After breaking into the 2010s alternative scene with 2014’s Stovall and 2016’s acclaimed Much Love, it took nearly a full decade before the Atlanta guys in Microwave began to see the post-hardcore band as a realistic career path.
Having opened for a who’s who of the alt-rock world (from Jimmy Eat World to Joyce Manor, Motion City Soundtrack to the Wonder Years), vocalist/guitarist Nate Hardy, bassist Tyler Hill, and drummer Tito Pittard never questioned their choices with Microwave from a creative perspective, but the van-based life of a touring rock band wasn’t exactly paying their bills.
But following a pandemic-forced break after their 2019 release, Death Is a Warm Blanket, Microwave saw a shift in their trajectory, with the next generation of fans discovering the band (along with many of their peers). That push helped 2024’s Let’s Start Degeneracy and recent tours become the group’s biggest successes to date, with even more planned with the 10-year anniversary of Much Love to celebrate as well.
Hit Parader spoke with the band backstage about their recent growth, anniversary shows, and much more.
Hit Parader: Now firmly in your second decade as a band, what’s it been like to see your steady growth really starting to pay off?
Tyler Hill: Honestly, we had a little bit of a gap before our last record because of COVID, and when we came back was really the first time the band was ever financially profitable or anything. So to us, it feels like more of a recent development.
Nate Hardy: We spent a long time just touring and sleeping on people’s floors and all sorts of different places. Motel 6 was as nice as it got. But yeah, it feels awesome to have that growth since the pandemic and be a viable thing that we can focus on. That’s always the fear when you start out as a band. You have to quit every job and find a new job every six months because you’re trying to “make it,” so you can’t focus on songwriting or trying to become a better band with your full energy and focus. I feel like it’s finally a viable life path for us right now.
Tito Pittard: It feels great. I love music and focusing on making the best music and performing the best that we can.
HP: How different was it to see this next generation of fans and bands that were introduced to you after the pandemic break?
Hardy: We toured with Hot Mulligan and Mom Jeans before they popped off, and I feel like those bands and a handful of others were good at Twitter and being funny on the Internet, so they were able to attract a younger audience than we did. We got to be in the periphery of that as a band that tours with them, so we saw a bump around 2022 when those bands were popping off. We did a tour with Story So Far, Mom Jeans, and Joyce Manor in 2022, and that was when we could see this as a viable thing for us. It was like “OK, now people generally fuck with this realm of the music scene.”
Hill: We started to see bands like Free Throw and others from our 2010s scene get a new generation of fans. That was also when we started getting messages where people were like “You guys were my favorite band in high school” and now they graduated college and have successful careers.
HP: A lot of those bands from that 2010s scene — including Microwave — are celebrating big 10-year album anniversaries. What’s it been like to look back on those first couple albums?
Hill: I definitely had a “Holy shit, I can’t believe it’s 10 years” moment. There was a point when we first started when I said to Nate, “Yo, the goal in 5 years should be to sell out the Tabernacle,” — which is the craziest thing for a band that was playing to 5-20 people in Atlanta. We didn’t do it in 5 years, but we did it in 10, and I don’t even know what the word is to describe how I feel about that.
Hardy: People are always conflicted between whether it’s like “Oh, if you do a nostalgia tour, then it feels like that was the golden era and your new music is less relevant,” but I feel like if you ask anyone in music what their favorite songs of theirs are, it’s always the most recent thing they did. To me, it’s like we’re refining and trying to get better all the time, so the more recent stuff is more of a representation of who I am now. But the nostalgia thing has a big place, and I feel like you do yourself a disservice as a band if you’re unwilling to relive that “golden era” for just a little bit and try to recapture that vibe. I think it’s cool to celebrate that.
HP: Speaking of new music, Let’s Start Degeneracy was a hit with both critics and fans. Did that surprise you after a handful of years between albums?
Hardy: I don’t think it was a surprise, but it did feel good. It would be a little bit more depressing if the only songs people knew or cared about were the old ones.
HP: With a bunch of growing successes in your rear-view, what are some of the upcoming goals you all still have for Microwave?
Pittard: It’d be cool to be a headliner at big festivals like Riot Fest, like our boys in Knocked Loose. They crush it every time.
Hill: Yeah, it’d be pretty cool to be able to level up the production and stuff. I think we’d probably have a lot of fun with that.
Hardy: I want flames on the stage. I’m trying to play some shows where we can afford flames. We already did the first 5-year plan of selling out the Tabernacle, so the next 5-year plan is to play shows that include flames.
