Header photo credit: @koh.kane
John Gamble has been starting bands since before he had much to say. Which, if you ask him, is kind of the point. You learn by doing, and by the time Still Bones came around, he’d done enough to know what he actually wanted. The Baltimore emo trio started as a COVID solo project, a way for John to finally do something with the scraps of songs he’d been hoarding for years. It took a little while to find the right people. Once he did, everything clicked.
Start/Stop, released on April 3rd, is their tightest, most collaborative work yet. The band tracked it live in one room with no click track, had it mixed by Tom Conran, and received final mastering from the legendary Will Yip. After a long wait, it sounds exactly like what it is to John: a real band playing real songs together, with nothing to prove and no time left to waste.
What’s something you’ve been listening to lately?
John (vocals/guitar): I’m still on the new Kerosene Heights record [Blame It On The Weather]. It’s from last year, but I’m not done with it yet; my 2025 AOTY for sure. And then the new Joyce Manor [I Used to Go to This Bar]. I’m actually going to see them tonight. Combat‘s opening up; they’re a local Baltimore band on tour with them. I mostly listen to that sort of emo / poppy-but-punky kind of stuff. I also still listen to Bambi by Anxious a lot, and that new Sweet Pill record [Still There’s a Glow] is amazing. I’ve been sorta obsessed with Harrison Gordon ever since we opened for them a couple of summers ago; The Yuppies Are Winning was my most listened to album in 2024. Bands like Dikembe, Title Fight, and Free Throw are always in heavy rotation—the classics.
Honestly, as much as I hate to admit it, I’m kind of an algorithm guy, because I listen to music all day long, and most of it is pretty passive. So it’s just whatever the algorithm knows I like and feeds back to me — indie, emo, rock, punk. I’d love to say I’m a full-album guy, and there are certainly full albums that I love. But there are also a ton of bands that I like where I probably know four songs, and I’m like, “Yeah, I love that band.” Which is my own fault, but also maybe just indicative of the times we live in.
Was there a particular artist who sent you down that path of pop-punk, indie, emo rock music?
John: I’m sure I’ll date myself here, but I was in high school during the peak of mainstream emo popularity in the early-to-mid 2000s. So Taking Back Sunday, Fall Out Boy, The Get Up Kids, Saves The Day, and Brand New. I know [Brand New] is not really one that people will talk about anymore, and I’m not going to touch that with a 30-foot pole. But I also can’t pretend it wasn’t a formative band for me when I was young. And then the pop-punk stuff too, like blink-182, Sum 41, even Weezer. A lot of those bands from that era were important to me mainly because that’s when I was learning guitar and starting bands. That’s what I was listening to and that’s what I was trying to play.
I have a very specific memory of living in a cul-de-sac, skateboarding with my CD Walkman, listening to the Box Car Racer record [Box Car Racer] over and over again. Whatever year that was, 2002 or something. Looking back, that record is a really important one in the zeitgeist, I think.
When did you start learning guitar and forming bands?
John: My dad plays guitar, so I always wanted to play because he did. At some point in middle school, probably seventh grade, I finally convinced him to buy me a guitar and some lessons. He’d shown me his classic rock records from bands like The Who, Led Zeppelin, all the classics. And then I did the classic punk transformation over the summer: came back with dyed black hair, leather wristbands, chain wallet. As soon as I started playing guitar, it was like, “Alright, this is the kind of music I’m playing.”
What was the origin story for Still Bones specifically?
John: Still Bones was a COVID project. I’ve been in bands since as early as I could and a lot of them were not very well thought out or particularly accomplished. But in high school I was in a band [Woodbine Hotline] that lasted through most of high school and college, more of a pop-punk power-pop kind of thing.
The band that really got me going and made me feel like this is something I need to be doing all the time was called Sister City, from around 2013 to 2017. Half the band lived in Philly, half in Baltimore. We played a lot of shows in Philly and were part of that scene with Modern Baseball, Marietta, Mumblr, bands that were having crazy house shows with 200 people. It was something special.
After that ended in 2017, I tried to start another project around 2019 and then COVID immediately crashed it. But working from home gave me a ton of free time, and I started going through all these bits and pieces of songs I’d written over the years. I had all of these voice memos of riffs and lyrics I’d jotted down, so I thought maybe I’ll turn those into something. So Still Bones started as a solo project, though it was always meant to be a band. I just did it backwards. Usually you get the people first and then write songs. This time I wrote the songs and then found the people.
It’s also the first band where I’m the singer. In every other band I’ve been in, I just played guitar and maybe did some backup yelling. So this was the first time being both the songwriter and the frontman.
How has the band evolved since those early days?
