FROM VAPE SHOPS TO GREEN DAY: THE PARADOX IS POP PUNK’S FUTURE

The Pop Punk scene has made its comeback over the past few years. When We Were Young Festival capitalized on the nostalgia of what the scene was in the 2000s. It caused Warped Tour to return to the festival circuit as well, after having its “final” run back in 2019. While the lineups at these festivals have somewhat diversified somewhat when it comes to race and gender, the vast majority is still white and male. In my high school years, pop punk was my entire identity. As I got older, I left this version of me behind. More often than not, my mixed race identity was the only racial diversity I saw in most of these spaces. 

The Paradox began to overtake my TikTok For You Page like a breath of fresh air. Their rise began almost exactly a year ago on their social media, and it has been a quick incline since. The band is composed of Eric Dangerfield on vocals and rhythm guitar, Donald on bass, Xelan on lead guitar and PC3 on drums. They opened for Green Day’s Atlanta date on their last tour, have made friends with Lil Naz X, and even performed at his sister’s wedding reception. 

They are currently on tour with Games We Play, and I got the chance to see them in action on their New York date at Bowery Ballroom. Watching The Paradox reminded me of All Time Low’s rise to fame and songs that accompanied it, dick jokes, sexual innuendos and all. Their songs also follow the classic pop-punk theme of women who have pissed them off and turned them on. The Paradox were announced as the opener on All Time Low’s next tour, and Eric joined the band onstage at this year’s Warped Tour in Washington, DC to perform their newest single PMA. The morning of the All Time Low tour announcement, we got the opportunity to connect with The Paradox about how fast their stardom has taken off, their backgrounds, the future of their art and the genre as a whole.

 

Who would you say your music is for? What kind of community do you want to create at your shows? 

Eric: Originally when I started writing these songs, I was speaking to people like me. But as I started putting this stuff out there and I started seeing people who it was touching—like people a lot older or a lot younger than me. I say our music is for everybody. People that are chill, no hate. I just want to create a nice, safe space where everybody—no matter how old, young, dark, light, gay straight—can come and just have fun and just enjoy the music. 

The pop punk scene, while one of my favorites, is a scene that is traditionally male and traditionally white. Do you ever feel the need to fit a certain mold as you enter these spaces?

Eric: We’ve always just prided ourselves on being true to ourselves and just being ourselves unapologetically. It’s definitely gotten us a lot of the places that we’ve been, and you know like our big rule of thumb is just like no matter how big we get, as long as we stick to that we will always succeed.

You’re currently on tour with Games We Play. Have you learned anything from their fans or them about your stage presence? 

Eric: I’ve learned a lot from how Emmyn interacts with the crowd every night. He’s so good at it, you know? 

Donald: He really knows how to get the crowd riled up. 

Eric: Insane at it. I learn from his fans too. Seeing how diehard they are. These people are out there three hours before you know the doors even open. That’s what I want us to build. 

I want to hear more about when you opened for Green Day on the Atlanta Stop of their last tour. How did that happen? 

Eric: I was working at a vape shop at the time and we started posting online. We started the band like the last few days of June and played our first show as The Paradox on the 30th. Next day we started an Instagram account. One of my coworkers said we should start posting on TikTok, so we did that. A few days in, we had posted a cover of “Basket Case” and Billie Joe Armstrong shared it on his story. Then a few days later, he followed us and I started talking to him about guitars.

At work, one of our customers came in and said Green Day was coming into town. I asked him if me and my band could get tickets. The next day he texted me and talked to my manager about us opening the show. The lineup was: The Linda Lindas, Rancid, Smashing Pumpkins, and Green Day. We had only been a band for like a month and a half, so it was wild but we did that. It was a wild weekend because two days before that, we performed at Lil Nas X’s sister’s wedding with him. 

PC3 Shout out, Montero. 

 

When did each of you know pop punk was for you?

PC3: Xelan took me to that New Found Glory concert.

Donald: For me, I remember I was chilling at Eric’s place one time where he used to teach me bass, and he showed me the “Fat Lip” music video. Like holy shit, those motherfuckers were crazy.

How old were you? 

Eric: That was recent. He’s only been playing bass for like two years.

Donald: Yeah, so that happened this year.

Eric: I’ve been listening to it since I was little.  Donald and I grew up in a small town called Palm Coast, Florida and there’s really not shit to do there but like skate/BMX. The music that was played was Soundcloud rap and Pop Punk. I’d seen the “Fat Lip” video and “What’s My Age Again.” I went down that rabbit hole on YouTube. This was like three or four years ago, and I was just like: I gotta do that. I want to start a band. 

Xelan: I was inspired by watching MTV and TRL growing up. I know I sound old as shit, but just just watching all these cool bands, listening to your radio constantly and being like, “I want to do that.” That’s all I want to do. It’s crazy how we’re doing the damn thing now. 

How did you guys meet? I know Eric and Donald met in Florida. 

Eric: Donald, Xelan, and I are from Florida.

PC3: I was born in Alabama and grew up in Atlanta. I met Eric in my sophomore or junior year of high school. Started kicking it. I was audio engineering, producing for him. Then he’d seen my electric kit in the side of my room. He was like, “You play drums,” and I was like, “Hell the fuck yeah I play drums, I’ve been playing them forever.” The rest is history. 

Xelan: His mom would bust through the door and scream, “Y’all keep playing the same shit!”

How do your parents and/or guardians feel about your music?

