There’s a dilemma in the city of Nashville. Most know about it, but few know how to overcome it. The genre of Pop/Punk isn’t non-existent, it’s just hiding in the living rooms and venues of those dedicated enough to support it, like Summertime, a local trio with a unique sound.

The above E.P. was actually written and recorded by lead singer and guitarist, Nate Goodlet, before Summertime even formed as a band.

“The album was actually produced by my friend, Josiah who plays rhythm guitar for the band, Disciple. Keith (bass) and I met playing for the pop artist, CAPPA. Matt, our drummer, played for CAPPA for a bit too and when that ended, I recruited him for Summertime. The name of our band came from the song ‘Summertime’ by the band, Mae. We’re nothing like that band – but I don’t care,” Nate laughed.

As far as being in Nashville verses other cities, Nate had a different perspective than most artist featured on Across the Table.

“We’d probably would have a lot more people show up for shows if we were in another city,” he said candidly. “Keith and I are both from Florida so I think we’d have a great following with this genre in Orlando. However, we’ve had a lot of support from Rocketown here in Nashville and I actually started a twitter @MCPopPunk (Music City), but people are all about networking here. I guarantee you though – if we went to East Nashville and started playing some Blink 182, everyone would start jamming.”

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Nate said the band did a show at Mercy Lounge in 2015 that is the biggest show they’ve done thus far and when they started talking to an audience member after they performed, he was telling them how excited he was to hear Pop/Punk in Nashville; they then realized he was the drummer for Dashboard Confessional and Nate almost passed out – as I think we all would probably do.

After chatting about the formation of the band and their Nashville mark thus far, Keith arrived to join in on the conversation. After the two of them briefly talking about how they needed to brawl it out over the release of the Warp Tour Lineup for this year (Keith was all but impressed by it), they shared their musical and personal inspirations.

“These are going to be bipolar,” Nate prefaced their answers.

“As far as bass influences I’d have to say Switchfoot. For the band I draw inspiration from Children 18:3, or things a bit more punk and upbeat. My personal inspiration though, comes from ambient, post-rock sounds with spacey vibes like Hammock or The Chariot,” Keith explained.

“When I used to be a bassist,” Nate started, “I had a tuner and distortion pedal. Keith has about 20 to constantly make us sound bigger and add effects.

We both agree on being influenced by Switchfoot, I always buy my guitars and amps based on whatever Jon Foreman is using at the time. But personally, I’m influenced by Starting Line, Jimmy Eat World, New Found Glory and Yellowcard. All the things people call classics, I’m still listening to everyday.”

They both agreed that Matt, their drummer, listens to just about everything but that they’re sound definitely doesn’t stem from whatever Chris Brown hit Matt is listening to at the moment. [Sorry guys, I had to add that in there].

Out of the entire E.P. above, I’m a huge fan of the last track, “I Need You,” that was actually the only track produced by someone other than Josiah, and that someone was Keith. I think I like the vibe of it because of the ambient, spacey sound he easily incorporates. I asked Nate for a brief background on the inspiration behind the track.

“I started writing that track about 2 or 3 years ago on Christmas night when I found out a girl I was in love with all through college started dating another guy. That’s how the chorus came about. Then, a year later, the verses were born after another breakup. The thing is, I really went back to my Christian roots on this one. It’s all we listened to when I was growing up. So the song isn’t actually about a girl,” he explained.

Nate says the songwriting process usually happens for him when he’s lifeguarding or when he used to work in a warehouse. He would just keep singing what came to him over and over again until he got home. Keith agreed that while the song ideas stem from Nate, Keith and Matt add their own flare to make the song cohesive and help it belong to everyone.

“Songs are your art, so you never want to re-write them,” Nate started, “but once you do, you realize it is possible to make them better,” he said sarcastically.

The band has a lot of new things coming up for 2016 including a new E.P., produced by Keith and a new song to pre-cursor that called, “Death of Me.” That single took a bit of a hiatus when Nate through out his voice trying to scream on the track, but not to worry, we’ll be hearing it really soon!

If you can’t wait for some digital releases though, can catch them on April 1st at Phat Bites with a band they’ve been waiting a long to play with, Secret Club. Don’t worry – you don’t have to commit this early if it scares you. They’ll be plenty of tickets the night-of so just put it in your calendar and they’ll see you then!