by Anna Fofana
Vicious Summer, which consists of four friends with a mix of personalities, gives an inside scoop of the ins and outs of the band and their passion for music.
The band started around 2018 when Jack Zuckerberg, Sam Aronoff and Alex Issacson were hanging out when they started playing music in their dorm rooms. Zuckerberg and Aronoff were in a band prior together to this, but it disbanded. They were trying to find a new band and Issacson was on that same wave and they formed Vicious Summer.
Connor Riccomini was in a band in high school and when he got to Manhattan School of Music, a friend of his told about Vicious Summer and was hungry to be a part of the band. He reached out, rehearsed with them and was picked to be the bass player.
When they decided to join forces, they started the band under the name “Sour”. However, another band had that name and that band was slowly starting to come up and get popular so they had to change the name.
The vicious part came from when they were sitting in Issacson’s basement and Aronoff already had the Summer part because he really liked summer and then he saw the vicious part on Issacson’s computer. It was a stinger from Halestorm's new album of the same title.
The group makes alternative rock music, but each song has different sounds that are influenced by other genres such as Latin or RnB. They all listen to so many different types of music that mesh well with what they are making.
Prior to the pandemic, a typical practice would take place at Issacson’s house where the group built a studio. They spent a lot of time saving up money to build that studio and that is where they recorded all of their music. When they aren’t recording, they are writing new songs.
“When I sent something to someone and they’re like ‘Oh this is great!’, then I know that it wasn’t that good then,” Issacson said. This is usually the case when some is spamming them with messages like that but of course, everyone is different.
One pro of being a local group is that they get to watch their fanbase grow and watch a community form. Since they are a small band, it means more to them when they see any type of growth in their fanbase and whether that be more streams on Spotify or people coming out to see them live.
However, with most bands, one of the downsides that come up is disagreements. But these don’t happen too often though and tend to be much more of a debate. These debates could be about what something means for the song, how something changes the song or what’s important for the song. They care so much about the music so it’s not too strange for them to have disagreements.
“If we didn’t have any disagreements, I would be shocked,” Aronoff said. “That means that one of us or some of us stop caring so much. The day that I stop fighting with them over stupid things is the day that I stop caring about the music.”