Courtesy of Kevin Deems

While we may have to say goodbye to Christofer Drew’s cheery sing-along solo melodies, fear not: you will be pleasantly surprised with the release of Never Shout Never‘s new album Time Travel coming out tomorrow. Drew’s following may have started when his 15-year-old self discovered what a MacBook and a garage band could do, but with with the addition of  friends Caleb Denison (guitar/drums/percussion), Taylor MacFee (bass), and Hayden Kaiser (guitar, percussion), Never Shout Never is now a force to be reckoned with. Their new record Time Travel—produced entirely by the band themselves—will take listeners far away. Grab the CD, check out their headlining tour, The Time Travel Tour, kicking off September 22nd, and read what Drew has to say about it all!

ELLEgirl (EG): Never Shout Never used to have an exclamation point after it, now it doesn’t. What gives?

Christofer Drew (CD): I mean, it started out just ’cause that’s what I put on as a kid; I just felt like it looked lame, so I just changed it.

EG: I remember stumbling upon your music in high school on Youtube and MySpace; how old were you when you first started putting music out there?

CD: I was 15. I worked at my dad’s work as a janitor for a while. I saved up and got a MacBook so music was so easy to put up. I had garage band and Wifi, and that’s all I needed.

EG: Did you see it as the beginning of a career or was it more for fun?

CD: It was totally just for fun at first, and you know, on the Internet, business people can reach out to you and then it turns into something more and you’re like, is this possible? I mean, I was making [bad] songs and putting them up ’cause I had nothing better to do.

EG: What was your first real job?

CD: Lifeguard. Yes, YMCA-certified. I think my license [expired] but yeah, I would still go back.

EG: Did you take music lessons or was playing guitar self-taught?

CD: Pretty much self-taught. I had some friends and stuff that played. I went to church too when I was younger, and a lot of kids played guitar. My dad also plays a little. I remember him saying the best way to learn is by practicing chords and classic rock. I practiced Knockin’ on Heavens Door and Beatles songs, so that gave me a little edge. Not many people learn those chords. Modern chord progression has kind of dumbed down a bit: for a while it seemed all the chords sounded the same. It was like there was a ’90s G chord progression in every song.

EG: Who were your musical influences back then?

CD: I was listening to mostly hip-hop; I loved Outkast and I liked Nelly. I mean, I listened to mostly everything and a lot of emo I guess, stuff like Taking Back Sunday. My music took a weird turn when I was young.

EG: I know you had a tough breakup after ‘Harmony’ was released but I’m sure there were many girls out there happy to hear about that. What do you look for in a girl?

CD: I don’t know, it’s hard to say at this point. I haven’t really been single through most of the stuff early on so it’s weird for me. I’ve been going with it though. So, I guess I look for someone who is interesting and has a deep personality. I can’t stand superficial girls.

EG: You have a tattoo on your chest that says “love is my weapon.” When did you get that?

CD: When I was 17; I have no idea where that came from. I think I made it up one day. I actually was like, that has to be somewhere, so I Googled it and all that came up were these Bible colleges and I was like this is funny. I’m basically covered now; there is no free space. I’ve put in around 40-50 hours.

EG: How have you seen your personal style grow or change over the years?

CD: I’ll pull up an old video and say, “daaamn, I was a sucker.” But I was young and that’s how life should be.

EG: Right now, what is your favorite thing to wear?

CD: I’ve been in a very jeans-and-hoodie type of attitude lately.

EG: So Time Travel, the first album recorded and produced by Never Shout Never as a band and not just solo Chris; it’s Drew, Caleb, Taylor and Hayden. Why the change?

CD: They have been playing with me for a while, about two years now. It just kind of made sense. EG: How has the recording process been different?

CD: It’s been a lot more relaxing. I mean, really it’s so free. There are no limitations especially producing with ourselves. We can take as much time as we want. Before, everything was very regimented. It’s expensive to go with big producers. Every second is money. Before we would try to get a song done everyday, now we can take five or six and mess around and experiment with it.

EG: What differences can we look forward to hearing on this album?

CD: It’s a lot more technical, a lot more layers. There are just a lot of tracks going on. Normally it’s a 30-track limit, pretty raw. We set no limit on this; some songs have 150 tracks, one as 25 guitar tracks and 50 vocal tracks. We messed with sequence and synth work. I got into playing with piano and tried to mess around with that a lot more. We wanted complex and intricate sound, something new; we haven’t offered that before.

EG: Will we hear songs about time travel?

CD: I guess. The first song is just about a psychedelic experience. It’s pretty cool. The almost-psychedelic undertone is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while.

EG: Who was the biggest musical influence for this album?

CD: We definitely grabbed from all different stuff. Overall a lot of Queen and The Beatles. Lyrically I tried to take from later Dylan stuff when he started going more insane. There’s some modern rock like the Foo Fighters and their guitar sounds. I also like the way Muse intertwines synth work, so I took some of that influence. Taylor listens to mostly intense folk punk, so there are some insane bass lanes. It all kinda works together.

EG: When you’re not recording, writing, or playing music, what do you do?

CD: We mostly just chill. Our greatest day is just being at home, barbequing and stuff.

EG: If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

CD: I’ve always wanted to live in Europe for a while, just ’cause that seems like a really interesting culture. I’ve actually been brushing up on my Spanish. There are just so many options. Somewhere tropical would be very nice—you know, get a nice tan going.

EG: You guys are headlining a tour that starts September 22 with some great bands. What are you most looking forward to with this tour?

CD: What’s most exciting is that we get to check out all our friends, which is really nice. Being with friends makes touring so great. Everyone is super friendly, and at the end of night one we are all gonna know each other and party so hard. With other tours and random bands, it takes a few weeks to get comfortable with each other.

EG: Any crazy tour stories or fan stories?

CD: Nothing too appropriate (laughs). We’ve had a lot of fan chases [which are] fun and stalkers in our hotel lobbies, waiting for us.

EG: If I plugged in your iPod what would we hear?

CD: You’d probably hear ‘Beat Farm’ from Loveway Records that we are producing out of my house. I’m into dubstep that is really technical and heavy. We also listen to a lot of Leroy and Zomboy. I listen to a lot of UK podcasts. They are pretty underground, which gives me that fresh influence.

Never Shout Never’s latest record Time Travel comes out September 20!