Premiere: Guards - "Beacon"

May 10, 2019

When Guards first hit the scene in 2013 with their debut album, In Guards We Trust, we were instantly hooked. Their fresh to death mix of classic rock, electro-pop and psychedelia was (and still is) the perfect cure for any rainy day or traffic-filled drive in the city—or just when you need a good banger to brighten your mood. So, needless to say, when they basically disappeared, we were pretty bummed.

Of course, singer Richie James Follin and drummer Loren Humphrey weren't totally MIA, with Follin starting CRX with The Strokes' Nick Valensi, and touring with dream pop outfit Cults; while Humphrey played the drums for bands including The Last Shadow Puppets, Arctic Monkeys and Florence and The Machine. Still, we couldn't help but miss the sweet but striking, dreamy but dark music from Guards.

Text by Alexandra Weiss

And now we don't have to. The band has returned with a new single, "Beacon," off their upcoming album, Modern Hymns, due out May 22. A shimmery synth ballad with nods to 80s pop and goth favorites like The Cure, "Beacon" is "about reaching for a higher truth," says Follin, and when it came time to make a music video for the single, he wanted it to follow suit.

"It parallels mankind’s journey in the search for the unknown," he says about the video, which is premiering below. "The exploration into space can be viewed as the exploration into the self. And on a much lighter note, I’m a huge sci-fi fan and love all the cheesy B-movie space footage paired with the epic emotional song."

Us, too. And luckily, we won't have to play In Guards We Trust on repeat anymore. Now, we'll have Modern Hymns.

Watch the "Beacon" video below, and download the track here.

'Modern Hymns' is out May 22.

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On Tour With Primal Rat Screw and Efron Danzig

December 23, 2024

When Will McGoran decided that he didn’t want to wait for someone else to create the thing that he wanted to see in the world, he started Primal Rat Screw. Since the Philadelphia-based band’s inception in 2021, McGoran has credited the band’s unique sound to their sources of inspiration, whether it be Playboi Carti’s new music or his bandmate Kade’s Primus tattoo.

office favorite and Issue 20 cover star Efron Danzig grew up playing music with the band – who’s current line-up consists of Gabriel Garcia-Leeds (guitar), Kade Holt (bass), Matt Morrin (drums), and Will McGoran (vocals & songwriting). Danzig, who lived with McGoran and Holt at the time of the band’s creation, returned to her roots this November, accompanying and photographing them on their November tour.

Photography and Interview by Efron Danzig

Efron: Hey, Gabe. What’s up?

Gabe: Not much. I'm working on a flyer for a show I've got on Friday with my other project.

Oh cool, Where's the show at?

G: It's at this, like, yoga studio in West Philly, but it's cool because I just got a magician and, this, Slavic women's choir in Philly, and they're gonna play it too now.

Will: I've been, like, so tired since I got back from tour. I'm actually going to go to Atlanta on Monday to practice With Sword(2). I think I had a fever. I got, like, really sick. I was just sweating through my sheets and had a really crazy headache and

shit at the end.

The last day, when I woke up in your bed and I looked over at you and then you just smiled at me and then farted.

W: That was insane. Yeah.

Favorite food on tour?

W: My favorite food on tour? Fucking, uh, Boscoff.

Boscoff?

W: Yeah.

What's Boscoff?

W: It's, like, the… it's, like, the cookies they give you when you fly to, like, England.

Oh, a Biscoff?

W: A Biscoff?

Yeah. Is it Biscoff? Yeah. I love those on the plane.

W: Yeah, yeah, I, I buy them a lot. They're good.

Dip them in your coffee.

I already know but for the readers out there, how long have you been playing music?

G: I started playing guitar when I was 7 because I wanted to be like Hannah Montana.

W: I've been in bands for like 11 years and been touring in bands for 9 years. I feel like I've played music with these guys for so long, other bands, I've known them since I was a younger teenager. And every time we tour, or kind of any time that we do anything altogether, it's always validating, of the kind of relationships that we have with each other. I write all the songs on all the instruments. Although, Kade writes a lot of the bass lines. But everyone always adds their own style to it.

Do you have a rose, bud, and a thorn from the tour?

W: What does that even mean?

Matt: My thorn was heavy traffic coming from Boston to New York and being late to sound check. Oh, yeah, that day was pissing in bottles and you threw up.

I forgot that I threw up. Multiple rounds of projectile vomit out the window.

M: Yeah, and I saved you. I got the window open.

Yeah, you did thankfully

W: We are working on an album right now, I’m pretty excited about that.

Taco Bell or McDonald's?

W: Uh, Taco Bell.

Why?

W: Uh, McDonald's feels like I'm eating like a scab of a burger.

I like fillets o fish

W: Eww

It’s good. It tastes like chemicals.

W: Everybody loves it I just refuse to eat fish from McDonald’s.