“I can see if you’re on Twitter or on Instagram. I can read your phone,” jokes Addie Sartino, lead vocalist for The Greeting Committee, upon being asked if she has a message to fans coming out to see the indie rock band on their upcoming headlining tour. Sartino, a frontperson extraordinaire, has become known for calling out fans (both in person and via social media) who would rather snap pics on their smartphones than lend a helping hand when she crowd-surfs, or who choose to make “signs” for song requests via iPads and iPhones, as opposed to putting forth the effort to use good old fashioned markers and poster boards.
Although her comments to fans are largely in jest, Sartino does admit that she takes performing very seriously and hopes that her fans reciprocate the energy: “If you’re not feeling ‘on,’ I get it, but maybe just give room to the people in the crowd that are… I always give 100% and it gets pretty lonely when we’re not receiving that back.” She acknowledges that she may expect more from a crowd than the average frontperson of this day and age, but also clarifies that that’s much of the band’s charm: “I get it, I ask people to clap and jump a lot… Sometimes I’m like, ‘Do I wanna keep being bossy?’ But I’ve been bossy for 10 years and it’s fun!”
I’m chatting with Addie and The Greeting Committee bassist Pierce Turcotte via phone late last month, shortly after the June 21st release of the band’s third full-length, Everyone’s Gone and I Know I’m The Cause, their first independently released album and follow-up to 2021 breakthrough LP Dandelion. I last chatted with Addie in January of 2022, prior to a US headlining tour that sold out a February date at The Lounge at World Café Live almost instantly, while I last spoke with Pierce in November of that year, amidst the band’s To Feel Alright Again Tour, which included a local stop The Foundry and featured the band’s current lineup for the first time.
While longtime fans of The Greeting Committee seem to be enjoying the band’s new sounds on the album, initial reactions weren’t entirely positive. “I was really surprised at how hated ‘popmoneyhits’ was!” says Addie, referring to the LP’s lead single, a tongue-in-cheek pop banger which dropped in February and has been drawing comparisons to The 1975 and Charli xcx. The song features a chorus that boasts, “I want dirty dirty rich, babe. Dirty dirty rich. I want pop. money. hits, babe,” and a music video where the band appears alongside friends at a fancy dinner where they feast on cold hard cash.
“I think it’s just fun. It’s ironic, and I think a lot of people miss the irony of it,” says Addie of the track, but admits that she and Pierce recognize the track as a bit of a departure from Dandelion, a full-on indie breakup record: “I totally get it. That was the first song we put out from the album.” Pierce adds, “I’ve been surprised that there isn’t really a consensus of a favorite song… I think ‘popmoneyhits’ threw people off… ‘Sex and Taxes’ and ‘Little Bit More’ are low key songs, but have had some of the better receptions, which was kind of surprising, but maybe not, as an indie rock band.”
“Little Bit More” is one of two tracks co-written with Chase Lawrence of COIN, a band of whom The Greeting Committee are longtime fans (In 2022 Pierce told me that COIN and Yeah Yeah Yeahs were his first choices for tourmates.) “He kind of understood our dynamic right away… and he’s just a fun guy to be around,” Pierce tells me of Chase, who managed to pen the two tracks with the band in just the two days they had together. The album also includes a collaboration with Florida indie rockers flipturn, who opened for The Greeting Committee in Atlanta on their first-ever headlining tour and who feature on the album’s second single, “Where’d All My Friends Go?” “I texted Dillon and Madeline about it… I was like anything you want to try, I want you to do. There wasn’t a lot of back and forth, because they just crushed it,” Addie says of the collaboration.
Everyone’s Gone and I Know I’m The Cause’s title is a cheeky reference to the mid-2022 departure of founding members Brandon Yangmi (guitar) and Austin Fraser (drums), in addition to longtime manager. All parties involved have admitted that there are no hard feelings, but Addie does say that she suspects the change in lineup probably contributed to the writing and recording process behind EGAIKITC: “I like to say that, for the longest time, Greeting Committee records were made up of the four of us disagreeing about what to be, but this album was about us agreeing with each other.” She explains that maybe this has to do with her and Pierce having more in common taste-wise, but it may just as likely be the product of all of their time doing this together: “Maybe doing this for 10 years gave us permission to do what we did with this record and allowed us to do a more pop-cohesive sound… We’re not going to do another Dandelion album again, or at least not right now. I didn’t feel the need to do another 10 sad songs.”
Having begun in 2014, when Sartino and Turcotte (along with Yangmi and Fraser) were still in high school, 2024 is, indeed, The Greeting Committee’s 10th anniversary. The band’s official anniversary celebration will take place August 17th with the 10 Years of Blooming show in their hometown of Kansas City (They relocated to Nashville about a year ago, but Addie admits, “I always say we’re Nashville based, and Kansas City grown.”), but they’ll be unofficially celebrating for the next month on their biggest headlining tour yet, which kicks off July 9th in Atlanta and includes a July 16th stop at the Music Hall (the big room) at World Café Live.
Addie and Pierce tell me that the production on this tour will also be the band’s biggest yet, including their first time with professional lighting, something they’re quite excited about. “I love a big production. I love all the elements that go into a live show in addition to the music,” Addie explains. And while the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection did see The Greeting Committee’s current lineup – featuring longtime live member Noah Spencer and newcomer Micah Ritchie – at The Foundry, Addie tells me that she’s seen a definite change in Noah since that last appearance: “Noah’s been playing with us for six years, but last year, when we didn’t play many shows, I could see a light switch going on with him, realizing he’s not in the background anymore.”
Considering the band’s one-decade anniversary, I ask about some of the highlights of The Greeting Committee’s first 10 years, to which Pierce quickly responds, “We were in a Netflix movie!” referring to 2021’s To All the Boys: Always and Forever. Addie adds touring with Hippo Campus and Bombay Bicycle Club, writing with Chase Lawrence, and playing Lollapalooza to the list, before confirming that the movie really did feel like it put the band on a new level: “My family aren’t up on indie music, so anything that you can be like, ‘Hey, family! Look at this thing that I did!’ And being in a Netflix movie is something like that.” However, she admits that the biggest highlight may simply be, “the privilege of being an artist for the past 10 years.” And when I ask what they hope for the next 10 years of The Greeting Committee, Pierce tells me that he wants to collaborate with more songwriters and producers, while Addie sassily replies, “I want dirty dirty, rich!”
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