Pop-punk band GROWERS are reflecting on life’s regrets with “17 Cigarettes”
GROWERS are a four-piece pop punk band from Toronto, Canada, known for their upbeat original material and high-energy live shows.
Their song “17 Cigarettes” was inspired by the struggle of getting older, especially in your late teen years. Transitioning from being a kid to having a bit more responsibility and independence is tough. Having a moment to contemplate these thoughts over a cigarette break is what the song is about.
As you’re taking a long drag, maybe you’re thinking about all the important choices you have ahead of you – where you might go to school, if you’ll find work, and what sort of impact those choices will have on the course of your life. It’s hard not to think about potential regrets and how much you will eventually change as the years pass by.
Listen to “17 Cigarettes” below and learn more about GROWERS via our Five Questions With segment.
Care to introduce yourself to our readers?
We are a four-piece, high-energy rock band from Toronto, ON, known for our pop-rock sound and eclectic live shows. The band consists of lead singer Charlie Joy, guitarist Matt Raitt, bassist Nate Clapinson, and drummer Chris Raitt. We formed in 2019 and have put out 1 EP and nine singles, including three singles off of our upcoming EP entitled CRYBABY. In 2020, we won the Fan Favourite Award for the 20K Summer Song Contest hosted by 102.1 The Edge and Corus Entertainment for our music video for “The 90s”. We will be playing numerous live shows starting in June of 2023, with the first two dates being part of Canadian Music Week and NXNE, followed by shows in Ottawa, Kingston, Montreal, and Hamilton, and another show in Toronto at Lee’s Palace later in the summer.
Tell us a bit about your most recent release.
“17 Cigarettes” is a funky, melancholic ode to the rock sound of the early 2000s, combining sounds from albums like “All Killer No Filler” by Sum 41 and “Songs About Jane” by Maroon 5. Lyrically, the song alludes to being overwhelmed by the pressures in everyday life while suppressing that stress by using substances to avoid facing these problems head-on. As the song continues, our “narrator” realizes that he’s too far gone into these habits and is afraid that there’s no way out of this certain way of life, which will eventually lead to his demise. The song shines a light on the frailty of our ability to resist temptation and defeat, especially when faced with new challenges that seem impossible to overcome.
Where do you tend to pull inspiration from when writing?
For me personally (Charlie), it always depends on the mood I’m in when I begin writing. There are a lot of bands that I grew up listening to and still inspire me to this day; Billy Talent, Alexisonfire, The Story So Far, and Seaway all hold a prominent place in the inspiration department. When we write as a band, we really put together a combination of influences that really make our sound unique. Matt’s bluesy riffs combined with Nate’s funky bass lines, Chris’s rock-solid classic rock drumming, and my pop-punk/post-hardcore vocal style really put something new on the table.
Do you have any upcoming shows you’d like to tell us about?
In June, we’ll be playing CMW on June 8th at the Wheatsheaf and NXNE on June 17th at The Garrison. After that, we’ll be hitting the road playing Sala Rossa in Montreal with their local hardcore legends, Bird Problems.
What’s your goal for 2023?
With half the songs released and the rest to come, the best we can hope for is for the release of the CRYBABY EP to go over well with our audience. We’ve been pouring our heart and soul into this record over the past year, and the songs themselves really mean a lot to us as a whole. With the pandemic, writing our first EP together was very difficult as I had to move back to Montreal with my family as I was still in school at the time, but this time around, we’ve been able to sit down in the same room and really pull out a piece of work that is close to all of us – something we consider to be our best work yet.