NEW JERSEY PUNK BAND ATOM DRIVER EP “IS ANYTHING ALRIGHT”

One thing that is fun about punk rock, being a creative altogether, either it be music, filmmaking and other mediums of art, is the ability to recruit others to make even more. New Jersey-based Atom Driver, is a punk rock band formed in 2016, and is made up of other seasoned musicians from various bands like Deadguy, Second Arrows, Good Clean Fun and Buzzkill from all over the genre..
This band has been a long-awaited project of Mike Polilli, formerly of Buzzkill, who has stepped away from music for a number of years to focus on being a family man with a wife and kids. However, fast forward into the future, kids grown and taken care of, the timing to set forth and bring music back to the forefront commenced.
NC: So, in the back of your mind are you thinking, when the kids are out of the house and are old enough is your thought to come back to this?
Mike: “Absolutely, but here’s the thing, stepping away and being in Buzzkill for three years and touring, traveling the country, you get burned out. I had a business, I had a fiancée and was like, we got to take a break and always knew I can come back to it.”
Before the initial band roundup, Mike gradually dipped his toes and joined a band under the condition he wouldn’t be touring. More so playing some shows locally and a handful of shows throughout the year as a means to have fun again and to simply play and enjoy.
The band’s latest EP, “Is Anything Alright”, another Covid project to add to the collection, is a summation of events that have occurred within the past couple of years. The record is accompanied by their newest video drop, Porch Light, a song about being a slimebucket in your youth and coming to terms with it in your adult years and more or less embracing it.
During the production of “Is Anything Alright” the original trio made up of Mark Segal formerly of Boss Jim Gettys, Justin Ingstrup of Good Clean Fun and of course Mike Polilli of past project, Buzzkill which would turn into a quartet, bringing in Chris Corvino of Deadguy and Second Arrows to complete the group as the powerful and dominating lead vocalist.
“He’s got that awesome yell, he yells in key and a good reference I always tell people it’s like an “Every Time I Die” thing and watching old Deadguys videos, he’s a force on stage, granted he’s got a guitar and throwing it around, he looks nuts on stage, and I’ve always loved that when I used to see them.”
Although, the infancy of the Covid era trampled the consistency of coming together to work on the record and overall, the prolificacy of the band as the pandemic hit its peak, they ultimately brought forth their completed works which dropped November of 2021. You can support Atom Driver by connecting to them via social media and taking a crack at their completed EP “Is Anything Alright”.