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Artist Spotlight: New Years Day’s Austin Ingerman aims to spread positivity with new solo single

New Years Day guitarist Austin Ingerman is breaking out on his own with the release of his solo single “Everything Is Okay”. The feel-good track couldn’t be more timely, as it arrives in the middle of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and worldwide civil unrest. “Everything Is Okay” explores finding the small victories in the midst of struggle and Ingerman stands firmly behind this optimistic message. Atlas spoke with Ingerman about this new single and spreading a little positivity in tough times.

How does it feel to have this piece of your solo project out in the world?

It feels really good. This song is something a little different for me. I’m sure if you listen to New Years Day and then you listen to this song, it’s one extreme to the other. I wrote this song a couple years ago with some friends and I was listening back to the demo the other night and just decided that this would be the perfect time to release it with everything going on.  

The song is called “Everything Is Okay” and on the cover it may seem like we’re saying ‘everything is okay all the time and it’s all good, everything’s perfect’ but really it goes a little deeper than that. The first line of the song is actually “this world’s so full of problems” so it’s like things may not always be perfect and things may not always go your way, but at the end of the day you find the little victories that help you get through the day- whether that’s cooking your favorite meal or going to the beach or sharing some laughs with your friends. Whatever it may be, you just focus on the little things that help you get through it.

What brought you to making solo music outside of New Years Day?

I’m always writing stuff. When we’re on the road, I’ve always got my laptop with me and we’re always working on new riffs and I’m constantly working on stuff. With the whole quarantine and stuff, this was kind of a blessing in disguise in some ways. Obviously the situation at hand is not a good thing, but in some ways it allowed me to focus on things that I normally wouldn’t have time to do on the road. Just taking a step back and focusing more on the solo stuff. I actually just finished recording my solo instrumental record too, which is also way different than “Everything Is Okay”. I hope to keep some people on their toes for sure. 

I set up a little camera studio in my dad’s garage and I’ve been making more YouTube videos and I’ve been writing more music. Again, when we’re on the road, there’s definitely not hardly any time to do any of that stuff. It’s finding the positives in any negative situation.

When it comes to your inspirations and influences for this project, what names come to mind?

[For] me personally as a guitar player, I love Slash, Randy Rhoads, Paul Gilbert, Stevie Ray Vaughn- the list could go on and on. It’s really hard to put a finger on one thing because I listen to everything from hard rock and metal to The Beach Boys [and] Boston. I guess that’s where “Everything Is Okay” [came from]- some of those influences like the soft rock, yacht rock type stuff. That’s kind of like a guilty pleasure so to speak. I’m not very guilty about it, I don’t regret listening to that stuff at all. I definitely go back and forth with genres and just whatever I’m feeling at the moment just comes out so it’s really hard to predict what’s going to happen from one song to the next.

What’s coming up for the rest of this year?

With the touring stuff, we hope to be out there as soon as we can. Nobody really knows what that looks like right now. I’m hoping by the end of the year, early next year we can get back out there. I know Ash [Costello] has actually announced a tour with her other project at the end of the year as well so it might be a little bit for New Years Day.

For me, I just finished recording my instrumental album. After “Everything is Okay” has kind of run its course over the next couple months, I’ll be releasing the instrumental record, and I’m already working on another album that’s going to have vocals and everything after that. Just a lot of new music coming and hopefully some touring as soon as possible but we’re all just waiting in the wings to see when that can happen.

Do you ever hope to take this solo project on the road?

Oh yeah, absolutely. I would love to do some support slots as well as some headlining tours. I’m hoping with the release of the instrumental record [that] we can get out and support that at the end of the year- especially since Ash is going to be out doing her thing. This might be the perfect time to take that out on the road. I would love to do that for sure.

Are there any topics that you gravitate toward when writing music or are there any topics that you’d like to explore more in future songs?

For the most part, my thing as a songwriter is I always want to try to inspire some positivity and spread some positivity, especially with everything going on right now. I’m not a huge fan of writing lyrics that are super dark and things like that. For me, if somebody can be inspired in any kind of way or it can make their day better or if people are going through mental health issues or anything like that and the music can help them in any kind of way, then that’s what I’m focused on or what I’m going for.

Is there anything else you’d like people to know about you and this project or is there anything you wish you could talk about more that you may not get asked?

I would just say check me out @austiningerman on Instagram as well as austiningerman.com and stay up to date. I’m going to be releasing a lot of new stuff and the song is out now everywhere on all streaming platforms!

 

Story by Olivia Khiel
Images courtesy of Austin Ingerman