Strange Neighbors - People Pleasers Pleasing People (2025)

THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Strange Neighbors are a power-pop outfit from New York City. Their music combines influences from all corners of pop, crafting hook-filled songs that are bound to get stuck in your head. They draw inspiration from a diverse range of artists, and have been described as a queer mix of My Chemical Romance, The Beatles and IRS-era R.E.M.

Founded in Brooklyn by lead singer Aidan Strange in 2018, the band’s current lineup is a sleek four-piece with traditional rock instrumentation. Aidan channels a pop-punk passion by way of a teenage career in musical theatre. Drummer Beau Valentine contributes a similarly theatrical edge from behind the kit. Bassist Dana Bennewitz brings her jazz background to the band’s intricate underpinnings, and guitarist Zach Schweikert adds a jangly touch with his nearly exclusive use of a 12-string guitar.
Photo by Grace Puffer.

The band write songs as a group, with the common goal of a finely crafted earworm. Strange Neighbors self-released their first album How To Human in 2019, followed by a series of singles collected on the Illuminasti (2020) and Party of None (2023) EPs. They released Quiet Beat, a cover of an unreleased Doug Hopkins song, in September 2023.

People Pleasers Pleasing People harnesses a theme that weaves itself throughout — and which is along the lines of “laugh now, cry later.” Lyrically and thematically, the foursome journeys through difficult subjects like the desire to numb yourself from the world (or country) and the pain that comes with it, guilt-stricken breakups, learning to relinquish control, and when love just isn’t enough. “These are topics we think about and work through, but life is too short to not have fun — life is too short to not still try and dance,” says Strange. “So we maneuver through the difficult subjects with groove, contagious beats, humor, satire, and sometimes a bit of shouting.”

People Pleasers Pleasing People was recorded and produced by Mike Dwyer at The Bunker Recordings in Catskill, N.Y. The band has worked with Dwyer on nearly everything they’ve released. “The songs are much more lushly arranged in the studio than their live versions, so Mike is really great at helping us figure out those extra harmonies and overdubs that bring the songs up another level,” says Strange. “He’s also great at being the adult in the room and telling us ‘no’ when we start to get a little too crazy with overdub ideas.”