“Joe’s Cheesesteaks!” exclaims Nick Sampson, drummer of LA-based, self-proclaimed “emo-friendly, punk-curious” duo senses (who are ineffably friendly, themselves) when I ask the band their favorite thing about Philadelphia. senses lead singer/guitarist Madison Taylor goes on to explain, “We walk to Joe’s pretty much every time we’re there, and not even on purpose, but after soundcheck, we’ll just be like, ‘Let’s go to Joe’s!’”
Sampson and Taylor – who came together in 2019, after meeting on Craigslist — have played The Fillmore’s complex a handful of times in recent years, both at The Foundry and the main room, including a March 2023 show supporting singer/songwriter Carlie Hanson at The Foundry and a date that October opening for pop-punk legends Boys Like Girls downstairs (They also played Underground Arts with electropop chanteuse Leah Kate a month prior to their local stop with Boys Like Girls.)
The last time senses were in town, they provided direct support for alt-pop vixen Charlotte Sands at The Foundry (a show that our phriend Cloe Wilder opened), and during a February chat with the band, Taylor tells me that that run with Sands served as a pretty significant milestone in senses’ history: “Oh my god, that tour was really cool for us! We hit some sort of magic algorithm or something when we were on the road with Charlotte.”
Following that tour, senses signed with Hopeless Records (home to phriends of PHILTHY Destroy Boys and Pinkshift), who released their sophomore EP, i’m still breathing, on March 14th. The band are a couple weeks into their first-ever headlining tour, which includes a return to The Foundry this coming Sunday, March 30th, and Taylor says that she’s honestly quite amped for the local performance: “We’ve played The Foundry before many times and I love that room, so I’m genuinely excited for the Philly show!”
However, there were a few other dates on the tour that they also admitted they were exceptionally excited about. “I’m selfishly excited to play in my hometown, Fresno [which was the tour opener]. We’re going to my hometown for the first time ever and all of my family and friends will be there. And some of them have seen me play, but they haven’t seen senses,” says Sampson, with Taylor adding, “For my own selfish reasons, I’m excited for the Orlando show, because my 98-year-old grandma lives there, and she’s gonna come out!”
But they tell me that the headlining tour itself is really just the perfect way to celebrate all the fans that they’ve earned in recent years and provide them with the show that they’ve always wanted to. “We’re about to do our first headlining tour. Before this, it was always support, and we love playing any show, but I think we still get really shocked and excited when you still have people come out to see you. Like, we did the Carlie tour, the Leah tour, the Charlotte tour, and we’d have people come out and be like, ‘We saw you at that show and we had to come back,’” Taylor explains, before Sampson chimes in: “In those moments, when those fans come up and say, ‘We came here just for you,’ and maybe we only played a 20-minute set, we’re like, ‘I wish we could’ve played longer for you! We wish we could’ve played an hour for you!’”
And Taylor says that senses are definitely making the most of these longer sets: “There’s gonna be some surprise songs that we haven’t played in a while, or have never played, that might surprise people. There’s gonna be a good mix.” But she says that some things fans have come to expect of a senses show will never change: “Energy is definitely our middle name. We love to bring a high-energy show… I really don’t think there’s gonna be a dull moment.”
While Taylor and Sampson tell me there is something fun about playing the kinds of mega-stages that the Boys Like Girls tour put them on, Taylor admits that she does prefer the kinds of spaces they’re currently playing: “Honestly, I like the more intimate rooms. It feels like a different kind of thing with the audience. The big rooms are nice, but there’s usually a big barricade and there’s a lot of space between us and the audience, so it’s harder to create the intimate feeling.”
For those coming out to the shows (which you should be!), senses tell me that you should definitely make a point to get there early to catch the support sets from Negative 25 and MVSSIE, who are both very dear to them. “We really like both of them. When it came to choosing the support bands, one of the first things Madison and I really wanted to focus on is we really wanted to bring friends,” says Sampson, while Taylor adds, “It’s an eclectic mix. MVSSIE is on the heavy side… Negative 25 is just really fun… If you come out, it’ll check every box!”
In addition to the headlining tour, senses tell me that i’m still breathing also represents a new chapter in the band. “There’s a weird pressure artists put on themselves when we put something out first, but then for this one, we were like, ‘Let’s just make this fun and what we want it to be!’ Like, for ‘diamonds on your dagger’ we were like, ‘Let’s just make something fun out of it,’ and then when we heard it in the studio were all jumping up and down!” Sampson tells me, with Taylor admitting that this is the first time the band weren’t simply releasing all of the music that they had. The new process has apparently been fruitful, as Sampson says that, on top of more touring, senses already have their next wave of music that they’re hoping to put the finishing touches on this year.
senses say that Hopeless has proven to be the perfect home for the band. “It’s really cool. Labels are tough, and I think people don’t really know that you still have to rely on your own work ethic for marketing and your social media network, and they were like, ‘We’re here, and we’ll help you if you need it,’ but they gave us a lot of creative control and freedom, so it’s really collaborative,” Taylor tells me, going on to admit to being a big fan of a lot of her labelmates: “They have PVRIS, and I’ve always thought she was really cool, and we caught a live set from Scene Queen, and her shows are so cool, and then we opened for LØLØ on the Boys Like Girls run, and she’s totally great.”
Finally, I have to ask senses how they came up with their “emo-friendly, punk-curious” classification, and Sampson tells me that the whole thing sort of began as a joke: “It started out as a bit. When the debut came out, people would ask what we called our music and we didn’t wanna be like, ‘We’re an emo band,’ or, ‘We’re a punk rock band,’ so we were joking like, ‘We’re emo-friendly, punk-curious,’ and then we were like, ‘Let’s throw it on a hat!’”
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