FOR THE DREAMERS

PINKSHIFT'S CAREER COULD HAVE BEEN OVER BEFORE IT EVEN TRULY BEGAN. BUT NOW, THEY'RE WINDING UP TO TAKE ON THE WORLD WITH THEIR DEBUT ALBUM.

- BEN TIPPLE

There's always more happening than meets the eye.

Despite the immediate viral success of breakout single 'I'm going to tell my therapist on you', stateside tours alongside cult heroes and a career-highlight trip across the pond to the UK, Baltimore newcomers Pinkshift have already stared down a potentially devastating road..

"Myron [Houngbedji] was one foot in, one foot out for a whole year," vocalist Ashrita Kumar recalls, looking back at a time that could have spelled the end for the band. Their drummer had just been offered a place at medical school, ready to continue the path that had been laid out before him prior to the band's takeoff.

The band themselves were in the studio with Will Yip, the producer responsible for countless iconic alternative standouts, when he received the call.

"There was a lot of cognitive dissonance that made it all really difficult," Myron recounts.

"A lot of back and forth in my head..." The offer had reignited a longstanding battle between expectation and the unknown, one that isn't unique to just Myron.

"All of our parents immigrated here to the US with specific expectations of what their children would do," he explains. "There's a lot of pressure for us to be successful, because if we're not then our parents did that for nothing."

His indecision inadvertently mirrored a battle faced by his bandmates Ashrita and Paul [Vallejo, guitar], but his ultimate decision to go all-in on Pinkshift opened up new horizons.

"It's given us a chance to explore living outside of the system. We've gotten off the train," he smiles.

"Having to deal with that mentally is hard but liberating. We've all experienced points where we've felt terrible because the system was all we knew, and now we have a lack of structure; nothing is laid out for us anymore. It now actually takes a lot more critical thought in terms of what we want to do and achieve..."