Don’t Fall In Love Without Them: Get To Know Cry Baby

New York City band, Cry Baby, is fresh off a headlining tour and eager to share their experiences and plans for the future. Pleaser Magazine sat down with Joey Haines and Alex Carlson to chat about their latest EP, "In Love Without You," their unique approach to social media promotion, and what's next for the band.

PHOTO BY HANNA MIDDLETON

PLEASER: Hey! How are you doing?

JOEY HAINES: We're doing great!

P: Your new EP, In Love Without You features a lot of songs that have been out for nearly a year. Did you write and release those songs with the intention of them becoming one big project or did they all come together along the way?

JOEY HAINES: It would have been last February when we started working on our first song, which was “Hollister.” Once we got them all together, it naturally felt like a collection. We have also worked on some other songs that won’t be on there. That's for future stuff. It was helpful when we were going out to play our first show and we were focusing on a setlist. It’s very representational of our first moments together and what happened during those few months, when we were locking ourselves away in this bedroom and writing music.

ALEX CARLSON: The In Love Without You EP feels very emblematic of those first couple of months of learning how to write music with each other. Listening back to it has a certain vibe that does sound like what we envisioned Cry Baby to be.

I don’t feel like we went in with that purpose, it just kind of ended up happening. That was an exciting thing for us.

P: How was your headlining tour?

AC: It was great. Greenville was kind of a surprise of a blast, to be honest. It's places like that when you're coming into town and wondering what the situation is gonna be. They told us we did a bunch of presales which was super cool and the venue was awesome and it was all around a great show.

JH: I'm from Chicago, but I lived in Charleston for seven years. We got to play all the hometowns. We played Chicago and had a bunch of family and friends there, which was awesome. Then Greenville is where some of our other members grew up, and Charleston of course, where some of us met. So it was great.

P: Were there any moments or memories from tour that stick out to you?

AC: For me, I think the Greenville Show was great. We have always tempered expectations for this kind of tour. We’re outside of our market right now and we know that, but when you get little milestones all along the way where everything just clicks. 

JH: When we get down south, into the smaller towns, people are just so stoked to have bands there and fresh music coming through. So that usually ends up being exciting, everybody's dancing and having a good time.

AC: Atlanta was a venue where we felt that everything clicked into place sound-wise. We had some technical difficulties in some cities while on tour. Knowing this is how our music should sound and feel on a stage is a very validating feeling. In those moments, I’m reassured that when it’s a packed-out show in a venue like this, it's gonna be crazy. So that was a great memory.

PHOTO BY HANNA MIDDLETON

P: Was it nerve-wracking going on tour?

JH: Since this is the second tour that we've done within the year, it was the second time coming through a lot of the southern and East Coast cities. We were teaming up with people along the way, friends, and new bands in different cities. 

We wrote our record, finished it, and immediately started rehearsing for shows. Last summer, immediately after we put out music we played our first show. From there, we were like, ‘Let's not stop at all’. We've always wanted to be a really strong live band and want to be doing support tours. That was always a really big goal of ours and why we spent so much time rehearsing in the first place. We’ve done it so many times that we have a bunch of energy and are ready to go. A place we're comfortable with is being on tour and playing night after night. 

AC: One of the things that is nerve-wracking about the nature of the tour that we were on is there are a lot of unknowns. We have been lucky enough to string together shows and know this is what we're capable of doing. A big goal of mine on this run was being able to play the songs well and slowing our show down. Sometimes you can feel a little overwhelmed on stage and like the show is just happening to you. Being able to slow it down a little bit, be more present, and be in the moment is important. We wanted to improve our presence and have our show dialed in on every aspect, like transitions and banter on stage. I think that was finally coming together towards the end of the tour.

P: You said you want to be a strong live band, when making music, do you focus on how it will sound performing the songs live?

JH: I think, naturally, yes. But, when we do our songs live, we're not afraid to change certain things. With a live show, we like things sounding big and aren't afraid to turn up guitars in some parts or play some parts a lot heavier than they come across in the record. That’s the beauty of a live show, that you can kind of get these stronger, upbeat moments, and also the opposite if you take things down and make them soft and beautiful. When we're writing or a song gets to the finish line I start to have the vision of how it will sound live. We kind of all piece together what it's gonna look like during a show. We’ve learned when you start going out and playing songs you find out what works and what doesn't. 

AC: Anything that's made it to the finish line is something that we're gonna play live. I think now we're getting more into the mode of ‘We want to have a song like this’. From up until this point, it's just been anything exciting. We've been talking about having a certain kind of song, especially for a live set.

P: You guys use social media such as Instagram and TikTok to promote your music and shows, but you uniquely also use Hinge. Whose idea was it to start using a dating app to advertise your shows and the band?

AC: I was doing it on our first tour. Hinge, I suppose, is a social media app. It's a dating app, but just like any other app, it has an algorithm. I wasn't using it that much for anything serious and I think most people are kind of just swiping mindlessly on there. When we were out on the road I knew you could preset your location. I figured this would be a funny idea to start putting show flyers up here, a couple of pictures of the band, and connect the band's Instagram. It’s come to a place where we get a lot of people coming up to us being like, ‘Your Hinge stuff is really funny.’ When it comes to promotion, it's hard to make that fun. So much of it is a show flyer and a carousel post. We wanted to make it so that it was entertaining and people could interact with it.

P: What can fans expect from Cry Baby in the future?

AC: We have an EP release show on June 29th in New York. Other than that, we are very much in writing mode right now. We are working on some new stuff and some of it is the most exciting stuff that I've ever worked on and I'm very excited about that.

JH: Hopefully we’ll be doing a lot of support touring in the fall. We want to tour a lot and play in more cities. I think that's our main thing. 

P: Is there anything that you would like to say or add?

AC: I would keep an eye out for us. We have some big things in the future. I genuinely believe it and I feel it, I think there's gonna be a lot of exciting things to be seen, in Cry Baby’s future.

I feel excited and optimistic about what’s to come. We can't wait to put out more stuff, we are excited to put out the complete EP. I think that was such an era for us and, and I'm, I'm very proud of that.

PHOTO BY HANNA MIDDLETON