John: For the first couple of years, it was very much a “winging it” kind of vibe. The lineup was fluid. If someone couldn’t play a show, I’d get a friend to fill in on drums or bass. Sometimes we played as a three-piece, sometimes as a 4-piece with a second guitarist. It’s shifted a lot now that we’ve had Vinnie as our full-time drummer for the past couple of years. I’ve been trying not to resort to fill-ins anymore; if we can’t play a show, we just can’t play it.
And I think that intentionality comes through in the new EP [Start/Stop]. This is a collection of songs that isn’t piecemeal. It’s a real collaboration. I can look at each part of a song and pinpoint what Jake contributed, what Vinny came up with, what Ethan suggested. That’s really cool and something that feels different from before.
Sonically, we’ve gotten more aggressive. The earlier stuff had more of an indie rock vibe with a lot of clean guitars, emo elements, longer songs. These new songs are shorter, louder, more urgent. When I wrote that first record in my basement, I added piano parts, some synth — stuff we can’t reproduce live because we don’t have a keyboard player.
Tell me about the recording process for Start/Stop. Y’all tracked it live and then had Tom Conran and Will Yip on mixing and mastering, respectively. What was that like?
John: Yeah, we recorded it with Jake, our bassist, at his place [Stüd Ranch]. And we basically just played each song three times and picked the best take. There’s no grid-snapping or quantizing, it is what it is. I’m a big proponent of getting as many ears on a project as possible, so I like to have someone outside the band mix the record and then someone else master it. The more brains, the better.
Tom and I go way back to my Sister City days, actually. He was in a band called Uncle Father Oscar, and those two bands used to play shows together all the time. We even put out a split together in 2015. So when I was looking for someone to mix this EP, I reached out to him. He mentioned his buddy Will Yip had been mastering the stuff he was working on, and he said, “I think I could get him to do this.” So it was pretty serendipitous.
I won’t pretend to know Will Yip at all — it’s purely through Tom — but I was star-struck just having back-and-forth emails with him. He went and won a Grammy and then also said, “Yeah, sure, I’ll master your buddy’s record.” That says a lot about who he is as a person. I’m really happy and proud of the way the songs turned out.
Image credit: @koh.kane
You’re releasing this on a limited cassette. What keeps you coming back to physical media?
John: This is actually the first time I’ve put anything on cassette. What’s nice about them is they’re pretty cheap. You’re selling them at a show for under ten bucks, maybe seven or eight dollars. And I think what’s important for a band like us is that the people who come to shows are the committed ones, the real music lovers. Those are the people who want to support you.
Trying to get that response virtually is tough. I’m not very good at getting people to listen via TikTok or whatever. It’s a little embarrassing, I’m actually trying to create content for this release. But there’s something so real about standing in a room with people who showed up. Those people want to buy something. Maybe they don’t like your T-shirt, or it doesn’t fit right, or it’s not their vibe. Give them something entry-level. People will buy a cassette for six bucks and then you get to talk to them for three minutes. That’s what I’m really going for.
There’s also something tactile and satisfying about the way you interact with a cassette, popping the cartridge in. It’s almost like a fidget toy. A CD jewel case has a similar appeal but it’s fragile. I just want to eliminate any barrier between us and the people who come to shows.
What’s the plan for supporting the record? Any shows or plans for the rest of the year?
John: I definitely want to do something to celebrate. I’m working on booking a release show for 5/3 at the Ottobar, about a month after the EP drop [4/3]. Our guitarist [Ethan] just had surgery, so that’s pushed things back a bit in terms of scheduling. But we already released a single with a video, and I’ve been trying to pump that up. I dropped off some cassettes at a local record store, and we’re selling them early at our show this Sunday [3/22] too.
As for the rest of the year, we kind of take it as it comes. We serve the role of the local support act for now, so we focus on building relationships with bookers and bands in Baltimore that we want to play with. One of the main spots for that is the Undercroft; it’s a DIY venue run by Combat and other volunteers, and a lot of emo and punk bands come through there. We’re often on those bills. No plans to tour, but never say never.
Who are some of your favorite local bands right now?
John: We just played with a band called Shift Meal, they just finished a tour and this is their homecoming show. Really cool emo two-piece and just good people. What’s interesting about Baltimore is that it’s very hardcore-focused right now, it feels like everyone I know is starting a hardcore band. We’ve played some “mixed bills” with hardcore bands like Gist and Grudge and that rules.
One of my favorite Baltimore bands is Dosser; our very first show was with them and Little Lungs back in 2021. Sunny Mondays is a really cool mathy emo band and Sleepy Sword are the homies playing vibey slowcore. I was really impressed with Polarview and Bubbler when we played with them, and of course Combat rips. And then there’s DC bands like Cuni and Tosser that I really like.
Baltimore is a great scene. There’s every kind of music you could want. And it’s relatively small, which means you really do get to know people. That’s kind of what it’s all about for me: building community. That’s what I want to do.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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