Song of the Day: Captain, We're Sinking - Trying Year

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJ’s think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on The Afternoon Show with Kevin Cole, is “Trying Year” by Captain, We're Sinking, from the 2017 album The King of No Man on Run For Cover Records.

Captain, We're Sinking - Trying Year (MP3)

The city of Scranton, Pennsylvania may be best known as the setting for NBC's The Office, but it's also home to scrappy punk band Captain, We're Sinking. The band has been staying afloat for just over a decade now, and after a four-year break, during which frontman Bobby Barnett toured the UK with his brother Greg of The Menzingers, they've returned with their strongest LP yet, King Of No Man.

The album was inspired by what the band calls "life’s seemingly constant defeats": desperation, debt, death. Today's Song of the Day gets to the heart of the matter with lyrics like "So tired and bored to death / Mid-twenty-somethings up to their necks in crippling debt." In an interview with Billboard Magazine, Barnett reflects, "I was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel as far as school was concerned, but I also had a lot of things happening in my personal life that seemed to be caving in. I would walk around campus humming the chorus to myself and just laugh to myself. It was almost a feeling of, ‘Okay, well, what’s next?’"

What's next is hopefully a west coast tour, but no dates on the docket just yet. You can stay afloat with Captain, We're Sinking via their Facebook page. In the meantime, set sail with today's Song of the Day.