The Methadones

A good band name always gives the potential listener some idea what sort of music to expect. (Bad band names are ones that mess with those expectations: a certain artsy-jangly guitar pop band of the early '90s would have been much more successful had they not been called <a href="spotify:artist:6Nd5OyTZtWxLCQV0aWtmXM">Vomit Launch</a>, which sounds like the name of a scabrous hardcore act.) Chicago-based pop-punk band the Methadones is an excellent case in point: methadone -- not to be confused with methamphetamine, aka crystal meth -- being the drug prescribed to recovering heroin addicts who are attempting to get clean through a rehab-type regimen, the listener immediately expects world-weary, sadder but wiser punk rock, perhaps with a rootsy edge, not unlike the best of <a href="spotify:artist:16nn7kCHPWIB6uK09GQCNI">Social Distortion</a> or <a href="spotify:artist:54NqjhP2rT524Mi2GicG4K">X</a>. The Methadones deliver in full on that promise, but also add a bubblegummy power pop side to their music that makes them equally attractive to fans of the post-<a href="spotify:artist:7oPftvlwr6VrsViSDV7fJY">Green Day</a> cadres of mall punk bands.

The Methadones come by their pop influences honestly: after the breakup of his late-'80s hardcore act Sludgeworth, leader Dan Schafer (usually going under the name Danny Vapid) spent a number of years playing both bass and guitar and co-writing songs in pop-punk forefathers <a href="spotify:artist:671sBQXQM2vHSu0AGvpfDs">Screeching Weasel</a>, as well as that band's side project, <a href="spotify:artist:2R1M7IlF0xmkvrvfJ6e5Z9">the Riverdales</a>. His original sidemen were fellow veterans of the pop-punk scene centered around the Lookout! Records label: bassist B-Face was also in <a href="spotify:artist:1kRABJWDxSnOJFteI351V6">the Queers</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:46PqexcuFAphFVDvw3V2BZ">the Groovie Ghoulies</a>, and drummer Dan Lumley played for <a href="spotify:artist:5R7NkNibRqjUHyhzVQoS1g">Squirtgun</a> and various other acts. With the addition of fellow <a href="spotify:artist:671sBQXQM2vHSu0AGvpfDs">Screeching Weasel</a> guitarist John Jughead, the trio originally coalesced under the name <a href="spotify:artist:6YDVfHXiWakMTR4FnBNyXe">the Mopes</a>, under which they recorded the 1998 EP Low Down Two-Bit Sidewinder! and the 1999 album Accident Waiting to Happen.

With the breakup of <a href="spotify:artist:671sBQXQM2vHSu0AGvpfDs">Screeching Weasel</a> in 2001, Schafer reorganized <a href="spotify:artist:6YDVfHXiWakMTR4FnBNyXe">the Mopes</a> into a full-time proposition called the Methadones (a band name he had occasionally played live under in the early '90s but never used for recording), losing Jughead in the process. The slimmed-down trio's debut album, Ill at Ease, was released in September of that year, but with B-Face and Lumley based in Boston and Lafayette, IN, respectively, Schafer decided to create a new Chicago-based lineup. Former <a href="spotify:artist:3CtpzRTXrYafkrOxka10ws">Vindictives</a> guitarist Mike Byrne, bassist Pete Mittler, and drummer Mike Soucy formed the lineup for the Methadones' second full-length, 2003's rough-and-tumble Career Objective.

Released in 2004, Not Economically Viable was, Schafer claimed, a concept album inspired by the tense, violent Michael Douglas film Falling Down; it also marked a right turn into more overtly poppy tunes, featuring backing vocals from Amelia Fletcher (of British twee pop legends <a href="spotify:artist:3twRxnjZrSKByPGQErO6V8">Talulah Gosh</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:1sDWIdL18InXgES9TwvsL2">Heavenly</a>) and a closing track called "Straight Up Pop Song." The aptly titled 21st Century Power Pop Riot from 2006 is an all-covers album devoted to Schafer's unapologetic love for the first wave of punk and new wave, featuring respectful covers of tunes by <a href="spotify:artist:2BGRfQgtzikz1pzAD0kaEn">Elvis Costello</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:6KOqPxwfNAmZPkiCnDE9yT">Joe Jackson</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:3oFRpiLvaflFOVNxvsLrze">the Records</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:3BqaUtuQmqIHg7B5Bc7fP7">Nick Lowe</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:0dhvA4ex79khKjjpo11lGE">the Jags</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:1LB8qB5BPb3MHQrfkvifXU">Cheap Trick</a>. ~ Stewart Mason, Rovi