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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. 

Back to the new album, lyrically, this record feels a bit more vulnerable than your previous releases. What made you embrace that approach this time around? 

Derek: I think it was just finally time for me to stop being a baby about not opening up to my guys. The most vulnerable that I've been was just writing lyrics and then being like, “Okay, here's the lyrics.” In the past, at least. I've never really talked about it with the guys. This time it was a lot like, “Let's just chat and be boys about it.” And it was very therapeutic for me and it got me to open up even more. And also, just getting older too, I guess, just makes me a little bit more just whatever. It's okay to talk about stuff sometimes. Getting old is scary. That's kind of the theme of those types of songs on this record at least. And the best way to get through it is to have a support system. And that was my guys. 

Evan: I also feel that, like you touched on before, I feel like with naming it the self-titled, I feel like we're closer than ever too. Not that we haven't been close, I just feel like writing this record, we put ourselves in position — like, we went to Joshua Tree for a full week and there's no distractions and we just had time to really open up and be personal. And it was really fun. It was really cool to see that process and have [Derek] open up. It was awesome. 

Ryan: I was going to say, I think that was pretty intentional as far as, like, what we wanted to take out of this record. We went to Joshua Tree because we all live in different places in the country, and we kind of all have different things going on in our lives. And it was really a good opportunity to reconnect with each other. And, the best way to kind of see where everyone's at — you know, not only in life, but like, musically or like what you're trying to accomplish — is to have a conversation about it. So it really was like, “Let's just talk about everything and see what's worth writing about, see what's worth feeling.” And, you know, that was where a lot of the songs came from. So that was really cool. 

I was going to ask about your time in Joshua Tree. What made you specifically choose that as a place for you guys to go write and what did that writing process look like for you guys out there? 

Ryan: It wasn't like necessarily Joshua Tree itself was the point. It was really just like, “Let's get together.” Because the record started off as an EP. We had four songs finished and then we decided let's write more. And us being all over the country, it was really about like, “Okay, let's find a spot that we all want to go to that might be cool and might be inspiring.” So we got together and wrote a bunch of songs, demoed out a bunch of stuff. Derek and I live in LA, so, you know, I think somebody threw out Joshua Tree.

Derek: Maybe it was an excuse to go there too, because I don't think any of us had spent a lot of time there before. I mean, it's known to be a creative, like, no distractions area. So it made sense for this. It was cool. 

Evan: Yeah. I've always wanted to go to Joshua Tree, and a lot of bands have gone out there to write, so we knew we could find a space. Because it's not like this is the first time we've taken a week or two to do this. Usually we would go to upstate New York. We’ve actually rented out my childhood home that I grew up in because my neighbors were really great. So we've done that before where we've taken a week and been around each other. But going to a remote location like Joshua Tree is totally new, totally different, way more inspiring. Being out in the desert, it’s just beautiful and it's really, really fun. 

Tyler: Yeah, the only other thing I can really add is that, like, none of us knew anyone there. Where it's like if we do it in LA, you know the people there, and there's distractions. You do it in New York, you're going home to your parents every night. Like, you know, I think the last time we did your childhood home, I was staying at my mom's house, you know, stuff like that. So, to be somewhere where none of us knew anybody either, it really eliminated distractions tenfold. 

Not bad distractions, but distractions nonetheless. 

Tyler: Distractions don't have to be bad or good. They're just distractions. 

Ryan: We got shit that we need to accomplish. And, you know, if there's no distractions, we're going to accomplish it easier. I think the location where you write songs or do whatever creatively, can be totally impacted by the atmosphere of where you are. So for that, it was easy to walk outside and just be amazed by nature and come back in and feel refreshed. If you're pounding your head trying to come up with a riff, it's nice to go outside and take a breath and come back in and be like, “Okay, let's get back to it.” So that was a really, really nice aspect of it.

Just to kind of wrap things up here a little bit. As we approach 2025, what is your outlook on State Champs moving forward? 

Derek: I mean, we feel really good about where we're at five albums in. That was never the point to get to five albums or be a band for 14 years. But the fact that there's still growth, we're still finding new fans, we're still seeing new places, we're climbing our way up ladders and setting new goals along the way. Once we achieve goals like do a headline tour and sell out these venues, now it's like we want to headline certain festivals that we've never headlined. We want to go to continents we've never been to, including South America, stuff like that. So we just want to keep sharing with the world while also, we're not going to stop creating and thinking about what's next. But, we're definitely riding a wave and trying not to take it for granted because you never know. It's so unpredictable with this industry and with music. But, we're just appreciating it more and more as we go and trying to keep growing, if you will. 

Tyler: Oddly enough, during VIP today, like just now what we just got done with, somebody asked me, he was like, “How much longer are you guys going to do this?” And I pretty much gave him the same answer of “I don't know.” Like, we still get to do it, why wouldn't we keep doing it? I don't think he was suggesting that we don't do it. I think it was also kind of like, “Wow, you guys DO still get to do it,” you know? 

Ryan: Which is cool. I think that was kind of a realization that we even had making the record. I think being in a band, so many ups and downs, peaks and valleys of like, sometimes it's fun to do this, sometimes it's not, honestly. And there was a point before we started making this record that, like, we've been beaten down by a lot of things, either personally or from the industry and whatnot. And sometimes it gets to the point where, like, man, I love what I do, but this is not working for me, personally. Or this doesn't feel great right now. And at this point in our career and, obviously putting out this record, it feels so fucking good right now. And I feel so energized and excited to be in this band. And I feel like we're all kind of on the same page there. And so, you know, whatever's next, I don't know, but I'm stoked for it. 

Any last words? 

Ryan: Listen to our fucking record that we put out. It's really good. 

Evan: And also come to the tour. Come to the tour, we’re out on tour for the next month.

Ryan: Buy tickets, buy tickets please.

Derek: World peace

Ryan: Tyler, anything?

Tyler: Nah nothing [laughs]

Ryan: Go Lions.