#onward progress

Band: Onward Progress

Band location: Pittsburg, PA

Why we like it: My favorite aspect of Onward Progress is their story. They are five guys that come from a suburban town outside of Pittsburgh. They played their first two out of state shows this past June. The Batcave was lucky enough to be one of those places that they played. Their performance was full of auxiliary sounds and percussion (most of which are not found on the record). They customized the entire stage that night and turned it into their stage. All of the members sang along to the hooks, everyone was moving and played extremely tight. Onward Progress is a professional and great sounding band, that was completely clear. How come no one had ever heard of them before?

After the show I was lucky enough to get to know them a little better and what they had to say completely blew me away.

They all openly admitted to being overly privileged white guys from suburbia and they weren't necessarily proud of that. They had always played music but they mostly played in cover bands which only really played the circuit of bars in their immediate area. One or two of them were heavy into the rave scene in Pittsburgh and would blow tons of money on partying and getting fucked up. They were a bunch of guys who had never really left home and were stuck in their daily routine. Most of them work in the restaurant industry which takes up a lot of their time and when they were not there, they just wanted a release from that.

Onward Progress began when Isaiah, OP’s vocalist/guitarist/primary songwriter, gathered this collection of friends without much direction and asked them to help him with some music he had been writing. One thing led to another and suddenly the members stopped going to raves (“band practice is first thing in the morning, I can’t go out like that anymore”), they stopped playing bars and started trying to really give original music a chance.

Their first two shows out of state were in Baltimore, Maryland and Montclair, New Jersey. This move for them was a huge step. They challenged themselves to do everything outside of their comfort zone. They walked away from the epitome of white male privilege and stepped into their van to go into the vast unknown. The name Onward Progress is just about that. These guys want to step outside of what they already know and want to grow, change, and become better people. They are using music as that vehicle and hope to continue this sort of pilgrimage into their future. Their over all hopes are to learn as much as they can, become more understanding of the world they live in, become better musicians and translate what they have learned into the music they make.

Working in the DIY scene and getting to meet bands like this is incredibly rewarding. We all have a lot to learn from Onward Progress. Many of us should work harder to step outside of the scenes and norms that we feel comfortable in. Go out there, meet and talk to new people, share music and connect; for the greater good of human development. Do they still have a lot to learn? Yes. But so do we.

I’m hoping future releases by Onward Progress will have better production, inclusion of more experimental and auxiliary sounds, more melodic variation and more tapping (!!!). Other then that, if you are into mathy indie pop (think, Local Natives) - look no further - support Onward Progress. They are a band to look for in the future.

Where to listen/buy: Bandcamp