Between marriage and fatherhood, a lot of life has happened in the years and months since Night Traveler released their 2021 album Dreams You Don't Forget. But as the duo of Adam Fischer and Hunter Glaske unveils a new chapter, they're acknowledging the challenges of maintaining an emerging band while balancing young families of their own.
That reality is evident on their new single "Stick Around," which arrived on Friday, the first release off the band's yet-to-be-announced second album, which they teased as their "best collection of songs yet."
Speaking with Variance ahead of the song's release, Fischer says part of the inspiration behind "Stick Around" were the very real conversations he and Glaske were having with each other in the time since their first project was released.
"We had kind of ducked for two years or so," recalls Fischer. "And it was in the middle of it and you're like, 'Should we keep going?' And I feel like it was kind of an answer to that as well. You know, we love what we're doing. And it can be difficult sometimes. You've got to pay the bills. And we're telling the people we love that we love doing it, but it's not always easy."
For Fischer and Glaske, both of whom are relatively private and social media-averse, their music has also served as a way of communicating how they're feeling, opening up about their personal struggles and even offering glimpses of their individual relationships.
"I don’t wanna run / When I wanna get out / When I wanna give up / I’m gonna stick around," the duo declares in part of the lyrics of "Stick Around," a song dripping with The Police and Bruce Springsteen influences. But despite those stadium-level inspirations, Night Traveler has long taken a more reclusive approach.
"We try to stay true to our actual personalities," says Fischer. "We've never been like, 'Turn the camera over towards me!' Even being super, social media-present, it's just not who we are. I think some kind of like playing that game and it's not bad, but I guess it's just not who I am."
Coincidentally, the band's slow-burn approach has attracted thousands of fans who have connected with their confessional lyrics and near-spiritual music offerings, drawing comparisons to the likes of The War on Drugs and The National. And they recently signed a new distribution deal with a label arm whose parent company was behind fellow Variance favorite LANY's 2023 album a beautiful blur.
For a band of Night Traveler's size, Fischer admits the usual "metrics" don't exactly add up from a label perspective. But for the band's listeners and followers who have latched on, they're intensely engaged. And now, as they unravel this latest chapter, the spotlight might be shining a little brighter, but the story and the guys behind the music aren't changing.
"If you need a TikTok every day or a post of what we're eating, you're not gonna love us," quips Fischer with a chuckle. "I do appreciate that we've done it our way. Yeah, it does feel like a slower accumulation of fans, but I feel like we have a really great community and our music means a lot to people."
He continues: "It's never like, 'Well, we need to write another song!' It's always very intentional."
And perhaps that's why their music hits in such a special way, because it doesn't seem forced. And as with so many great songs, the lyrics are tangible in a way that makes the audience feel like maybe Fischer and Glaske somehow wrote the song about them and their own struggles and their own story.
"Anytime we write a song, we have to connect it to something personal in our lives," says Fischer. "Legitimately, we're not trying to break your heart. We're literally writing about our lives and the things that matter to us. And it's so special to know it resonates with so many people."■
