TeamMate came into the world in a most unusual way — with a romantic split between the two members — and now celebrates its fifth anniversary with a full-length debut.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but Scott Simons, from Morgantown, and Dani Buncher, from Squirrel Hill, met in the late ’90s while at West Virginia University. Both were musicians, with him going on to play in power-pop band The Argument, and her playing drums for the Pittsburgh band Big Hurry, among others.
They dated for 10 years, some of it long distance, and finally got a place together in Pittsburgh. When she dropped the bombshell that she was gay, he moved to LA to process that and she went to New York (where she had previously worked for Arista Records). Having written a song about the experience, he invited her to add the drums.
Even though “Sequel” made it all so public, she loved the song, and they realized their friendship was strong enough to forge ahead as TeamMate, taking their cues from the last 40 years of synth-pop.
They released a 2013 EP and a few singles on Rostrum Records, the Pittsburgh label that, along with breaking Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller, had previously signed The Argument. It helped that Ms. Buncher also worked for Rostrum.
Now, with the duo now living just a mile away from each other in LA, they’re releasing a full-length TeamMate debut on Friday that builds on the earlier sound with more volume, more layers and bigger hooks.
“We were releasing a bunch of singles,” he says of the past few years, “and still learning about ourselves and trying to play to our strengths and amp up our show. After doing a bunch of tours [including arenas with OneRepublic] we had a better idea of what we wanted the show to be.”
Along with kicking up the drums, they realized that everything’s better when they sing together.
“On the new record everything is sung in unison,” she says in a conference call from LA. “We’re both up front on stage, we’re both up front on the record. That’s not something we started off doing.”
Their intriguing backstory sets the tone for the songs, like the two big synth-pop anthems “Nothing’s Ever Over” and “Damage,” where they sing, “Even if we get lost, keep running and hold on.”
“Those songs are kind of a good introduction to where we are now, as friends and as bandmates and as music partners,” she says “ ‘Damage’ was the idea of realizing when we broke up, if could find a way to get through hard stuff and this breakup — the emotional side of it all — that we could be onto something, whether as the band or as friends.”
“I think with the EP we talked a lot about the past,” he says, “and it was kind of a one-sided perspective of the story, but I think with this album, since we’re both writing, both singing, it’s got to be something we’re both comfortable saying. Every song takes a different angle of where we are now and this second phase of our relationship. There are also songs about us moving forward in new relationships.”
“Even though our story is very colored within the lines of the record,” she says, “there’s definitely some universal themes that I think can be very relatable.”
We’ve seen couples carry on in bands after breakups — from Fleetwood Mac to X — and it hasn’t always been easy.
“I think every creative person has a moment of self-doubt scattered throughout what they’re doing,” she says, “and we’re not an exception to that, for sure. I feel like we’ve already made it through the hardest part. We have each other’s support in so many different ways, it makes it easier to push through the tougher times where you start questioning things. It’s been easy to keep going. It feels great to be able to create with each other.”
Scott Mervis: smervis@post-gazette.com; 412-263-2576. Twitter: @scottmervis_pg
First Published: February 16, 2017, 5:00 a.m.
