The Menzingers with Hot Water Music and Weakened Friends

Washington's & Music City Hot Chicken The Menzingers: Everything I Ever Saw North American Tour with Hot Water Music and Weakened Friends Everything I Ever Saw finds the Menzingers entering a new era in what’s already been a storied career. The Philadelphia punk legends’ eighth album chronicles moments of significant change—the personal, the political, and the universal—while returning to the core creative principles that first put them on the map with listeners the world over. Twenty years in, the Menzingers have discovered that the wisdom gained with time’s passing is even stronger than the emotional armor they once wore in their youth, and Everything I Ever Saw captures the quartet embracing the here and now while strengthening the bonds that have held them together.Work on Everything I Ever Saw started in earnest after touring behind 2023’s Some Of It Was True, as the group felt a re-energized urgency while their worlds changed around them. “It wasn’t something that we initially set out to do,” vocalist/guitarist Greg Barnett says. “We started writing immediately after our last record in a very fun, casual way—but we were going through really special moments that we wanted to document.” “We’ve been doing this for so long that it’s routine,” vocalist/guitarist Tom May adds. “Between this record and the last record, however, so much happened in our lives, and we always write about what’s going on.”Indeed, the last three years have been plenty busy in the Menzingers’ world: while Barnett got married and welcomed his first child, May got divorced and navigated new emotional territory both in and outside of the band. “We’re no strangers to writing about breakups, but divorce is different,” he says. “There’s a weirdness to it that cuts so much deeper and hurts much more. The most devastating part is that you had a vision for your life that’s gone now, and you have to figure out how to navigate that whilegrowing as a person. But through that suffering, I definitely became a better person than I was before. When you’re broken, you can put yourself back together in a way where you are who you truly want to become.” “We’re extremely conscious of what we want to do now.” “This has been a huge portion of my life, and everybody has dedicated so much to this band,” Barnett adds, before reflecting on his grandmother’s recent passing, and how watching family videos after her death drove home the importance of capturing the truly transformative moments in one’s life.“I want to be able to appreciate, understand, and love everything that we’ve done, as well as where we’re going,” he says. “It’s going to define who we are for the rest of our lives.” Suitably, Everything I Ever Saw is the work of a band that’s never taken their foot off the gas finding a new fount of energy in their collective growth—the latest full-throated work from a band that keeps creating memories to last an entire lifetime and then some.