With Make My Day, Thomas Marolda reaches another milestone with The Toms: his 25th release. Yet there’s little sense that he’s running out of songs—or reasons to make them. For Marolda, writing and recording remain both an obsession and a source of exhilaration. We spoke with him about inspiration, craftsmanship, knowing when a song is finished, and what keeps the Power Pop fire burning.
Make My Day is your 25th release. What still makes you want to write another Toms song?
Some people get high or buzzed by other means. My high comes from writing and recording new songs. It’s always inspiring when my fans, friends and relatives ask me when The Toms are coming out with new material.
Also, it seems that in the last ten years music has diminished in all areas, so I almost try to make up for the lack of originality, excitement, musicianship, songcraft and production. Sometimes I improve and sometimes I stay the same.
You describe the album in terms of emotion, craftsmanship and innovation. How much of a Toms song is craftsmanship—and when does the art kick in?
I’m never satisfied after spending many hours over a particular song, so I scrap numerous songs and try to outdo myself with the replacement.
I may start a song and finish it very quickly, but the production direction may take the song somewhere that’s not working for me. If I don’t get goosebumps from any part of the track, I will ditch it.
How do you keep the Power Pop fire burning after all these years without simply recreating what worked before?
That would be like asking Paul McCartney why he continues to write and record. You never know where that next gem is coming from, so you keep exploring your own talents and your own preferences in what’s out there.
I normally have to go back to my roots, as today’s new artists and songs fall short of inspiring or impressing me.
Great Power Pop can sound effortless, but there’s usually a lot of craftsmanship behind it. How do you know when a song is finished—and when to stop?
That’s an easy question: goosebumps will tell me that the track is where it’s supposed to be with me.
So, what can we expect from The Toms when Make My Day comes out?
It’s scheduled to be released October 2, 2026. There is also a preview available now.
On their new record Grim Up North, Modern Marriage wrap darkly funny stories, oddball characters and sharp observations in irresistible power pop. We spoke to Ben Savage about Merseyside, melody and the peculiar everyday moments that find their way into the band’s songs.
There’s something very English about Modern Marriage — rough, melodic, witty and slightly awkward. Where does that come from?
Our ‘Englishness’ is potentially just a reflection of who we are and the result of growing up in Merseyside. The songs are predominantly about everyday life and the strange characters encountered along the way, and it wouldn’t make sense to present them any other way. The three of us consider ourselves very genuine people and what you see is pretty much what you get. Merseyside is full of oddball characters, and Scousers have an idiosyncratic sense of humour, which hopefully comes across in the songs. I do of course love very ‘English’ bands, from the Kinks and the Who through to TV Personalities and Half Man Half Biscuit, who have always been fairly insular from outside influences.
Your songs are wordy, but the melodies never get lost. How do you balance storytelling with melody?
The storytelling aspect comes fairly naturally – for further reading, feel free to check out the ‘Customer of the Day’ series on the ‘Skeleton Records’ Facebook page, which is me living my day job. The melody is a bit of a non-starter, and I wouldn’t take a song to the band unless I feel the melody is adequately strong enough in the first place. We’re often told that the songs are “catchy,” or “earworms that stay in your head for days, whether you want them to or not.”
I hear The Jam, Buzzcocks, Squire and The Real Kids, but Grim Up North never feels nostalgic. How do you make those influences your own?
I personally feel the songs live in their own detached state of time, where the sensibilities of the 1977 music explosion are applied to growing up in 21st Century Liverpool. They’re never truly modern nor truly nostalgic – they’re all somewhere in between, and I like that. As for influences, we’re all music geeks and we’d be here all night giving the full list. To oversimplify, I’m a proud mod/power pop fan, Eloise likes the obscurest music in the history of the world, and Danny has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Tenacious D that confounds all but his closest friends and family.
Your songs are full of specific people, places and situations. What comes first — the story, the melody or the character?
