Meet Metaphor. The band, composed of Carter Mattingly (drums), Teddy Burch (lead singer/guitar), Jacob Hawkins (bass), and Luke McLaughlin (lead guitar), hails from the local San Diego music scene. Either in high school or graduated, their music seems to encompass all those adolescent feelings; consequently, their crowd is jam-packed with young, excited San Diegans eager to start their own lives. Their album, created in 2023 and called “this one’s for the ‘losers,’” rings of electric indie guitar and inspiring lyrics. Below are a few burning questions answered by the band themselves about their past, present, and future.  

WHERE DID THE NAME METAPHOR COME FROM?

“The name ‘Metaphor’ I think genuinely just came from an 8th grade English vocabulary worksheet. It was so long ago that I truly don’t remember but I'm pretty positive that’s where it came from since we all shared an English class in 8th grade.”

HOW WOULD YOU CATEGORIZE METAPHOR GENRE-WISE?

“Our genre isn’t super defined as we just make what we’re feeling in the moment. I’d say if we had to define a specific genre…we definitely would say indie rock.”

WHAT PREVIOUS TRAINING HAVE YOU ALL HAD?

“The four of us have all been playing music for a while now. Carter and Jacob met in middle school taking a music theory class and then also played in worship bands together for church events.”

“Teddy has been in band classes all throughout school and in High School. Carter and Jacob met Teddy while playing in a worship band together for a church event.”

“Luke is the newest addition to our band! Luke has been playing in bands for so long and we met him while playing a show with one of his other bands!”

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO FORM A BAND IN THE FIRST PLACE?

“We were just bored kids who had a love for playing music. It started out as just jamming in a bedroom to ourselves and eventually led to a record deal and now jamming on a stage playing packed out venues.”

IS IT HARD TO PROSPER AS A YOUNGER BAND OR DO YOU ALL PREFER IT?

“There’s definitely pros and cons to being so young. We often get overlooked because we’re viewed as young kids who don’t appear to know what they’re doing, it often feels like we’re not being taken seriously because we’re young. Not to mention the fact that two members are still in high school having to deal with the stress of constant homework, school all day, and other extracurricular activities.”

“But we also know that because we have such a young start we have more time to learn and grow than a lot of other artists do which does give us an advantage.”

ANY ADVICE FOR THOSE LOOKING TO BREAK INTO THE MUSIC SCENE?

“Just do it and go for it! If you have a passion for music and love playing live music then just go for it and see where you can go with it. You might just surprise yourself too! You really never know what to expect when starting a band or doing anything in the music scene.”

“When we started we never expected to have a full album out, playing to 500 people in a backyard, driving to Utah for a show, or having a song become streamed over 100,000 times; we just expected to jam in a small bedroom. So we’d definitely encourage anyone to go for it!”

WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO EXPAND TO NEXT?

“We really want to expand our audience to further grow our opportunities to continue playing shows all around the US. We love our fans and have fans all over the country but we just need some more fans in more cities to make the travels worthwhile to reach our current fans.”

WHAT BANDS HAVE INSPIRED YOUR MUSIC?

“We’ve had a lot of inspiration from a lot of our favorite bands but some of the bigger artists who inspire us are Mac Demarco, Peach Pit, Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, Surf Curse, Title Fight, Pinegrove, and a lot more.”

WHAT ARE THE NEXT BIG STEPS?

“The next step for us is to finish making our second record and to just keep pushing forward as a band. In the next year, Carter and Jacob will graduate high school and after that, we hope to start booking small tours to eventually work our way up to even bigger ones. Most importantly we just wanna keep having fun making music together as we’re just best friends who happen to share a passion!”

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