Eric: I was raised by my great grandparents. It was definitely weird for them at first because they didn’t grow up listening to that. My musical upbringing was like Motown and old jazz, but my grandma likes everything. She brought me up on Beyoncé and then P!NK, even Aerosmith and whatever sounded good. My dad is definitely more reserved but he grew to love it. He’s a big doo-wop guy, and pop punk has a huge doo-wop influence and feel to it if I’m being honest. And when I made that present to him, he was like okay, this is hard. So he loves it, and they love the shows. 

PC3: I was always listening to a lot of different stuff, especially like when it came to being with my parents. It was R&B, it’s Marvin Gaye, it’s The Temptations. I started producing. So my mom always knew I wanted to do music, but she was like, what’s your plan B? 

Eric: Plan B? 

PC3: Exactly.

Eric: I always hated that shit. That was always the worst saying. 

PC3: I would tell her the same thing every time like, if you need a Plan B then you don’t believe in your plan.

Eric: What always gets me about that is if I told you I want to be a garbage man, you ain’t gonna tell me, “What’s my plan B” You’re gonna say that’s a good solid plan. I’m like, I want to be a rockstar. 

PC3: Right. Exactly. 

Donald & Xelan, Did either of you have a plan B? 

Donald: Fuck no. 

Xelan: Did Have a Plan B?

PC3: Yeah, you! 

Eric: He’s the only one of us that went to college. He’s a good boy. 

Xelan: It’s good to have a plan, though. Not gonna hate on it. 

Eric: Nah! 

Xelan: The only reason I went to college is because my parents pushed me.

Eric: Everyone’s parents did! I dropped out when I was sixteen and like I remember everyone telling me, “You’ve got a 3.8 GPA. Why drop out? Why not stick it out and enroll in college?” I’m like, “Bruh, I ain’t tryna put myself in debt for a degree that I’m probably not gonna be able to use unless I want to be a classical musician. I can learn all that theory from YouTube. Just let me just lock in and do this.”

PC3: And there’s so many careers under the umbrella of music. If somebody said you cannot perform another day today, you still can make something crazy.

Eric: I’ll write something.

PC3: Exactly.

Eric:  I’ll do something, I’ll find something. 

Xelan: But do you know how many people that go to college and get their degree, spend so many years, and still don’t even know what the fuck they’re doing? 

Eric: That was a big thing for me. A lot of my friends that were musicians went to college and now they’re working at Wendy’s. I didn’t want to do that and I definitely didn’t want to work a nine to five for the rest of my life. So fuck a Plan B. This is it. There was nothing else. It was only going to be this. 

Songs of yours including Imani, Kaitlyn and Ms. Lauren are about women who have come in and out of your lives. Good and bad. Have any of them had responses to the music? 

Eric: The relationships that were good, they know about them. Ms. Lauren knew about the song before I ever even released it. 

PC3: I thought Imani knew. 

Eric: Imani, well, Imani was Donald’s girl. 

PC3: Right. 

Eric: She definitely knew. They get mad sometimes. Every woman that I encounter is just a new song. 

What are the responses from your female fans like?

Eric: The coolest thing is like with the name Imani for example, sure that was about one Imani. But how many girls have the name Imani? I’ve never had a song with my name in it. So I love that. I know not all Imanis aren’t bad. You guys are great. 

Imani reminds me of the song Jasey Rae by All Time Low

Xelan: Love that song. The ending just pierces my soul. 

As you evolve as a band, what other topics do you hope to explore lyrically? 

Eric: Real life things. The depression that comes with early adulthood, the anxiety that comes with the pressures of life in general. We all have pressures coming from somewhere, whether it’s parents, peers, your boss at work. When you talk about emotions, it’s a universal thing. Because no matter what language you speak, whatever walk of life you come from, you feel love, you feel hate, you feel angry, you feel sadness, happiness, joy, all of that. 

Donald: We’re not tryna fake the funk. We’re trying to make things that we actually feel vibes with. 

What do you want the future of pop punk to look like?

Eric: Us. A whole lotta Black people. All different walks of life coming in and doing it. The amount of times that we’ve heard from Black artists saying, “Man, I wish I had the balls to do that.” There’s always that fear. I had it when I started making these songs, that fear of ridicule. But I think even outside of just pop punk, the future of music should be people making whatever they want. Whatever they feel. If we want to make a pop punk album today and make a country album tomorrow, we should be able to do that.

PC3: Somebody said we know we’re in a recession when we’re making good music. 

Eric: We’re gonna make pop punk come back. 

PC3: Good recession music, fo sho.

I’m always hesitant to ask artists of color about diversity in their genres because it always results in one or two things: People really want to talk about it, or they really don’t want to and only want to talk about the art. Where do you guys lie when it comes to that?

Xelan: I want everybody listening–it doesn’t matter if you’re White or Black

Eric: I’m always down to talk about real shit like that and like my feelings on it. I never want to fake it.

PC3: It’s gotta be authentic at the end of the day. 

Meeting the band and getting to know them was something I had never experienced before: the feeling that you’re sharing space with a group of artists who are weeks, maybe even days, away from blowing up and flipping a genre on its head. From the minute they walked in, there was an electricity I even have a hard time putting into words now. 

I believe in Eric, Xelan, Donald & PC3’s ability to usher us into a new wave of the pop punk genre, one that is inclusive and gives artists of all backgrounds the chance to take creative risks no matter the traditions that came before them. I look forward to watching them grow and mature as artists and leaders in this scene. 

You can catch The Paradox on the remainder of the Games We Play’s Hello Ladies Tour, and then on All Time Low’s Everyone’s Talking Tour. You can follow them on Instagram and Tiktok @theparadoxband. 

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