The six of us are gathered around a high top in the aptly named McSwiggan’s, a short walk from the Hoboken PATH station. We banter about the pub’s surprisingly modern marvel of an order-to-table QR code. Even though it’s our first meeting—or at least, my first meeting—I get the sense that we’re old friends catching up. Which isn’t too far from the truth.

I’m the outlier, of course. No Soap Radio—not to be mistaken for the homonymous group that appeared in Season 4, Episode 5 of The Sopranos, although similarly Jersey-hailing—have been playing together as a band for more than a decade. The depth of their familiarity is evident in their banter, which has the inadvertent benefit of putting me at ease.

Jake Rubenstein (drums), Drew Coll (lead guitar), and Erica Lynch (vocals) first met at School of Rock while they were in high school—or, in Jake’s case, middle school. Outside of the after-school program, they started playing covers together, Radiohead and whatever else struck their adolescent fancy. Soon enough, they needed a bassist, and Drew onboarded his younger sister Riley Coll. With time, the band grew to subsume now-guitarist Jay Blezow, a friend-of-a-friend or something of the sort.

Interspersed throughout northern New Jersey, their interest in music was nurtured by the state’s arts-oriented public school system, at least for a few of them. They exchange memories of high school coffeehouses and battles of the bands, which served as training grounds for future shows. “You want to get your worst stage performances out of the way when you’re 14 or whatever,” Drew quips. “Nobody can say you’re unprofessional because you’re, like, a child.”

A familial thread interweaves each of their paths towards music. Riley recalls following in her brother’s footsteps, Drew’s journey into music spurring her own motivation to learn to play. Erica, too, followed her older brother into School of Rock and towards her own sonic awakening. “He kind of inspired me. I didn’t know what emo music was until he found Daughtry and Green Day for the first time,” she jokes. “Then he showed me Paramore, and I was like, oh my god.”

Growing up, according to Jay, “everybody wanted to be in a band.” (Which might explain the breadth of musical talent that’s come out of New Jersey. To name a few hard-hitters: The Misfits, Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Whitney Houston, Yo La Tengo, The Fugees, and My Chemical Romance. On the newer side of things, think Pinegrove, The Front Bottoms, Bleachers, and The Happy Fits.) At the time that he joined No Soap Radio, Jay had already played in a few bands and came in on bass, subbing in for Riley. “I was playing bass, because you always need a bass player. Everybody wants to be guitar, nobody wants to be bass.” However, he first taught himself how to play the guitar for his sibling who was severely disabled and unable to see. “He loved music so much, and that’s kind of why I started.”

Jake, the youngest of the group, believes that his musical inclination has prenatal origins. His parents were regulars at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, where Yo La Tengo’s Hanukkah shows were first conceived in 2001. “My mom went to a Björk concert when I was in her stomach,” he grins. She also purportedly spoke to Beck, Jake still in her belly, as he brushed past her after a set.

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In the three years between Circadia (2023) and the Live from the Garage EP, which made its way to YouTube and streaming services in August 2026, “We just played the shit out of our last album,” Erica states. Propelled by boredom, the band decided that they needed to write new songs to have new kinds of fun. “It definitely does come to a point where we’re like, we can’t keep doing this at every show,” Riley affirms with a laugh.

Because a bulk of their time spent together as a band is spent performing live, the role of the audience is a major consideration in the writing process. They intentionally create suspense, hoping to get a reaction from the crowd. In a big way, their audience has been as much a part of the band’s maturation as the members themselves. “It’s the same 10 people that come out to see us,” Jake jokes. In part, it was an appreciation for their loyal friends that inspired them to release new music after three years of playing Circadia: “We don’t want to torture them.” 

Much of the band’s songwriting process has been iterative by nature. “We’ll write songs, and then we’ll start playing them at shows, sometimes unfinished, which means we might end up changing it,” explains Jake. “Rehearsing the songs for the shows will be kind of like writing them, so that’s always fun when we have new ones.” 

While Drew is largely the engine behind the band’s arrangements, Erica served as close counsel throughout the EP’s writing process: “I don’t have as much creative vocabulary because I don’t play guitar really, so I would just kind of ask questions to kick the can down the road.”

Through weekly phone calls, the pair bounced ideas off of each other to develop the three tracks featured in the August release. “I really struggle with writing lyrics that I’m happy with,” says Drew. “I can do it, but it’s much harder work for me than writing or arranging a song. So it’s super helpful, especially to have someone to bounce ideas off of. It’s so great to get instant feedback.”

Their first release as totally, undeniably, fully-fledged mid-20s adults, Live from the Garage explores quintessential quarter-life themes: quitting nicotine and hating your boss. Distinct from subject matter of the past, the EP offers a reflection of early adulthood, inspired by the songs that shaped their adolescence. “We grew up on emo-adjacent indie rock, and a lot of that is very relatable. It’s super earnest and self-aware. I feel like we’re trying to do something like that,” Jake explains. Musically, as well, the band’s latest release is a departure from their previous sound, which Erica describes as “simpler.” In comparison, now, they’re “songcrafting,” jokes Jake.

While Erica cites a shift towards prog rock in the latest EP, I would argue that a few tracks on the band’s 2023 album, primarily written by Jake and Drew, already lean in that direction harmonically. “There’s a lot of weird moments on Circadia,” asserts Jake. Listening through, a broad spectrum of influences is evident in the diversity of sound, which is supported by Drew’s recollection of musical inspiration during that time: Foxing, Elliott Smith, ‘90s Radiohead, Jonathan Coulton, to name a few.

Shifting from more straightforward time signatures of the past to complex meters and syncopated rhythms, the band edges towards math rock in the opening track “QUIT” and traverses across the landscape of genre with “RAGE” and “NICE TRY,” not quite settling in any one place. “We like to take an idea of a song and then just fuck it up somehow. I think that’s kind of our formula, if there is one,” states Jake. “We like to make our songs hard to listen to,” Drew adds jokingly.

By nature of a long-standing project, members support each other musically, both within the context of the band and outside of it. According to Jake: “We all have our own lives musically. And then when we get back together, we might talk about what we’re listening to, and what we want a song or product to sound like. But we all bring in different stuff, and it’s getting to the point now where you can tell who brings in what.”

The synergistic process has also deepened their creative bond, reflected Erica: “Before, in our songwriting, we hadn’t had as much confidence to be like, no, don’t write that. Even though we had already known each other for so long when we wrote the last album, I think we finally reached the point where, like, saying that I don’t like this lyric is not going to hurt anyone. It’s fine.” 

Not only has the depth of their relationships with one another supported their creative development, it’s also supported their growth as people. The group has gotten good at disagreeing, having grown up together and having had to navigate differing opinions constructively. “[The band] has kind of been an experimental ground to test out my ability to navigate conflict with other people,” explains Erica.

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While Live from the Garage is genre-bending and explorative, it’s certainly not a hard listen. If anything, it’s fun. The playfulness that pervades No Soap Radio’s interpersonal dynamic—which includes 12 years of collaborative music-making, and even older friendships—comes through in the music. It’s clear that they’re having a good time making it. 

Live from the Garage was recorded and filmed in Jake’s parents’ garage by Kelp Digital, a NJ/NY-based production group founded by Jake (who serves as line producer) and producer/director James Harkins, supported by a group of students from Montclair State University and Stevens Institute of Technology.