The songs tend to start from one idea, usually a title or key phrase that stimulates my curiosity, and then I go away and pretty much write the whole thing in one go. I’ve got a leftfield imagination, so the smallest of ideas usually ends up a long way away from where might be expected. For example, ‘Terry’s Last Fag’ was a piece of graffiti on the wall of a rehearsal studio, which turned into the story of a man working the night shift at his local supermarket, getting caught shoplifting and needlessly drinking bleach to evade the long arm of the law. ‘Gerry and His Pacemaker’ is about an octogenarian banjo player and ‘IKEA Flatpack’ a jealous lover, who kills her ex and disposes of his body in the titular item of Swedish household furniture. ‘Blue, Red and Yellow… Maybe’ was a deliberate attempt to write a very dark song from the point of view of a stalker, but dress it up as giddily happy power pop, to reflect his contentment stalking his crush around B&Q, “humorously whistling Husker Du.”
The album feels deeply rooted in Northern England. Could these songs have been written anywhere else?
Probably not. The North of England famously doesn’t take itself too seriously and we’re quite a self-aware bunch up here. Merseyside in particular has a warped sense of humour and identity even for Northern standards. We also have a disproportionately high number of local eccentrics, and I couldn’t have dreamed the song scenarios up in the first place without being acutely conscious of our local environment.
There’s an immediacy to Mopar Stars that doesn’t need much explanation. The songs hit hard, the melodies stick, and underneath the noise there’s a sharp eye for the contradictions of ordinary life: good days and bad ones, optimism and bitterness, getting by and wanting more.
On their new release, Official Researchers Of The NJ Devil, Mopar Stars have taken the raw energy of their earlier recordings and opened it up. The sound is bigger and clearer without losing its edge, giving the hooks, voices and sheer physical force of the band more room to land.
We spoke with N-A-O about making the record, the importance of lyrics, trusting the rest of the band, turning songs into something that hits hard live, and the unexpected response to the album so far.
The sound of Official Researchers Of The NJ Devil feels raw and immediate, but at the same time it is huge, melodic and incredibly catchy. How did you find that particular sound for Mopar Stars, and was it something you were consciously looking for?
I wanted the recording to sound modern and unpretentious. I also wanted the backing vocals to be very clear this time.
Our first two demos were all smashed onto cassette and have this murky, distorted sound. I’m a big fan of that, but for the LP I wanted to record more tracks and have them be immediately discernible and memorable.
As far as the songwriting goes, the melodic and hooky nature of the record is definitely on purpose. I tried to make it catchy, for sure.
There is a darker side to the album hiding inside all those great riffs and hooks. Songs like “Everybody Wants What I Got” and “Only Bar In Town” almost become bitter anthems about work, money, loneliness and the way people try to get by. How important are the lyrics to you, and do you see the songs as being connected by that darker view of everyday life?
I would say no, the songs aren’t connected by a pessimistic outlook. Some of the songs on the record are bright and sunshiny, and some are bitter and dark. As a person, I don’t feel the same every day. I wanted the record to reflect the good and bad qualities we all possess, and the good and bad thoughts we all think.
The lyrics are very important to me, and I take a lot of care when crafting them. The vocal performance and lyrics are the second most important thing that makes a song good, behind the drums!
What is the dynamic within Mopar Stars when you are writing and recording? How do the different personalities and ideas in the band shape the songs, and is there much pushing and pulling before a song becomes what you hear on the record?
There isn’t a lot of pushing and pulling. I write a completed song and teach it to the band.
That being said, the band is really good and we’re very comfortable together. I believe it’s important to let the band make their own parts, mostly. I basically let them do whatever they want, then edit with them. Bill also offers arrangement help and advice.
There is something very physical about these songs. You can almost imagine the room going completely nuts when you play them live. Was making a record that would really come alive on stage one of the goals when you started working on it?
It wasn’t a conscious choice when I wrote the record. I think the live forward quality of the record comes out more when we start playing the songs together in our practice space.
Everyone comes from punk music, so having it be “hard hitting” is something we absolutely consider.
The album is out now, so it has left your hands and people are starting to form their own opinions about it. What has surprised you most about the way people have responded to Official Researchers Of The NJ Devil so far?
I was surprised to sell out the first pressing really quickly. That was nice.
On social media, it was evident that Superdrag was actively making music together again. So, I was surprised when John Davis announced a solo album. The first single, “The Future,” is fantastic—beautiful!
The album, JINX, will be released on September 27 under the Lost In Ohio label. This record stands out from Davis’ other solo work because it was initially intended to be a new Superdrag LP, which would have been the band’s first album in a decade.
