![\"M-33-skaters\"](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/M-33-skaters.jpg\")
<\/h1>\n<\/h1>\nBand bios are notoriously filled with bunk, but Michael Ian Cummings\u2019 story checks out. Ask the singer and guitarist where in New York City he and his fellow Skaters tended bar, and he\u2019ll list a string of watering holes where young rockers actually congregate, swill Pabst, and tell stories that might inspire an album of crackling indie-punk jams, as the group\u2019s press release says.<\/p>\n
While Cummings, drummer Noah Rubin and guitarist Joshua Hubbard know the NYC terrain\u2014naming their debut LP Manhattan<\/i>\u2014they\u2019re not the Lower East Side natives their music suggests. Cummings comes from Boston, and Rubin arrives via L.A. Meanwhile Hubbard hails from London, and bassist Dan Burke is also a Beantown native.<\/p>\n
Upon forming Skaters in 2012, the four friends decided to meet on neutral ground and \u201cstart a late-\u201970s-infuenced roots New York post-punk band,\u201d as Cummings says. And it didn\u2019t take long for Skaters to hone their sound: Ramones crunch meets grimy-sexy Strokes swagger and a Clash-like knack for tastefully done reggae. But as Cummings says, it wasn\u2019t just a matter of borrowing from their heroes. \u201cIt also helps to be in the city,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s got its own pace, its own life\u2014and if you listen,\u00a0you\u2019ll tap into that.\u201d<\/p>\n
After some live shows and a self-released EP, Skaters were off like runaway subway cars. They quickly signed with Warner Bros. and tapped John Hill\u2014an eclectic producer whose credits include Devo, Santigold and Snoop Lion\u2014to helm Manhattan<\/i>. \u201cWe had a Skype meeting with John when we were trying to pick a producer, and he listed a bunch of influences that were like ours,\u201d Cummings says, \u201cPixies, H\u00fcsker D\u00fc and the Clash. We were like,\u00a0\u2018All right, yeah.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Weeks before Manhattan <\/i>dropped, Skaters announced a series of U.K. tour dates as well as a June appearance at New York\u2019s Governors Ball festival, where headliners included Jack White, Vampire Weekend, and the recently reunited OutKast.<\/p>\n
If it seems like Too Much Too Soon<\/i>\u2014to borrow an album title from another influence, the New York Dolls\u2014Cummings says the band isn\u2019t lacking the kind of camaraderie that comes with years of thankless slogging. \u201cWe\u2019ve already gotten that because we\u2019ve all been in other bands for 10 years, scrapping along, sleeping on floors and touring crappy clubs and not having any money,\u201d he says. \u201cThe gang was mentality in full force when we started this band. That\u2019s why it was successful quickly. It wasn\u2019t because we wanted to be warriors. We wanted to produce something that was meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Kenneth Partridge<\/p>\n
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