Interview: Summer of Savoia

Story by Izzy Capulong. Photo by Matt Weinberger

It’s hot. Con Ed sent out their annual “don’t use electricity” text. It’s 80 degrees, but that doesn’t stop Savoia frontman Lucas Allan from showing up in skinny jeans, a blazer, and a scarf. I knew Niagara as the place where Ned Fulmer cheated on his wife and where Yoshitomo Nara had some framed graffiti. (Apparently, he got arrested that same night, but now he’s one of my tattoos. Your move, NYPD). But tonight, I’m here for the Savoia show. It’s an all-star lineup. I know everyone says that about every lineup, but all of downtown is out for Howl, Le Keep, DJs We Take Manhattan, Jean-Luc, and of course, Savoia. Getting this crowd out on a weeknight is a feat in and of itself. It’s only Tuesday, but it’s impossible to navigate through the bar. Savoia knows how to pack a room. (Their 4/20 rooftop show packed two stories and got shut down by cops). I wanted to get this interview done before their set, so I text Lucas a cordial “wya,” to which he responds, “Taking a dump at mi casa.” The rockstar life. Even while the band is setting up, the crowd is rowdy. “Come a bit closer, we don’t bite,” says Allan. “What if we want you to?” shouts someone from deep in the audience. It’s not even 10pm yet, but people are fighting over being front and center. 

During their live shows, you could focus on a different member and hear a completely different song each time. With a diversity of musical tastes and backgrounds, the band isn’t just a combination of four people — it’s something entirely new.  Caleb Rubin adds groovy basslines to classic rock. With his backup vocals, the Savoia harmonies are tight — Caleb’s voice goes higher than mine. On lead guitar, Mercer Meeks is consistently bleeding. His guitar is covered in dried blood, but the solos are melodic and invite air guitaring from the crowd. Jonathan Awad controls the tempo on drums. With his rhythms and fills, what would otherwise be soulful and slow rock ballads turn into powerful dance tunes. And on lead vocals, Lucas “Skinny Jeans Big Heart” Allan is surprisingly lithe in his tight pants. Making use of the entire venue, he dances across the stage, writhes on the ground belting, and does pull-ups on the ceiling (we didn’t know he could do pull-ups. Neither did he).

Of course, people at the show don’t need this exposition — they already know. “This is Hypochondriac,” states Lucas. Cheers last longer than the introduction of the song. “Sing along if you know the words.” “Oh, we KNOW the words,” says another voice from the crowd. Don’t ask me how I can sing all of their songs — even the unreleased ones. I never pass up an opportunity to go to a Savoia show, so it’s only natural that the songs stick. Catchy without being corny, Savoia’s upcoming EP set to release on July 26th is widely anticipated. If their shows are this crazy, we can only imagine what the reception will be like. I headbang a bit too hard and break Bryan’s glass. Lucas learns he can do pull-ups on the pipes but gets electrocuted by the microphone every song. Someone threw a handful of condoms at the stage. It’s the summer of Savoia.

Downtown heartthrobs and a hot musical commodity, it’s hard to get ahold of any of the Savoia boys. The interview continually gets interrupted by fans. I struggle to round everyone up. Two out of three have lost their girlfriends. One keeps going off to find a girlfriend. It’s like herding cats. They don’t know what that means. I explain the expression. Joined by Domenica, self-proclaimed “#1 Savoia Groupie” (Mercer’s girlfriend), we pick the band’s brains and fight fans for their attention.

Izzy: How are you guys doing? What did you think of the show? 

Jonathan: It was a fun show — a little chaotic, but good chaotic. 

Mercer: Whoa, you’re recording — I’m on the record. “Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law.” 

Jonathan: Do you have probable cause?

Caleb: Why are y’all lawyered up suddenly?

Izzy: Alright guys that’s it. I got all I needed. 

Lucas: [from afar] Does anyone have a cigarette?

Izzy: I’m interviewing your band. Get over here, vest. 

Lucas: [In a British accent] Sorry, I’m a proper dickhead. [Normal voice] That’s on the record. 

Izzy: Thoughts on the show? 

Lucas: It was a fun one for sure, the crowd really seemed into it.  

Mercer: Everyone said the room sounded really good. It’s the smallest room we’ve played — aside from a week ago when we played the Map Room at Bowery Electric. 

Lucas: We love the Map Room. No Map Room slander here. We’ve played multiple shows where the green room is bigger than the actual room. 

Izzy: Sometimes you don’t even have a green room.

Caleb: Sometimes all we got is behind the bar. But we’re feeling good. 

[Here, we have to move. Someone is trying to get into their apartment].

Izzy: Did you guys hear people singing along?

Mercer: Even when you don’t tell people to, I hear them singing especially during Hypochondriac. It still throws me off because I’m like, “That’s all fucking insane.” 

Lucas: It’s a really cool feeling to hear the lyrics back. 

Izzy: When did you guys all meet? 

Lucas: We’re all from the city, you know? Born and raised New Yorkers. Me and Caleb go back a long time. We were the first to musically get together.

Izzy: Musical puberty. 

Lucas: Exactly. Mu-berty. We were pre-mu-bescent lads. 

