The Summer Set: Then and Now

Who was a band I listened to a lot when I was young that I still go back to sometimes? Here’s a short little story:

Back in middle school I had one of those tiny iPod Nano’s, it was basically my first piece of technology that I owned. I didn’t really have a ton of resources to discover new music at that age, but I still managed. What I did have, though, was a sister who was six years older than me. So when I got my iPod, I downloaded music we already had from iTunes on our home desktop, and that’s where I started. It was literally music my sister liked, and I ended up liking it too.

My memory is kind of shit so I’m not even sure if this band is one that I found on iTunes from my older sister, or if it's one I found on my own or on the radio or something. It was definitely middle school though…most definitely middle school vibes.

*DISCLAIMER* I am not saying this is, or ever was, my favorite band. I’m also not saying their music was even that good…it’s pretty cheesy honestly. But the point of this story is that I liked them when I was twelve.

My twin sister and our best friend loved The Summer Set. And we liked it because we liked what they sang about. It reminded us of summer, it made us think about all the fun we were going to have when we were grown up. Who we were going to meet, future relationships, maybe some scandalous things… They were songs that we would scream at the top of our lungs to.

As we got older, we discovered our own tastes in music. But the Summer Set would still be shit we’d play whenever we wanted to just yell and dance and laugh. We’d be playing completely different music and then one of us would queue up one of their songs and the whole mood would change.

Nostalgia.

Every time we’d play their songs it was so nostalgic. It always brings slivers of memories from what we used to think about and what we had wanted back then. And then once we could drive, maybe it would be a drive session to the beach. Or sitting in the car drinking coffee in the winter.

We all went to separate colleges after high school. But when we are all together, one of us will sometimes queue up one of The Summer Set’s songs, just to belt out some cheesy ass lyrics. Sometimes it’s weird being older now with the experiences we had thought about so much about when we were young. Most of the time I wonder what was going through my mind at that age, and when we listen to some of those songs, I can kind of remember.

Funny coincidence, about two years ago I went to a show at El Club in Detroit. The opener TWIN XL was one we really liked, and we played their stuff on the way home from the show. It wasn’t for a while that I realized it was the same bassist and guitarist in TWIN XL that used to play in The Summer Set. That was kinda neat.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little story. I have plenty of bands like this that I mostly listen to for the sole purpose of feeling nostalgic.

Check out The Summer Set here.