KNOX

The result of this pause and subsequent reemergence of personalized storytelling is Knox’s long-awaited debut album. Going, Going, Gone is out now.

From a critical lens, the lead up to the release of the record was mildly questionable. Lead singles “Pick Your Poison” and “You Happened,” while perfectly serviceable, resembled past work and failed to push Knox’s sound forward, as does the rational inclusion of breakout hit “Not The 1975” at the tail end of the record. A full listen to the record would imply that these choices were strategic… a smokescreen of sorts to mask what was to come. 

“Yeah dude, I wanted all the singles to be like, ‘You have NO idea what this album is going to sound like,’” he says, confirming my suspicions with a cheeky smile and a quick glance over to the TV to check the score of a March Madness game. “And I think that’s true." 

Title track “Going, Going, Gone” is engaging and contagious from its first note as producer Cameron “Cam” Becker twiddles with light textural imprints of electronic pop ultimately serving as the vehicle for its pop-punk aura. Knox displays impressive bits of range across the tune, correctly landing strenuous tonal placements in his mixed register throughout the chorus and delivering a healthy, strong mixed belt at the climax of the bridge.

Elsewhere, “Voicemail” is notable for its nostalgia-driven guitar tones and melodic structure emulating early/mid-2000s pop-punk, the latter half of “50/50” is a relentless stimulant of pure strumming, gang vocals, and skillful adlibs, “Oxygen Thief” offers a heartfelt moment of infatuation without scaling down to nothingness, and both “Happy Ever After All” and “Head First,” the latter with Columbus, OH-based rock outlet Bilmuri, act as credible lashings of genre-focused specimens. 

If “Nevermind” was the secret weapon of his 2023 EP I’m So Good At Being Alone?, “Now & Then” remarkably fits that bill for this project. A smack talk Fall Out Boy-like heater, Knox’s lyrics, particularly those within the impressively cohesive thread of a chorus, shift from tangent to tangent. 

Each “back when,” sung with a healthy dose of force, is accompanied by a moderate amount of well-executed distortion and ushers in the back half of his lyrical tirade. There is a jaggedness to it that, regardless of vocal production, is a poignant and imperative aspect of the tune. 

“I’m kind of known on the internet for being soft, sweet, little Knox who just, like, sings his little breakup songs,” he says candidly. “And I’ve always kind of been a people pleaser. I’ve had a history of letting people walk all over me, but in the past year-and-a-half I feel like I’ve grown out of that. For this, I was like, ‘No dude… we’re talkin’ shit.’”

While in its developmental stages, Knox opted for a heavier, unruly take on the song that would have potentially risked its mainstream appeal. A collaborator reigned him in. “The producer on that song is Danen Rector,” he says. “Danen does all the Charlotte Sands stuff, he did the new Boys Like Girls and Under Oath records. An awesome rock producer. When we were making the song, I told him to really bring in the guitar and the live drums. He looked at me and said, ‘Let me try something weird on this. Let me make this a full-blown pop song, and if you hate it, we’ll rock it up.’ The way he heard it, he thought my voice sounded cool enough that it would shock people to keep it as a pop song. I was pretty hesitant, but once he put his magic on it, I knew that that’s what it was supposed to be.” 

He swings for the fences on “D.N.A” as well, presenting what is arguably the most effective hook of the record, and one simply salivating for audience participation: “I SPEND MY SUMMER HIGH… I SPEND, LIKE, EVERY NIGHT SO OFF OF MY FACE. YOU’RE STILL IN MY DNA.” 

“I can’t relate to that song, but we wrote it because I thought it was such a sick idea and because we wanted something that was SO anthemic for a show,” he says. “I hope people hear ‘D.N.A’ and laugh. I know most artists aren’t supposed to say, ‘Oh, I don’t relate to my own songs,’ but… if a song makes YOU feel something, we’ve done our job."

"It doesn’t matter how I feel, it matters how the listener feels. Literally anything to put a smile on somebody’s face is always the goal.”

While there are certainly scraps and fragments of truth on this record, that perspective of favoring audience relatability over realism is present across his growing catalog. 

“Part of the appeal of my music is that I never take myself, or anything, too seriously,” he says with a shrug. “These are just songs that I want people to show up and have a good time to. We’re writing these stories being like, ‘We know people have been through this before. How do we put it on paper?’ I called this record Going, Going, Gone, because this is my debut album. I had the first two EP’s, and they were the Going, Going… and this is the Gone. This is the best music we were capable of making at this point in time. Without those two EP’s, we don’t get to this. That’s more so what the concept of the record comes from, rather than the actual lyrical content.”

The word “we” is a constant for Knox. Throughout this conversation, he offers effusive praise for his collaborators, team members, and inner circle for their ability to push him further artistically, professionally, and personally, as is the norm. 

“I’ve written a majority of my catalog with Spencer Jordan, my best friend and best co-writer,” he says. “He and I did every song on the record with the exception of the Bilmuri song. Will Carlson, even if he’s not listed, did the vocals on almost every song. He does a really good job of making sure the delivery… on every song cuts through the hardest on certain lines. Everything is intentional. Spencer brought out the best in me vocally. He’d say, ‘I KNOW you can sing. Let’s write things that show people that you’re not just some guy yelling into a mic. You KNOW how to sing and do things properly, so let’s showcase that.’”

"The shows aren’t possible without my band Christian Delzoppo and Johnny Townsend," he says. "My producer Cam Becker is joining us on the road this time as our fourth guy onstage. None of it happens without Spencer, Will, my managers, even my girlfriend. It’s too big of a family operation for me to sit here and do interviews and take all the credit for it. I think once you say ‘I’ enough times, you start to believe it and it’s a recipe for disaster. I always want to make sure that the people who make this happen know how appreciated they are. At the end of the day, I look at this as me and all my friends’ project. My part of the job is that I have to be the person to sell it. I’m the face of it. My dream is that, whether it’s this record or fuckin four records from now, that one day I’m in a position where we can do all of this together. I want people to meet Christian and Johnny out in public and be just as excited to meet them as they would be to meet me.” 

Knox officially wrapped the US leg of the Going Going Gone Tour, supported by The Wldlfe, in Nashville this past weekend. Prior to heading out, he was viciously confident. "The show is going to be epic," he proclaimed. "My whole music career has been people showing up to listen to me sing songs. This is gonna be, like, a SHOW. And that's all I gotta say about that." He was right. 

The New York City show, a sellout of Webster Hall, was an astounding evening. Upstairs was a rare public coming together of numerous major players within the indie pop community as the intersecting tour schedules somehow worked in their favor, while the crowd down on the floor generated the kind of palpable electricity reserved for artists on the cusp of the proverbial rocket ship. Not allowing the moment to be the sole recipient of the hype beast, Knox himself delivered the most dignified, self-sufficient performance this writer has seen of his to date. Social media content from later nights of tour displayed a similar exuberance... a similar unspoken signal of the rise that has occurred. 

He will embark on a European leg of tour this coming September. Tickets are on sale now.