Mercer: Pre-mu-bescent is crazy. 

Lucas: But we were kind of in this band at Caleb’s dad’s — he had this School of Rock-style rehearsal studio for kids in the village. But when we got into high school, I left that band because I wanted to start something a little more serious, and that was a one-gig-a-year type program. But it was fucking awesome. Only thing like that in the Village. 

Caleb: Shoutout Replay Music Studios. 

Lucas: When I left that band, Caleb was the first guy I asked to join to start this new group. But he was like, “I got a lot of stuff going on — I don’t know if I can.” 

Izzy: What did you have going on? You were in high school.

Caleb: I was in high school, but my dad ran the program, so I was still in it. 

Izzy: You’re like, “I have all this math homework, bro.”

Caleb: That I was not doing anyway. 

Lucas: I had then met Jonathan through a friend in freshman or sophomore year of high school. I kind of poached Jon off of him — he was trying to start a band with Jon but Jon and I just clicked. And we were like, “Fuck it, let’s just start a band.” Me and Jon were jamming for a while. We jammed around with a bunch of different cats. We fit together. But all these other guys didn’t. So it was me and Jon. And then I met Mercer at GovBall. I forgot what year it was, but it was when Travis Scott was playing.

Izzy: Is this when he fell off the stage? 

Mercer: It was like, 2017. No, he didn’t fall off the stage. But we met through a mutual friend, CT.

Lucas: the group we were with got split up when Travis went on, and it was just me and Mercer together. We didn’t know each other at all, but we had to get out alive. We bonded deeply from that experience and became bros. At one point, Mercer said to me, “You know, I play some piano.” He doesn’t say he plays guitar.

Mercer: I had just started playing guitar.

Lucas: So I told him to come jam, except we didn’t have a piano at our rehearsal space. But he comes in anyway, picks up a guitar and starts ripping — so me and Jon were like, “This guy’s definitely gonna play lead guitar.” At that point I went back to Caleb and was like, “Listen, I got some guys. Just come in for one jam.” And he’s like, “I can’t promise you anything.” But at the end of the rehearsal, he’s like, “All right, fuck you. When’s the next rehearsal.” It was great. 

Caleb: It was crazy. I have very fond memories — we wrote a lot of the songs that we still play in our sets during those early times at my dad’s studio. 

Izzy: Where’d the name come from? I heard you went through a few names.

Mercer: It was Early Retirement first. And if we made a certain kind of music, it would’ve been a really good name. 

Izzy: I like Early Retirement. It’s a little dad rock-ish.

Lucas: I never liked that name, whenever people would ask what we were called, we’d tell them Early Retirement and they’d laugh. I hated that.

Mercer: It was cheeky. People would ask, “Why Early Retirement?” And we’d say, “That’s the goal.” But eventually, Lucas said, “Enough of Early Retirement.” Right before COVID hit — the day before lockdown — we played our last show as Early Retirement. It was like going into a little cocoon. 

Lucas: And reemerging as Savoia. 

Domenica: What does Savoia mean? 

Lucas: It was the last name of a dear old friend of mine who passed. He was like my godfather. And he was just a really cool guy — fucking sick fashion designer. Michelé Savoia. Italian dude. He passed away coming out of Paris Hilton’s birthday party. He was drunk as hell and living on his boat on the Hudson River. And as he was getting onto the boat, he slipped and fell while wearing this huge raccoon fur-skin coat. And the coat dragged him into the water and he drowned. 

Izzy: That’s tragic. 

Lucas: Look him up, “Michelé Savoia.” 

Mercer: There’s a New York Times article about it. 

Lucas: He went out in style, you could say. But he meant a lot to me. His whole way of life was just to let go and go for it.

Izzy: That’s how you wanna go — in a raccoon fur coat in the Hudson?

Mercer: Ew, maybe not the Hudson. 

Izzy: Yeah, I’ll take the Seine.

Lucas: I’m carrying his torch. 

Izzy: Don’t die. 

[Here, we lose Lucas again as he goes off to talk to a girl.]

Izzy: What do you want people to know about the EP? About you guys? 

Jonathan: It sounds good. 

Mercer: Our dear friend Jon here has put his heart and soul into mixing all these songs, so they sound very beautiful. 

Jonathan: Sounds like the band, but a step higher.

Mercer: Yeah, a little more polished. It’s real DIY stuff. We did it all ourselves. 

Caleb: I’m just excited to have a body of work. We’ve been playing so much and I enjoy it so much, and we’ve built up a live performance that I’m really proud of. But to have a body of work — that’s another real step that we’re taking. I’m excited for it to be out there. 

Izzy: That’s what’s up. [Lucas returns.] Are you done? 

Lucas: Sorry. There was this girl—

Caleb: We know. We know.

Izzy: You have a couple of songs that are out that people already know the words to. On the EP, do you have any songs that people haven’t heard yet that you expect to become cult classics?

Lucas: We don’t have a lot of good songs we don’t play. 

Mercer: The stuff we’re releasing is all stuff we’ve played.

Lucas: Truthfully, we haven’t had a lot of time to write. So hopefully after tonight’s show and after we get this EP out, we can get in the room and write. But we’re really excited to get this project out and move on to be able to write some new stuff. 

