From Bootleg Magazine (4/08):
"A quick assumption of the band’s name would promulgate ideas that the music is self indulgently heavy or down right aggressive. Or perhaps something tongue in cheek. This self titled debut from the Chapel Hill/Durham, N.C. area is one of the happiest rock albums in a long time - cheerful and first-rate, not calculated to help garner Nielsen ratings.
I Was Totally Destroying It takes powerpop rock and roll and lends it substance, credit and stability, never pandering to expectations grown from a corporate seed. It’s as if Jimmy Eat World and Weezer mated down south and gave birth to an unknown, and self assured, love child.
The album begins with an arsenal on the colliding and soaring ‘To Nomenclature’ and closes with a lament about the respect and longing for a local music scene on ‘Wake Up’ in which John Booker sings Growing up I was raised on your records/I know what this town can hold/Strangers come, stake their claim on the message/I hope one day we will rise again.
Many songs roll on with epic weight while remaining catchy and wildly energetic, harnessing indie rock fury and blending it with early eighties pop melodies. The latter gets its strength from Rachel Hirsh’s keyboard playing. Her sweet and sanguine vocals on ‘My Favorite Haunt’ are stated and moving, then supersonic. Both she and Booker have remarkable tones, high pitched and gleaming. This combination comes together brilliantly on ‘Sugar-Coated Lullaby’ and ‘Hey Alright!’
The slinky piano shuffle that opens ‘Truth is Tricky’ is a gem, a little Steely Dan and a little Rickie Lee Jones but scorching reality lyrically; I lied, I do it all the time/If it benefits me it’s all right…..I’ll never climb higher than the bottom rung/These feet are just too tired. ‘Today Don’t’ sounds like something The Outfield meant to record, and ‘The Background’ a soundtrack song from Real Genius that Marry Me Jane would have recorded.
I Was Totally Destroying It, for the most part, is an album that feels associated with good parties and moments spent with good friends lost over time. But there’s always the music for returning to that time and place."
- Brian Tucker
From The Daily Tar Heel's Diversions (10/07):
"...The entire album is built on a foundation of nostalgic summertime rock 'n' roll. Sonically, it recalls prototypical pop-punk bands like Saves The Day, more obscure ones like The Ergs and the poppy, punk-driven indie rock of Superchunk. The mixture makes for an energetic, youthful sound that sounds best flowing out of open car windows driving home from the Cat's Cradle an hour past curfew. And it's that fleeting but tangible feeling that I Was Totally Destroying It purposefully captures on its debut LP. "Oh your old back seat/My favorite haunt/I spent my summers in/These parking lots" sings Rachel Hirsh on "My Favorite Haunt," digging into the guts of adolescent love and boredom. When John Booker takes the mic, as on the album's (relatively) somber closer, "Wake Up," the tone takes a much more nostalgic voice. "Growing up/I was raised on your records/I know what this town can be," he croons in the ode to the glory days of Chapel Hill indie rock. I Was Totally Destroying It might want to be the next Superchunk, and with this album it might well resurrect the energy and passion that made indie rock so appealing the first time around - before "The O.C." and Zach Braff castrated it. But I Was Totally Destroying It has done something more. It has created that rare pop-punk record that doesn't need to be ashamed of itself. It's bouncy, it's emotional, and it balances the innocence of teenage songwriting with the nostalgia of no-longer-teenage songwriting in a way that is both refreshing and mature. The band effectively created an album that is solid in its own right and offers a breath of new air instead of some lame resuscitation of the old sound. And it tears the trendily apathetic diet-rock scene a new one."
-Bryan Reed
From Shuffle Magazine (4/08):
Comprised of five established Triangle-area musical veterans, whose ages span from 18-to-33, these rock-pop lovelies crank out unabashedly sunny melodies that remind us just what power indie pop can yield. They began their stage career opening for Cursive at the Cat's Cradle, and put out their first self-titled LP only months later, which has garnered a boatload of attention from local press and college stations alike.
-Eric Shepherd Martin
From The Independent Weekly (12/07):
(The Triangle's Best 35 Songs of 2007)
I Was Totally Destroying It - Summer State
"With its easy guitar-and-synth riffs and trumpeting of the Bull City, "Summer State" describes I Was Totally Destroying It's sound just right. Things are a bit carefree, and you get the feeling the band really believes anything that goes wrong can be fixed by being a little in love with Durham in the summer. What makes IWTDI so palatable is that the band is as fond of the present as it is nostalgic for the recent past. Such sincerity makes songs like "Summer State" infinitely repeatable."
-Margaret Hair
From The News & Observer (10/07):
"Saturday: I Was Totally Destroying It drops a self- titled new album that is rockin', winsome and pretty all-around amazing at Carrboro's Cat's Cradle."
-David Menconi
From Southeast Performer Magazine (1/08):
"Sonically, I Was Totally Destroying It falls somewhere in the 1990s. What separates this band from yet another North-Carolinian, Merge-Records-influenced pop smear, however, is its near-perfect use of triumphant choruses, dead-on harmonies, and strategic keyboard arrangements. The band’s new, self-titled CD somehow squeezes life out of a sound that has been milked almost to death over the past 15 years..."
-Harold Zimm
From AbsolutePunk.net (12/07):
"...There are a few tracks on this album that are absolutely stunning songs that I have not been able to get out of my head since I first received this album in the mail (“Conrad”, “My Favorite Haunt”, “Truth Is Tricky”) that prove this band has all the tools to possibly create a stellar sophomore effort. By the way, thank you to all the members in I Was Totally Destroying It for helping me battle the doldrums of winter with your enjoyable debut album."
