Drop Nineteens

When Drop Nineteens disbanded in the mid 90s, Greg Ackell decided he would never make music again. He wouldn’t noodle around on a guitar in the basement. He wouldn’t get a group of friends together just to jam. He was done with music entirely. Following the release of the shoegaze masterpiece Delaware in 1992, and the intricate experimentations on National Coma in 1993, the group disbanded. They had a great run. They shared stages with Radiohead, Hole, Blur, PJ Harvey and Smashing Pumpkins. They went from being teenaged kids in Boston to mid-twenty-somethings with videos on MTV, sessions on the BBC, world tours and numerous festivals under their belt. So when Drop Nineteens ceased to be, Ackell felt content. He had the rest of his life in front of him to figure out what he wanted to do. Music was a closed chapter. That was until 2021, when a friend from the band’s early days got Greg on the phone to suggest making some music together, just to see how it felt. Instead of shutting it down like he had been doing over the years, he decided to entertain the prospect. For the first time in nearly 30 years, he picked up a guitar with intent. He immediately called up Steve Zimmerman, the band’s bassist and fellow guitarist, and the two got writing. It felt effortless for Ackell, like he never stopped writing music. “We were off to the races,” he says, “But also the question came up: What does a modern Drop Nineteens song sound like?” Enter Hard Light, their stunning third record.