Grayscale, one of Fearless Records’ newest bands, have just released their album ‘Adornment’ – in the lead up to the release, lead vocalist Collin Walsh and guitarist and singer Dallas Molster caught up with GoldenPlec to talk about their beginnings, the process behind the album and adapting to having online personas.

Having all met as teenagers in Philadelphia, the band discuss the hometown music scene. “It varies per genre," Walsh explains. “There’s a lot of hardcore bands. As far as pop-punk goes there’s not a whole lot of it going on at the moment but we’re happy to see bands coming out of Philly regardless of the genre.”

This camaraderie seems to be something that is present throughout the scene as Molster adds, “We’ve played plenty of shows with hardcore bands because we’re all friends. It’s very tight-knit, a welcoming scene. Totally different genres of music but we all get along.”

This conversation was had just before the release of their new album, ‘Adornment’, so the anticipation was reaching its peak. Walsh explains how they’re feeling, “Ecstatic, I’m really excited. We worked so hard on it, we’re all so proud of it. We’re really, really looking forward to it coming out and people hearing it.”

This enthusiasm was totally warranted as the album is now released and is a perfect example of what the Grayscale are capable of. An incredibly impressive release from start to finish, ‘Adornment’ is a nuanced collection of pop-punk/pop-rock tracks, which show a maturity beyond the band’s years. It’s also a hard album to classify into any one genre, Grayscale show serious versatility from absolute singalongs like Atlantic and If I Ever See You Again to much more slow-paced songs like Slept.

Steering far away from simplicity, there are little hidden gems throughout, as Walsh explains. “As far as lyrical content, I had a lot of different ideas, a lot of them came from memories and there’s a lot of elements to the songs that if you listen there’s things like cobblestones and rain, and all these things that jog my memory. You know if you smell something and it reminds you of something? There’s a lot of those elements weaved into the individual songs. Adornment – the title – is a decoration, something that decorates in the background, that’s kind of the motif. Each story of the songs are different but they all have some sort of ‘bring back in time’ tie to them.”

Explaining what made them release Atlantic as a taster for the album, Molster explains how “It’s just a pop-rock song, it’s not a pop-punk song, it’s not a rock song. It’s in between. It’s a good representation of what you’ll expect on the album as far as the mood goes, the vibe goes, what the story is about.”

To this, Walsh adds, “Releasing Atlantic first and then Beautiful Things second – Atlantic is kind of the pop-ier side and Beautiful Things is about suicide so they’re two kind of opposite, juxtaposing ideas and that gives you the spectrum of the album.”

And a wide spectrum, the album pretty much covers every mood one might have, managing to do so whilst still feeling like one piece of harmonious work.

The writing process is also a team-effort, as Walsh explains, “Dallas, Nick and I live together. Dallas and I actually share a room, we sleep like five feet away from each other. We’re so used to writing songs together before we go to bed.”

Being in such close quarters has prepared Grayscale for being on the road together too. There are no more surprises. “We’ve been best friends for seven years,” says Molster. “We live together. We would have already hated each other.”

With that level of closeness. comes the ability to say exactly what you’re thinking, “Dallas and I butt heads a lot when writing” Walsh adds. “But we’re challenging each other… We try and make each other better. Dallas kind of spear-heads the instrumental - he does all the producing and demoing. And then I work on the lyrics on my own. Dallas will throw down a guitar idea and tentative drums and then Nick [Veno] will come in and tweak it. Then other Nick [Ventimiglia] will come in and add bass, Andrew [Kyne] will add guitar and then I’ll throw my lyrics down. Dallas is the catalyst, we all help, but Dallas is the master-mind the starts the process.“

Now, although the album and the band’s work as a whole covers some more serious topics, they enjoy that social media lets fans see the other side of them. “We take our music really seriously,” Walsh adds. “But we don’t take ourselves seriously. We don’t have any egos, we just like playing music. At first it was kind of hard to adjust because we want to come across organically, which is playful and fun, but we’re not fucking around, the music is very serious, it comes from a very deep place. I think we’ve started to narrow it down, it’s been really fun recently.”

In recent months, things have stepped up online for the band. “People are so supportive, that’s what makes it fun, it’s really not about us,” says Molster. “Since we signed to Fearless and put out Atlantic it’s been ridiculous.”

It’s clear that these guys take their trade seriously, but they come across as a fun-loving and genuine band. If ‘Adornment’ is anything to go by, the future should be very bright for Grayscale.