-Rich Duncan
From Yes! Weekly Live Review (10/07):
"...The band has a new CD out, and their enthusiasm is palpable. The interlocking parts of the drums, bass and rhythm guitar bring a pummeling effect, like a hurricane punching into the coastline from the Atlantic, and the licks of the lead guitar player skitter across the surface like mercurial spiders. Okay, so they've pushed a little bit beyond convention, but the vocals are poppy, sweet and powerful. Altogether it makes for a pleasant listening experience."
-Jordan Green
From The Daily Tar Heel's Diversions Blog Live Review (10/07):
"...After four bands’ worth of glorious foreplay, it was finally time for I Was Totally Destroying It to show the audience that it was worthy of such an introduction. The band failed to disappoint, ably plowing through songs from the new record. IWTDI gave the songs an extra amount of distortion, lending them a harder edge than on the LP. After giving the crowd a taste of what they could expect from the album, the group ended their set with two covers, the second of which was a hard-hitting rendition of David Bowie’s “Suffragette City.” With members from the earlier bands helping sing onstage and almost everyone singing along in the crowd, it was a memorable moment and one worthy of culminating a gloriously jam-packed night of local music."
-Jordan Lawrence
From Wall Fly Blog Live Review (11/07):
"They are fairly new around here, busting onto the scene with a new CD and their own CD release party only a month or so ago. Despite having one of the longest, most difficult to remember or say band names ever, they play a great pop song. The chemistry is there, and rumor has it the lead guitarist/singer and most-talented keyboard/vocal/guitarist Rachel have a thing going on... love a little band love. The visual focus for this band flits between the sweet young Rachel, and the wild, open mouthed arms flinging and flying drumming of James Hepler, arguably one of the most enthusiastic drummers in town."
From The Independent Weekly's "Last Week's Party" Live Review (12/07):
Christmas at the Cradle: Indeed, it was a celebration of 300 that included garland-covered microphones, a stage full of mini-Christmas trees, a well-padded Santa and an armful of seasonal tunes provided by ten of the Triangle's best and brightest bands. Standout moments included Midtown Dickens' folk-tinged cover of Elvis Presley's "Blue Christmas," Schooner's Ramones-style guitar chugger "Merry Christmas" and I Was Totally Destroying It's shimmering cover of U2's "New Year's Day." On a softer note, the Trekky Yuletide Orchestra's cover of "Baby It's Cold Outside" was a real charmer, and the orchestra's swelling, symphonic strings made each holiday hymn lovelier. How about Santa(IWTDI led by drummer James Hepler) stealing the show on a nasty, blues-funk note?
-Kathy Justice
I WAS TOTALLY DESTROYING IT, is, among many things, a bit of a science experiment. For starters, the band recorded their debut album, 15 epic-yet-tasteful powerpop songs, after only 4 months of existence and just as many shows. That's not to say the group doesn't have experience- one of those performances was to a cheering packed-house opening up for Cursive and These Arms Are Snakes- another was alongside So-Cal's Ozma and The Actual. But the experiments continue- the band members range in age from "not legal" to "mid-life crisis"; in an intentional effort to preserve the raw and pure nature of the songs, the band gave themselves very little time to learn and fine-tune a massive amount of material(one song on the album, "The Background", was thrown together 2 days before it was recorded)- "I feel you can get bogged down doing too many re-writes; we've all been in bands where that was necessary and welcome, but I feel we're able to capture something that is low on pretense by just going with the initial idea of the songs and not worrying about how they might be perceived or what could make them 'cooler', and besides, it keeps things exciting", says singer/guitarist, John Booker. "There's a lot of truth on the record- the writing may not always be perfect, but it's us."
I WAS TOTALLY DESTROYING IT was born in the early months of 2007 in Durham/Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Booker and drummer James Hepler both come from over a decade of experience in the local scene(Hepler from the Saddle Creek Records act Sorry About Dresden, Booker from bands such as Strunken White, io, and also with Hepler- Erie Choir and En Garde). When Booker's songwriting project, En Garde, dissolved in late 2006, he and Hepler found new friends in keyboardist/guitarist/vocalist Rachel Hirsh, bassist Martin Anderson, and guitarist Curtis Armstead. "We all come from completely different backgrounds and experience levels and are all at different places in our lives, but it works and Rachel, Martin, and Curtis were the secret weapons that James and I needed to re-ignite our desire to play this music", says Booker. "Everyone brings something vital to the table, and while we may be coming from different angles, we all share a love of North Carolina's musical history, and an affinity for catchy, simple-yet-epic rock and roll. Oh, and all 80's pop."
I WAS TOTALLY DESTROYING IT will release their debut self titled full length in October 2007. With regional and bigger tours to follow as things get off the ground, this young band is going to use their spark and youthful energy to their advantage- after all, this is only the beginning...
I WAS TOTALLY DESTROYING IT's Friend Space (Top 32)
Hope y'all are having a grand tour! And we love the blogs! Rachel, how are you? You started out on the tour feeling a bit punk as I recall. -Hope you're better now.
Boys, now y'all take care of Rachel; you know she's the littlest and the youngest. -You know, like holding her hand when she tries to cross the ...freeway.
Just wanted to say GREAT show in St. Louis!! We all loved the new songs and the pleasure of your company.....hope you're enjoying the rest of your tour!
You guys rocked the 506. It is now time for you to rock this great country of ours. God bless the USA, and god bless you, IWTDI. Seriously though, have an awesome, awesome time and drive safely.
I told some friends of mine in Denver and San Francisco you all were heading their way in a few weeks. If we don't cross paths until later in the Summer, safe travels!
