When you think about places where people make a living writing pop hits behind the scenes, Nashville, Los Angeles, and New York City probably come to mind first. But for Mike Meiers, Pittsburgh has been the perfect place to hone his craft.
He’s fanatic about songwriting: learning about it, teaching it, and writing music for others. He’s also got a new project of his own, The Guard Owls, with fellow songwriter Maddie Finn.
“Our bands played a show at Kent State [University] at this weird little tiny venue,” says Meiers of how they met. “We played a show and it was great. And then we bumped into each other seven years later when we were taking a class, and we were like, ‘I can't believe it's you.’”
The duo tried writing together and ended up crafting a collection of very catchy indie pop songs that will be available throughout February and March. Their first single “Crazy” is based on the story of how Finn’s grandparents met. “We were trying to capture an old-school romance and how it escalates very quickly from like, ‘Hey, you’re great,’ to ‘Oh, now we’re married and this is forever.’ We wanted to walk through this verse by verse – this idea of growing old with them.”
“Crazy” from The Guard Owls will, appropriately, be out on Valentine’s Day.