Davis explains how this came about in an interview with the Sweet Sweet Music blog.
Could you share the journey of bringing this record to life? How did all the pieces come together to create the final product?
It took quite a while. I started writing this batch of material in January 2021. Superdrag demoed most of the songs at Vibe City with Mike Armstrong, while I recorded some others on a 4-track in my garage with Brandon and Don. We took four of them into the studio, but things didn’t work out. From that point on, I thought of it as a solo record. I ended up making the album in Farragut with Stewart Pack producing, playing bass, and handling backing vocals, with his son Henry Pack engineering, mixing, and playing drums. I think we make a nice trio.
Was there a particular moment or experience that struck you, signaling that you were onto something special with this project?
From the moment we started getting sounds, really. I love the Strat sound. We approached the album as if that was the only guitar we had, except for a handful of Telecaster and 12-string overdubs. The amp blend was pretty much ideal— all Fender, all 10-inch speakers. It’s very “Fendery.”
Success can take on different meanings as time goes on. When envisioning success for this new record, what does that picture look like now?
Success, for me, looks like something self-sustaining that points toward the next project. Something that helps me, helps the label, and reaches more people than I could on my own. That’s why I’m so thankful to have the support of Lost In Ohio, Force Field, and Terrorbird.
Within this collection, do you feel that the best song you’ve ever written finds its home? If not, what distinguishes this record’s essence from your prior work?
That’s not for me to decide. The arrangements on this record are different; we were on a mission to trim any excess and avoid “circling the airport” while waiting for the next idea to happen.
As an artist, the act of baring your emotions to the world is profound. Does this vulnerability come naturally to you, or is it a constant journey of finding comfort?
It’s the only way I really know how to do it.
Among the gigs you’ve performed, which one holds an indelible place in your memory, and why does it stand out?
The night we jammed with Ray Davies from The Kinks at SXSW in 2001. He said we had a lot of good material. We lived on that for a while.
Striking a balance between experimental artistry and commercial appeal is a challenge. How do you navigate this dynamic within your music?
By finishing every idea to see where it leads. The ideas should always be in charge.
Lyrics often carry profound meaning. Are there particular lines you hope listeners will always remember from your songs? If so, what’s the significance?
It’s really up to the listener to decide which lyrics move them or hold significance. I always strive to be honest and say precisely what I feel. I spent more time thinking about these individual songs than ever before, and I might never do it that way again. But as a result, I can honestly say I feel like they’re just right.
Can you recall the last instance when you felt the immediate certainty of having penned a hit song?
I had no idea “Sucked Out” was going to be a hit song. It’s a weird hit. But it’s a great feeling to write a hit song. We’ve been called one-hit wonders, but I guess that’s better than being no-hit wonders. Reaching people is the whole point, you know?
Among the compliments you’ve received, is there one that remains etched in your memory? If so, what made it particularly unforgettable?
The one from Ray Davies stands out, as well as Robert Pollard calling us “good rock performers.”
Where do you see yourself situated within the broader landscape of the music industry? How do you perceive your unique role and contribution?
Hopefully, just in my own lane, always following the ideas.
Envision recruiting three singers to provide harmony vocals on your next record. Who would you invite, and what qualities do they possess that resonate with you?
Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, and Al Jardine— because they have angelic voices.
With the record completed and the music released, do you believe the pinnacle of enjoyment has been reached, or is this just the beginning of an exciting phase?
Hopefully, the record will resonate with someone immediately and then unfold over time with repeated listening.
Looking ahead to the next couple of months, what exciting plans or projects are on the horizon for you?
I plan to start writing for the 6th Superdrag LP.
Albums often involve collaboration with various musicians and producers. Could you shed light on how these collaborations contributed to shaping the album’s identity?
Having Stewart not only agree to produce but also play bass and Henry on drums provided a steady foundation of interlocking rhythm for each song, plus a good amount of melody from the bass. We spent about an hour on each song, getting the arrangement right before going for the drums.
In the digital age, visual elements are intertwined with music. How did you approach the album’s visual aesthetics, such as album art and accompanying visuals? How do they complement the sonic experience you’ve crafted?
Aaron Draplin of Draplin Design Co. did all the design. He totally crushed it. He listened to our feedback and nailed it. He’s a legend.
