Cherry Stream New Single “Cherry” via Noisey – Debut Album Dumbness Out September 29th on Lame-O Records

Cherry are now streaming their new self-titled single “Cherry” via Noisey. Singer Russell Edling talked to Noisey about starting his new project and not taking art too seriously. The band’s debut album Dumbness is set to be released on September 29th via Lame-O Records. The Philadelphia indie rock project features ex-Kite Party members Russell Edling and Justin Fox, current Three Man Cannon bassist Spencer Colmbs, and Lame-O Records owner Eric Osman on drums. Pre-orders for Dumbness are available now physically and digitally via Lame-O Records. The band also recently released a Craig Scheihing directed music video for their single “Under The Sun,” which can be seen on GoldFlakePaint. GFP called the song “a dusty and drawn-out blast of guitar-pop.”

Cherry is a band created with the intention of engaging in pure exploration. In the final days of songwriter Russell Edling’s previous project Kite Party, he started to notice that the more serious they began to take their art, the less is started to mean. When he started Cherry, he was looking to lean into the fun of the project, trying on different styles and ideas at will. You can hear this melding of ideas in the the band’s first single “Under The Sun,” ending up somewhere between the angular pop music of the Strokes and the deep bouncy rhythms of Beat Happening. The band has also announced a tour in support of Dumbness. A full list of dates can be found below.

Tour Dates:
09/29 – Wilmington, DE – 1984
09/30 – New York, NY – TBA
10/01 – Wilkes-Barre, PA – Burt and Ernie’s
10/02 – Toronto, ON – Smiling Buddha
10/03 – Flint, MI – Churchill’s Food + Spirits
10/04 – Chicago, IL – Subterranean
10/05 – Columbus, OH – Used Kids Records
10/06 – Pittsburgh, PA – The Bushnell
10/07 – Philadelphia, PA – Boot and Saddle
10/08 – Baltimore, MD – Metro Gallery** = w/ Cayetana

Dumbness Tracklisting
1. Dumbness
2. Buttoned Up
3. Under The Sun
4. Majestic Wonderland
5. Cherry
6. Waterfalls
7. Motorcycle Lady
8. Boundaryless
9. Forever Overhead
10. Sametown

Biography:
Moments of failure can bring on moments of extreme clarity. You thought it was one way and then you are faced with the unavoidable truth that in fact it was and will always be some other way. For Cherry songwriter Russell Edling, that experience was felt heavily in the final days of his previous musical project, Kite Party. He started to notice that the more serious they began to take their art, the less it started to mean. As this was happening, Edling experienced a major life event that put the silliness of that seriousness into perspective, and forced him to re-asses how he felt about the band and music. He started Cherry in an attempt to look at his art in a different way, enlisting ex-Kite Party guitarist Justin Fox, Three Man Cannon’s Spenser Colmbs, and friends Jesse Kennedy and Eric Osman (Lame-O Records) to write a record that they enjoyed, and that never got too caught up in the gravity of trying to be an artist.

The concept of investigating and discovering only to be humbled by what one finds is the grassy field that Cherry wanders aimlessly through in their upcoming record, Dumbness. The record’s first lyrical idea comes in the form of “Everybody’s dumb / go and ask anyone.” The great equalizer of universal human foolishness. We all take ourselves too seriously, we are too precious, too self-obsessed as we walk down the street thinking about cheeseburgers, dogshit clinging to the treads in our business casual footwear.

Musically, Dumbness covers a lot of ground; stopping momentarily in may different stylistic regions only to move on. One gets a sense that the band is turning stones, thinking “maybe there is something under here.” Through tales of nostalgic skateboarding adventures, fictional narrations of love and death, and slapstick word vomit, Cherry makes an honest effort to communicate. To hold thee down for a few moments just to say “hi hello we are all here together”.

Dumbness is a meditation on the great equalizing force of human foolishness. Lovers hurt one another, dreams are meant to be woken from, shoelaces untie, and justice is jailed by random circumstance. We put fools into power, and power greens into our smoothies. “I wanted to write about expectation and sing about disappointment,” Edling explains. “It’s important to greet failure with a grin and cackle in the face of fear. Musicians must give all of themselves to an art form that so rarely gives back. To exist is to navigate through so many obstacles, finding friends and foes in impossibly unlikely circumstances. I do believe there is beauty in that, but it is a beauty born of this world and thus it is mostly dumb.”