When The Summer Set returned from a four-year indefinite hiatus in 2021, it felt like a reset for the band. The Arizona quartet announced a two-part revival plan with the album Blossom, of which only Part 1was released in September 2022. Rather than sit on the follow-up, they reimagined the journey entirely and decided to start over with Meet Me at the Record Store, an album that shifts from “wait for the fruits to ripen” to a rallying cry of “let’s meet here, let’s do it now.”
Fresh off the stage at this years When We Were Young Festival, we sat down with lead singer Brian Dales to talk about what this era feels like: doors reopening, vinyl-era inspiration in a streaming world, and how a band that broke up a little feels like it’s been reborn.
You guys are heading out to Europe soon for a headlining tour. What else have you guys been up to?
Brian: We start our own headline tour in the UK in two weeks and we’re only over there for two weeks, up until Thanksgiving.
New album is out and we’re back and we are gonna play all the cities we can.
This is your second release since you returned from your hiatus. How is it back being with each other again?
We’ve all known each other for 20 something years, so it feels the same. We put out an EP (Blossom) when we got back together and then we made this new album.
Blossom, was supposed to be like part one of an album, and then we paused and said, ‘let’s start again.’ And now we made Meet Me at the Record Store.
Where does that name come from?
John and I were having a conversation about how we made this album, we were very proud of it and we wanted to figure out how to make an album that felt like an album experience in the digital single age while still understanding that like, this is the world of singles and Spotify and streaming.
So like how can you achieve both things? And at the time we were really fascinated by this idea that like a lot of movie studios right now are doing this thing where the movie will be only in theaters for a couple weeks before it goes to streaming.
And we [asked] ‘what’s the music industry equivalent to that?’ And we had this idea of putting our album out just on vinyl or on CD for a couple weeks before it ever came out on streaming. So that became the plan. And then from there it was like, ‘what if we just like make that the call to action and call the album Meet Me at the Record Store?’
When We Were Young Festival is a very large throwback to an era when you guys started out. If given the chance, what would you say to any current emos that you wish you could have told yourself 15, 20 years ago?
Live in the moment, it never ends.
I think if you’d asked me five years ago if The Summer Set would do this again, there was no plan to. Life is a very cyclical thing. We’re here and we’re doing it and it feels like we’re a brand new band all over again.
So what’s next?
I’m not saying we’re gonna tour all year next year, but we’re not, not gonna tour all year next year. If you live in any city, just be on the lookout.
We’re not going anywhere. More music: album, tour, and then hopefully another album after that. And we keep going.
Check out The Summer Set on tour:
Nov 9, 2025 // Southampton, UK
Nov 10, 2025 //Birmingham, England
Nov 11, 2025 // The Key Club
Nov 13, 2025 // Glasgow, Scotland
Nov 14, 2025 // Manchester, United Kingdom
Nov 15, 2025 // London, England
Nov 16, 2025 // Cardiff, Wales
