Wasted Society: Built in Hallways, Forged in Basements, Refined on Stage
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
There are bands that start with a plan, a meeting, maybe even a name before the first note is played.
Wasted Society wasn’t one of them.
The Beginning
It started, as Drew explains, in the most unromantic way possible: school hallways and downtime. “Originally Sam and I met in high school. We started out jamming on breaks during drama club…”
What came next wasn’t a straight line. It was more like a group chat that slowly turned into noise… then songs… then something that actually stuck. At one point, they were almost a seven-piece band. That idea didn’t last long. Things quickly formed into a much smaller and manageable 4 piece.
Before It Was a Band, It Was Just “Trying Stuff.” For a long time, Wasted Society wasn’t really a band in the way people picture it. It was more like a constant rotation of musicians, rehearsals that came and went, and drummers who never stayed long enough to become “the drummer.” Sam describes it like a long in-between era “For many years it was me, Drew, Mike, the original bassist, and whatever drummer we could find at the time.”
That version of the band didn’t break dramatically. It just slowly shifted. Sam added, “No drummer ever stayed around long enough.”
And then eventually, Mike left. That could’ve been the end of it. Instead, it reset everything.
The Moment It Became Real
Every band has that turning point where things stop feeling like a hobby. For Wasted Society, it wasn’t a show. It wasn’t a big break. It was a basement. “The moment it felt like a real band is when we started to record our original songs in our friend’s basement.” That’s where the shift happened, from playing songs to building them.
Sam puts it in focus. “It wasn’t just about being able to play songs anymore, but how well you were able to play them.” That’s the difference between jamming… and committing.
The Missing Piece Shows Up.
After years of instability and reshuffling, Drew and Sam made a decision that changed everything, they started recording the first album properly. That’s when Cortney entered the picture.
Cortney came in with a different background entirely, music production studies, live sound work, and years behind a drum kit that had mostly been a “hobby” until the right situation finally showed up. From that point on, things tightened fast. Not in a forced way, more like everything finally landed where it was supposed to.
The Sound Was Never Going to Be One Thing
Ask most bands about influences and you’ll get a list. Ask Wasted Society and you get a collision of eras that somehow doesn’t clash.
Drew’s world: Slash-era Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, Hellacopters.
Sam’s evolution: pop and video games into System of a Down and Avenged Sevenfold.
Cortney’s foundation: Motörhead, Van Halen, Black Veil Brides, modern alt-rock like Tonight Alive and The Warning.
But instead of pulling in different directions, something interesting happened. “The different sounds of all of our influences never really clashed. They always found a way to meld together really nicely.” And that blend is basically the fingerprint of the band now, somewhere between punk urgency, metal weight, and melodic rock structure.
When asked to define it without genre labels, they keep it simple. “Energetic, melodic, and familiar.”
Writing Without Overthinking It
Some bands treat songwriting like surgery. Wasted Society treats it more like a conversation. Drew describes it as structured, but loose in the right ways “We all come to the writing sessions with ideas, try them out, and start building from there.” There’s no ego locking ideas in place. No one gets attached just to be right. “We’re also not easily married to ideas and we’re pretty open minded.”
That attitude is probably why songs evolve instead of just getting finished. And sometimes, that openness actually changes the direction of a track completely. “At one point though, Drew had the idea to re-write and re-record lyrics… After the process was finished though, ‘Unbridled Honesty’ came out as a much better song.” The Studio Isn’t Always Controlled (And That’s the Point) Not everything in Wasted Society’s recordings is carefully planned.
Cortney recalls one of those moments. “Sam made a joke that made everyone laugh and you can hear that moment on the tail end of Never Chose To Play.” Most bands would cut that out. They kept it.
Studio Focus vs Live Energy
There’s a clear split in how the band operates depending on where they are. In the studio, it’s precision. Pressure. Detail. On stage, it’s something else entirely. Drew calls it “Reckless abandon.” Cortney adds. “It’s an opportunity to play the songs in a different way and have some fun doing it.”
That contrast is what keeps the music from feeling locked in place. The studio builds it. The stage bends it.
The Song That Best Represents Them Right Now
Even with a full album out, the band points to an earlier single as the clearest snapshot of where they are today. “It’s a little bit of a backwards answer, but our first single ‘Shake Me Don’t Wake Me’ is the clearest representation of the band right now.” Not because it’s the newest, but because it’s the first time the current version of the band really existed in one track.
What Comes Next
Right now, Wasted Society is in that in-between phase most bands never quite survive: established enough to have momentum, early enough that everything still feels open. They’re promoting their debut album, working on a documentary about its creation, and already writing what comes next.
“We’re already in the process of writing our next album which might even have a disco tune on it.” Strip everything back, the rehearsals, the recording sessions, the lineup changes, and what’s left is the part that hasn’t shifted since the beginning.
Friends making noise together, trying to turn it into something that lasts.