Izzy: What’s the name of the EP?

[They all share looks. I may have asked the wrong question.]

Mercer: It is…

Lucas: It’s called Sunflower Mouth. It’ll be a four track EP dropping on July 26th. Short and sweet but a proper representation of our sound and who we are.

[We get interrupted yet another time, but this time by people trickling out of the bar who spot the band and congratulate them.]

Jonathan: The best song on the EP is “Sunflower Mouth” because I wrote most of the music. But… I’m only joking. Because the best song is actually “The Dress.” 

Caleb: We love all of our songs.

Izzy: You love all of your songs equally. Like children. 

Caleb: Correct.

Izzy: What’s the writing process? Do you all switch off?

Mercer: It usually starts with someone bringing in something — a chord progression or a riff or something. But most of the songs that we played during our set were arranged and written all together. 

Lucas: I do all the lyrics. If they give notes, I decide what makes it. But musically, it’s very democratic. It’s very collaborative. The guys know a lot about music theory. 

Mercer: Jon actually wrote “Sunflower Mouth” on guitar which is pretty cool. Watch out. Your drummer probably plays a lot of other instruments.

Izzy: Look at these guys. Jon’s ascot, Lucas’s scarf, all these necklaces. We got a lot of neck accessories. 

Lucas: We like jingling and jangling.

Mercer: That was before Early Retirement. We were Jingle and The Jangles. 

Rubin: Isn’t that the hard drug in Riverdale? They call it Jingle Jangle? 

Izzy: Just say heroin.

[Two dogs walk by.]

Izzy and Domenica: Awwww

Izzy: So, what else can we expect from the EP? 

Lucas: This is a breakup record. But we didn’t want it to be boring. We wanted people to be able to dance and move and express and feel and relate to it. Some of the songs are about when you’re in deep with something toxic and realizing it. Some of them are the aftermath and the party and trying to get through it. But for the feel of the people, we want people to dance and move to our music.

Izzy: Everyone’s always got something to be emo about, so it’s a pretty universal feeling. 

Lucas: With this new EP we just want to get people moving, man. We want people to relate and feel good or let out the bad. The feeling of being young and loving in New York City. Hopefully the music we’re making is stuff people can latch onto, have a good time and express themselves with. I pictured playing to a massive field of people and tried to feel what would make them go absolutely nuts, and went off that. It’s all a feeling. 

Domenica: What are your favorite genres of music? 

Izzy: You guys do have a lot of different sounds going on. 

Lucas: Classic rock and indie rock. I mean, we’re definitely an indie rock band.

Caleb: Influences vary. But classic rock and indie rock — that’s where all of our tastes overlap. 

Mercer: Jon likes metal. 

Izzy: I can hear that in the drum part in Hypochondriac — the drums right before the chorus. I remember listening to that for the first time on a road trip and being like, “This is hard as hell.” 

Caleb: Me and Mercer love some emo and pop punk. We’ve bonded over that.

Izzy and Mercer: [singing American Football] Let’s just forget…

Lucas: Big Rolling Stones guy. Cage the elephant too. We love Spoon — shoutout Britt Daniel — their lead singer. He came to our last show at the Bowery Electric. One of our biggest influences. Really nice guy.

Izzy: A lot of your heroes have been pulling up to your shows. How does that feel? 

Lucas: That’s been the coolest, most humbling feeling. Because all these guys that we look up to — suddenly we’re staring eye to eye to them. But they don’t see us as just some kids — they see us as musicians doing our thing and they respect it. And it’s the coolest thing, just having one-on-one conversations with these guys — artist to artist, not suit to artist. We’ve made relationships with some pretty cool guys.

 

Jonathan: My biggest influence is Oasis. 

Izzy: Not Blur? 

Lucas: Oh… No Blur for Jono. 

Izzy: Damon Albarn if you’re reading this—

Jonathan: Liam and Noel, please get back together. 

[Sarosh and Bryan of Hyderdaze pose with us to take a picture. Some more passerby’s yell praises at the band.]

Mercer: We wanna get some club remixes up in here. 

[Charlie Baker, ½ of DJ duo We Take Manhattan arrives.]

Lucas: This is my longtime friend, CB. We had him DJ the set. 

Izzy: Is this We Take or Manhattan?

Charlie: This is LA. 

Izzy: Charlie has remixed either The Dress or Hypochondriac — I’ve heard it in some of his sets. 

Mercer: We have stats on Apple Music, who owns Shazam, and you can see how many times people have Shazam’d your song, which is pretty gnarly, because we have about 600+ Shazams on Hypochondriac or something. And I think that’s mainly because of Mr. Charlie Baker over there. That’s really cool too. Major full circle moment, because when you’re a musician, of course you’re always pulling out your phone to Shazam songs, but now it’s people Shazaming you. 

Izzy: what does the future hold for Savoia?

Lucas: This fucking summer is going to be the summer of Savoia. You better watch out. We’ve put our blood, sweat, and tears into this EP coming out on July 26th and we’ve got some more live shows lined up throughout the season. We’re here for you. This is only the beginning.