in punk, rock, pop, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia, it’s a suitable metaphor.
Cleveland has also been a constant for Stern, who lives in Pennsylvania.
He remarked, “I still feel really connected to it.” The Grog Shop was six blocks away from where I grew up. I went to shows on foot. Early exposure to authentic, top-notch music influenced everything.
His first internship was at Grog Shop. It was his first gig. Now, Signals Midwest Stern (guitar, vocals), Steve Gibson (drums, vocals), Jeff Russell (guitar), and Loren Shumaker (bass) will return for a homecoming gig that will inhabit a life all its own.
Max stated bluntly that he believed it to be the greatest venue in America. I hope it lasts forever.
He discusses Cleveland and Northeast Ohio with a sense of awe.
Not simply the locations, such as performances in the It’s a Kling Thing! house in Akron, but also the people, post-industrial landscapes, and strange, Lake Erie light that lighted their way in the beginning.
At Tremont’s Dag House, which backs up to a refinery, we would sit on the porch. After a set, we would observe trains passing by. That served as our background. I think about that all the time.
The music itself has changed, too. More melodic, more economical. More Tom Petty in structure; less everybody scream here. And more interested in meaning than volume.
I used to think you had to write songs people could yell along to. Now I just want to make something we d enjoy listening to. That we d be proud of. That people would come along for the ride on. It s still cathartic, it s just growing.
That evolution wasn t just musical. It was personal.
Everyone has renegotiated their relationship with alcohol over the years, Stern says. We stretch now before shows. Wehydrate. It s not glamorous, but it s sustainable.
He s aware of what people expect from bands like Signals sweat, catharsis, emotional relief; that scrappy thing that has drawn fans of everyone from Guided by Voices and Fugazi to Cobra Verde and Jets to Brazil to them.
We don t have a light show, he shrugged.
We have our bodies, our volume, our intention. That s it. But if someone leaves feeling more uninhibited in their body, more connected? That s the goal.
Asked if there was a moment when it felt like all the chaos was worth it when all the nights sleeping on floors, playing to 30 people and doing everything DIY paid off Stern doesn t hesitate: Touring Japan, he said.
We flew in early and went up to an observation deck. I was looking out over Tokyo thinking, Starting a band in a Cleveland Heights basement got me here. There s a straight line.
Not every moment needs to be transcendent. But you must recognize when they are.
Before we wrap, Stern mentions something a fan said that surprised him. His answer is a simple one, but he sticks the landing like naval pilots on an aircraft carrier.
A guy came up after a show in Milwaukee with a lyric tattoo, he said.
He d just come back from a military tour overseas. That lyricI was counting the miles, you were counting the daysit got him through. It meant something completely different to him than what I wrote it for. But it meant something. That s the point.
That s the thing about music. You make it, you release it, you let it go and it becomes someone else s lifeline. But it also becomes the ties that bind.
Stern gets that; the foursome all have Signals Midwest biplane logo tattoos, too.
Signals Midwest isn t done yet. Not by a longshot. Stern is still writing new material, which is coming soon. The group continues to evolve, growing into their long shadow and pulling meaning from spaces in-between.
As long as he and the group are still going, Cleveland will be at the heart of it all. It s not just where the band took off; it s where the weight of everything lands.
