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State Champs

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Albany pop-punk built on Derek DiScanio's sugar-rush hooks and guitar work tight enough to survive the breakdowns — a decade-plus of the genre's second wave.

State Champs formed in Albany, New York, in the spring of 2010, founded by guitarist Tyler Szalkowski and singer Derek DiScanio. An early batch of demos was reworked into the album Apparently, I'm Nothing, released in Japan in 2011, and the band spent its first years building a following through steady regional touring.

A demo of the song 'Critical' drew label interest in 2012, and State Champs signed to Pure Noise Records, gaining management and a booking agency alongside the deal. They recorded the Overslept EP that year with producer Jay Maas, then spent 2012 touring in support slots with bands including Handguns and Citizen.

The band's records stay close to pop-punk convention: clean, high-gloss production, verses that move quickly to a chorus, and vocal melodies built for group singing, occasionally sharpened with the heavier, breakdown-driven touches sometimes labelled easycore.

Debut album The Finer Things arrived in October 2013, produced by Sam Pura with former New Found Glory guitarist Steve Klein, and reached the Billboard 200. Tours with Motion City Soundtrack, Bayside and New Found Glory followed, along with the 2014 acoustic EP The Acoustic Things, which reworked five album tracks and added two new songs.

Around the World and Back followed in 2015, reaching number 30 on the Billboard 200 and leading to tours with All Time Low and 5 Seconds of Summer, with a deluxe reissue in 2017. Living Proof came out in 2018, Kings of the New Age in 2022, and a self-titled fifth album in 2024, bringing the catalogue to five full-length albums and three EPs on Pure Noise Records.

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