By John Semola
CCC Journalism Program
LINDENWOLD – Free Beer has decided to delay the release of its EP “Open Bar” from April 20 to May 3. The reason given for the delay is this was originally the release date for the constantly delayed game “Duke Nukem Forever” (PS3, 360 and PC). The release has been moved because of the band’s love and respect for the “Duke Nukem” series.
Guitarist/singer Anthony Hoch works on his music. By John Semola, CCC Journalism Program
Free Beer consists of two members: guitarist/singer Anthony Hoch and drummer/singer Phil Unto. The pair met in 2001 while both members were attending Paul VI High School. The band started as a joke about how so many bands’ lyrics were based on nothing but partying. The two decided to take this a step farther by not only naming the band Free Beer, but also by restricting the content of its songs to nothing but drinking.
“We bonded over a love of thrash (metal) and getting trashed,” states Hoch, jokingly. Unto adds, “Honestly we have always been good friends. Since the day we met, we realized we had similar tastes in music and humor. Since we already were jamming in our free time, we figured it would be wasteful to NOT do Free Beer. For the first few years the whole ‘free beer’ thing was still just a joke but once we came up with a few hits we decided to lay them down.”
Since Hoch is busy most days working at CVS and Unto is busy serving tables and going to school, the material has been a bit slow to form. In Unto’s words, “We try to get together as much as possible. We were never looking for music to be another job, just something productive to do in our time.”
“ ‘Open Bar’ has been delayed to simultaneously allow us to pay tribute to ‘Duke Nukem’ and possibly add a bonus track about the Duke himself. The new game showed footage of Duke getting drunk after only one beer and we felt we had to write a song about that blasphemy,” says Hoch. “No promises though, if the track does not make its way onto ‘Open Bar’ it will most definitely be a future release.”
The band is also planning on launching its Facebook page a few days before release to coincide with the cementing of its progress as a band. Never a pair to disappoint, its long-awaited EP is sure to appease fans.