Feature: Attack the Sound Decodes “Don't String Me Along”
Punk Head: The track carries a lot of emotional resolve without turning bitter. How hard is it to write a “walking away” song that doesn’t slip into resentment?
Attack the Sound: It’s harder than writing an angry song, honestly. Anger is loud and easy to reach for. Peace takes more honesty. With this one, the goal wasn’t to win the argument — it was to tell the truth and still keep our dignity. Walking away without tearing someone down means you have to admit what you ignored, what you allowed, and where you stayed too long. That’s uncomfortable, but it’s real. The song lives in that space where you’re hurt, but you’re done bleeding on people who didn’t cut you on purpose.
Punk Head: Chi-Pop feels less like a genre and more like a point of view. What does Chicago give your sound that you don’t think you’d get anywhere else?
Attack the Sound: Chicago teaches you balance. You grow up around grit and grace at the same time. Blues on one block, gospel on the next, drill out of a car window, jazz pouring out of a basement, indie bands hauling gear in the snow. That mix wires you to be emotional and practical, soulful and direct. Chi-Pop is that mindset: feel everything, but don’t fake it. Be vulnerable, but stay solid. That comes from a city where nobody hands you anything, but everybody’s got a story.
Punk Head: There’s a confidence in the vocal delivery that feels earned, not forced. How much of that came from performance, and how much came from lived experience?
Attack the Sound: It’s both, but lived experience leads. Performance teaches you control — how to breathe, how to sit in a note, how to not rush emotion. Life teaches you what the note actually means. You can’t fake calm after disappointment. You earn that from losing things, rebuilding, loving people imperfectly, becoming a father, carrying responsibility, still choosing to create. By the time we cut this vocal, I wasn’t trying to prove anything. I was just standing in something I already understood.
Punk Head: There’s a maturity here that trusts listeners to meet the song where it is. Who do you feel like you’re writing for at this stage of the band?
Attack the Sound: We’re writing for people who’ve lived a little. Not bitter, not jaded — just aware. People who know that closure doesn’t always come with fireworks. Sometimes it’s quiet. Sometimes it’s choosing yourself without announcing it. That’s the Sound Force growing with us. Folks balancing love, ambition, family, purpose. Still hopeful, just more intentional.
Punk Head: A lot of breakup songs sit in the question. This one feels like an answer. Do you think this song closes a chapter, or opens a new one creatively?
Attack the Sound: Both. It closes the chapter of chasing clarity from people who aren’t ready to give it. And it opens the door to writing from a place of steadiness instead of reaction. Creatively, that’s powerful. You stop writing at life and start writing from it. “Don’t String Me Along” is us planting our feet — emotionally and musically — and building forward instead of circling the same wound.
