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photos: Moe Horta

If you were to Google the definition of “state champs,” you might find a variety of different answers regarding local sports teams. However, if you were to ask a certain pop-punk act from upstate New York for the definition, they would probably proudly point you in the direction of the brand new album State Champs by the band State Champs. 

With four phenomenal full-lengths already under their belt, according to the band, there was no better time than album number five for Derek DiScanio, Ryan Scott Graham, Evan Ambrosio, and Tyler Szalkowksi to drop their defining self-titled album and proudly present to the world who they are as a band. 

“I think it was finally time for us to be like, ‘What is State Champs?’ and ‘What embodies State Champs?’” explains DiScanio. “It took a lot of time for us to be like, ‘This is finally what we would explain how State Champs sounds and how we feel.’”

In celebration of their personifying 12-track release, The Noise caught up with the self-proclaimed “kings of the new age” during their headlining run with Knuckle Puck, Meet Me @ The Altar, and Daisy Grenade. 

To see what the beloved act had to say about writing in Joshua Tree, reestablishing themselves as a band, as well as playing 2013’s The Finer Things in full plus what’s next for the group in 2025, be sure to read below. Afterward, grab a copy of State Champs and pick up tickets to see them out on tour here.

So first off, how does it feel to for your self-titled album to finally be released and how does it feel to play some of these songs live finally? 

Derek: It's very rewarding. It's very refreshing. It's been a long process. Like, the longest process of making a record, honestly, for us. But, in a good way, you know? It's been done now for a while and we've just been excited to release it to the world. So the fact that it's finally out now, and we're on tour, and we get to see the kids screaming it back to us right away, like, yeah, it's a good thing. It's feeling good.

Ryan: That was the most rewarding part, seeing people night one already knowing the new songs that had just come out at midnight. So that was pretty cool. I've been excited forever because I truly feel like this is the best thing cohesively that we've ever done. I’ve just been so excited for people to hear it because I'm just so proud of it, you know? 

Evan: Which is why we self-titled it. I mean, we collectively think this is the best work we've done. So having it be self-titled made sense to us. 

Tyler: And while it's really fun and exciting, it's also really scary.

Ryan: People love to hate on shit. You never know. Like when you put out new music, it's just like anxiety, you know? How are people going to receive it? And it's been overwhelmingly positive.

Yeah, I was going to kind of hit on that a little bit. With this being your guys' fifth full-length release, what made now the time to finally release a self-titled piece of work?

Derek: I think it was finally time for us to be like, “What is State Champs?” and “What embodies State Champs?” Bands do self-titled [albums] usually earlier in their career, maybe like their second or third album. But us waiting until [album] five, it wasn't intentional. It wasn't set out to be self-titled right from the get go. It took a lot of time for us to be like, “This is finally what we would explain how State Champs sounds and how we feel.” We just feel like we're as close as we have ever been, as band members, as brothers. And creatively, I feel like we're just at our peak, if you will. The ethos behind it is just like, we've been doing this for so long. We've seen the ups, the downs, the highs and lows and everything, but we've always found a way to come back and unite as a group and put the pieces back together. And we feel even stronger than ever. And therefore, that's the self-titled State Champs chapter. 

Going back to the new songs a little bit. “Save Face Story” features not only a kick ass breakdown, but a feature from the German hardcore band Slope. Can you shed some light on how that song came to be? 

Derek: Yeah, it's crazy. It kind of fell into place. We didn't plan to have any specific features on this album. But we met Slope when we were on tour with Simple Plan in Europe and I just found them online. But they were playing their CD release show of their most recent album on a day off in Germany. So it just happened to work out where we could go to their show and they let us in and we became friends very quickly. They came to our show with Simple Plan the day after that and we've stayed close ever since. And when we had this part on the song, we immediately thought of them and went straight to them. We're like, “What do you guys think? Do you want to do a feature on this track? Like, if it's not your vibe, totally fine.” They did it super quick and came back with their part that is on the record and we were like, “It's perfect! It's great!”

Ryan: No notes. Like, honestly, we sent it to them and I think maybe like a week later they sent us a part back and we were just all like, “Yeah, this is kind of exactly what we envisioned.” We reached out to them because we wanted their flavor, and then we wanted their take on our track, and we just felt like it was perfect.

So what came first, the breakdown or the feature? 

Ryan and Derek: The breakdown. 

Derek: The breakdown came first. And we didn't know what we really wanted to do for it. Like it didn't take us too long to say, “Okay, maybe we should have a friend featured on the song.” But then, not much longer after that, we were like, “Slope, it should be Slope.”

Ryan: Yeah, we threw a few names around, but I mean, the breakdown just kind of happened. You know, we were already really, really stoked about where the song was going and what we were doing. But yeah, I mean, we hadn't done anything like that since maybe like The Finer Things or before, you know? 

Derek: So yeah, it felt good.

Touching on The Finer Things, actually, you guys played it in full at both Slam Dunk and When We Were Young Fest. How did it feel to look back on that album 12 years later? 

Derek: It's crazy to think about it, like how much it still means to so many people this long into our career. But we owe so much to it because it was the launchpad for our career, if you will. So it was nice to reflect on it. 

But in the festival setting, it's a little weird because where we come from, like in the youthfulness of that album, it was all just like tiny clubs and stage dives and, you know, just packed-in intimate shows. So the festival play for that was a little different, but a dynamic that we got used to very quickly because we did it a few times. 

We did it at Slam Dunk. And then WWWYF, it was probably the most crowd surfers we've ever had for a set ever. So, it was rewarding and it gave us a big sense of pride. But then that was kind of the last hurrah of the celebration of The Finer Things, because then we had the new album coming out so soon. But, you know, it just shows that at least we had some timelessness to our career, which is good.