Beach Slang has my favorite album of the moment, A Loud Bash of Teenage Feelings.

If you have a half-hour to spare, you can check out the entire disc here (or click on the image below). If you like earnest, guitar-driven, punk-tinged rock, it’ll be time well spent.

To me, Beach Slang has a great early-era Replacements sound to them. And their lead singer James Alex seems like he pours his heart and soul into the music, based on this interview. A few key quotes:

“And we play our guts out. That’s what we do every night. Even if we play for one kid, that could be the one kid who sparks this whole thing. Every kid matters. If it’s one person or thousands, we’re gonna play just as hard.”

“I had a wrecked childhood, so you look for family when you don’t have one. I found that in punk rock, in the scene, my friends were my family and I want to shout that out for all the kids who are lost and looking.” 

“There’s something very romantic and necessary about rock and roll not being handed to you. It’s a blue-collar job and you have to work hard for it. If it means enough to you, you’ll do anything for it.”

“Sweat, urgency, unpredictability and danger. Rock and roll needs to have that. No two shows should be the same.”