Warm Soda

A disastrous trip to SXSW in 2012 basically split up Matthew Melton's band <a href="spotify:artist:55Bpoxedzq3SPLXXSusLHl">Bare Wires</a>, the excellent garage punk trio he led for four years and that released three albums. After the rest of the band left, he regrouped in May of 2012 under the name Warm Soda, with bassist Chase Oren, guitarist Rob Good, and drummer Ian McBrayer on board. Their sound was similar to that of <a href="spotify:artist:55Bpoxedzq3SPLXXSusLHl">Bare Wires</a>, but it felt even more like the razor-sharp power pop songs were being blasted out of a tiny AM radio in the summer of 1976. The quartet put out a single in September of 2012 ("Reaction") and then continued on with <a href="spotify:artist:3qYfqdVwX0fil71onLpLkh">Thee Oh Sees</a>' <a href="spotify:artist:5vIYVb7FAzYeQRE8xuYS9j">Jon Dwyer</a> and his <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Castle+Face%22">Castle Face</a> label -- they had released the last <a href="spotify:artist:55Bpoxedzq3SPLXXSusLHl">Bare Wires</a> album -- to set their debut album, Someone for You, loose on the world in the early spring of 2013. After gifting a classic modern power pop tune ("Tell Me in a Whisper") to <a href="spotify:artist:189npwiCoBxlFNEDfiOtqu">Sonny Smith</a>'s I Need You Bad compilation in late 2013, the band returned with its second album for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Castle+Face%22">Castle Face</a>. Titled Young Reckless Hearts, it was issued in early 2014. That same year, amid internal problems between bandmembers, Melton relocated to Austin, Texas, built a new home studio, and assembled a new band featuring guitarist Maxx Eaton, bassist Austin Shockley, and drummer Caleb Dawson. Sticking with <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Castle+Face%22">Castle Face</a> and feeling revitalized, Warm Soda released their third album, Symbolic Dream, in May of 2015. The same band recorded the fourth Warm Soda album, I Don't Wanna Grow Up, which <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Castle+Face%22">Castle Face</a> released in early 2017. It was also the last Warm Soda album, as Melton closed up shop and started making music of a more psychedelic nature in <a href="spotify:artist:7fr82xLSeqLgvfRcmVQUTd">Dream Machine</a>, a band he formed with his wife, Doris. ~ Tim Sendra, Rovi