Out March 27, “Almost There” is the Barrington pop-punk band’s first album in 18 years, and a lot of the tracks memorialize the moments when the city felt like the band’s oyster.
By Selena Fragassi | Chicago Sun*Times
The Academy Is… has a new album, “Almost There,” coming out March 27 on indie label I Surrender Records. | Jonathan Weber
As William Beckett took the stage at Madison Square Garden in 2024, it all came rushing back.
The lead vocalist of The Academy Is… was there to join old pals Fall Out Boy for a special cover of the Barrington pop-punk band’s song “Slow Down.” But despite playing the holy grail of concert venues, Beckett was thinking about the small suburban Chicago basements, VFW halls and Fireside Bowl where the two groups spent many nights during a time when the emo/pop-punk scene felt like the actual soundtrack of the city.
“It was just so cool to reconnect with them and to see how much hasn’t changed from the VFW Hall days,” Beckett recently said during a Zoom call from his home in Barrington, where the band is getting ready to release its new album “Almost There.” Out March 27, it’s the band’s first album in 18 years, and a lot of the tracks memorialize the moments when the city felt like the band’s oyster.
He’s not far from Barrington High School, where The Academy Is… was founded in 2003 and soon wound up on a roller coaster of MTV and Warped Tour loops with aughts hits like “About a Girl” and “We’ve Got A Big Mess On Our Hands.” In fact, a lot of it is thanks to Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz, who championed The Academy Is… early on and helped to get the band signed to tastemaker label Fueled By Ramen. The two acts have been closely associated ever since. But for Beckett, that scene still feels as raw as day one. “It still exists in this way that is almost untouchable, like it exists beyond time.”
It’s a feeling that he and his The Academy Is… bandmates (bassist Adam Siska, guitarist Mike Carden and drummer Andy Mrotek) bottle up in their daydreamy new single “2005.” The lyrics throw it back to that summer, with Beckett singing about driving downtown while listening to Saves The Day’s 2001 opus “Stay What You Are.” At the same time, he wonders about bringing “TAI back from the dead,” which they effectively do with “Almost There.”
The seeds for the album were planted during a series of recent reunion shows, including Riot Fest 2022 and the elder millennial gathering When We Were Young in 2023 — the band’s first since calling it quits in 2015. And the band members found themselves looking back at the good ol’ days and wondering if they ever really appreciated it all.
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