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2 days ago9 min read

Catching Up with Emblem3

Updated: 4 hours ago

Catching Up with Emblem3

By Emma Fox

Philadelphia’s Kung Fu Necktie buzzed with excitement and anticipation as fans gathered for Emblem3’s Philly stop of their “Super Happy Storytime” tour. Known for their infectious pop and beach-rock vibes and heartfelt acoustic tracks, the trio, consisting of Wesley Stromberg, Keaton Stromberg, and Drew Chadwick, brought an intimate twist to their usual performances. The tour is a chance for fans to have an intimate acoustic experience with the band, engaging in meet and greets, Q&A’s, waves of nostalgia, and an all-around incredible time. Emblem3 put on quite the show, stripping things down to just guitars, bass, harmonies, and plenty of candid moments that felt just as powerful as it was intimate.

The evening had a special energy from the moment the lights went low, and the trio took the stage. As they kicked off a setlist filled with a blend of nostalgic tracks and fan-favorites, the crowd sang along to their favorite songs, including “Tequila Sunrise,” “Sunset Blvd.,” “Chloe (You’re the One I Want),” “Girl Next Door,” “Rush,” and their latest single, “Looks to Kill.” Between songs, the guys took time to answer questions from the crowd, sharing stories about their journey, and sharing laughs with fans. The acoustic set was a testament to their growth as artists over the years and was so much fun to watch. Seeing Emblem3 on a stripped-down tour highlighted their raw talent, and their appreciation for their fans, as the night showcased their ability to connect with their audience on such a deep level.

Over the past 11 years, we’ve had the pleasure of chatting with the boys of Emblem3 a number of times. Before the Philadelphia show, we had the chance to catch up with Wesley, Keaton, and Drew backstage for a long-overdue chat, as it had been eight years since our last interview with them in 2016! With nearly a decade of growth and new experiences behind them, we reflected on how their sound has evolved, their creative process, favorite holiday traditions, and what’s next for Emblem3 in 2025! Here’s what they had to say:

You’re currently on the “Super Happy Storytime Tour,” an acoustic tour! What made you decide to do an acoustic tour, and what inspired the name and concept for it?

Keaton Stromberg: We’ve always wanted to do an acoustic tour, like a legit one. We’ve done a couple in the past, but it’s been a really long time. We did one in 2014; it was supposed to be all three of us and then Drew was not there unfortunately. So, we decided to do it again, and we really wanted to tour this year, so we got this together last minute.

Wesley Stromberg: It’s like a pop-up!

Drew Chadwick: There were two big bands in our hometown growing up, one of them was our old band, which was called The American Scholars when we were teenagers, and the other was a metal band called Super Happy Storytime. They were all in their early/mid 20s, and they were the shit.

Wesley Stromberg: Everyone looked up to them, like “oh they’re so cool,” everyone wanted to be like them.

Drew Chadwick: They came to our school, and they taught us that – I’ll never forget it – I actually ran into the guy at the skatepark a couple years ago and told him this. I was like “how do you say Donkey Kong backwards?”, he had like two kids with him, all grown up, had a polo shirt, totally different style, still covered in tats, and he’s like “what? what are you talking about?” and I was like “Gnok Yeknod!”. He was like “what are you talking about?” I’m like “Donkey Kong backwards, you guys came to our biology class, and taught us how to say Donkey Kong backwards, and then started talking about the banking cartels hierarchy over finance.” Yeah, it was crazy.

Keaton Stromberg: Very deep.

Drew Chadwick: It’s fun to take little things like that from the early days and have them find their way back later in the cycle.

On this tour, you’re playing some new songs, some old songs, and some of your solo tracks as well. Are there any songs on the setlist you feel take on a new life in an acoustic setting?

Keaton Stromberg: Oh, yeah.

Wesley Stromberg: Definitely.

Keaton Stromberg: I feel like a lot of our older songs, specifically the ones we did before even the X-Factor, those were kind of always meant to be played this way. Even the recordings don’t really do it justice, so now I feel like doing it acoustically feels amazing.

Drew Chadwick: There’s a lot of extra space to mess around.

Wesley Stromberg: Like “Reason,” “Riptide” ...

Keaton Stromberg: “Tequila Sunrise,” “Sunset Blvd,” those songs.

I know you’ve played a couple of shows already, how has it felt to connect with fans in such an intimate setting, and have there been any standout moments so far?

Drew Chadwick: Well, there was a standout moment last night when that drunk dude started talking shit and we had to kick him out.

Wesley Stromberg: (laughs)

Drew Chadwick: Boston’s always crazy, every time we go there there’s some bullshit. But the engagement with the fans has been next level. There’s a whole other dimension of veil that’s lifted, we engage with them in a Q&A thing between songs and stuff, they always have some interesting questions, a wide variety of questions which is fun.

Is there a favorite question you’ve gotten so far?

Wesley Stromberg: I feel like there is.

Drew Chadwick: That’s a good question.

Keaton Stromberg: I got asked who my Mario Kart character is.

Who is it?

Keaton Stromberg: It’s Dry Bones, all standard kart, if we’re talking new school Mario Kart.

Drew Chadwick: Is that the guy from Mario that floats? Like the weird guy with the camera?

Keaton Stromberg: No, it’s not that guy.

Wesley Stromberg: My favorite question was “how do you guys have such nice dumpers.”

Drew Chadwick: I was like “squats”!

Keaton Stromberg: It’s been very colorful so far.

Drew Chadwick: I mean they’ll hit you with a deep philosophical question like, “where do you source your inspiration to find the will to persevere through the all triumphant tragedy? Squats?” Squats are always the answer!

Keaton Stromberg: Always the answer.

Favorite song to perform live?

Wesley Stromberg: One of my favorites now off this tour, just found out, because we wrote a song like two weeks ago and we’re testing it out, and it has been amazing. It’s called “We All Look the Same in the Dark,” and it’s special.

Keaton Stromberg: It’s amazing. We actually have Blake – our tour manager, best friend – he jumps up and plays harmonica on it. It’s super sick. He’s been killing it out here.

Drew Chadwick: “Jaded!” There’s this quote, and you’ve probably heard me say it before, this is Jackson Pollock, the modern abstract expressionism painter from the 1940s who sold a painting for $160 million, his wife, who was his biggest supporter and muse had a quote that I saw at a play in New York, and it was “Like all good art it’s beauty grows”. The song “Jaded” was written over 10 years ago, almost 15 years ago I guess, and every time we play it it just brings me back to the simplicity of that time, and you think about how much time has went between then, and all the different experiences that have shaped you into an adult and growth as an artist as well, and that one always has meaning for sure.

You released your latest single, “Looks To Kill” in August, congratulations! Can you walk us a bit through the creative process and what it was like creating this track?

Keaton Stromberg: Yeah, that was actually, we were in talks with a label and so they were putting us in some sessions. We wrote with Eric Ron, he’s a big rock writer and producer. He does like Linkin Park, Bad Omens stuff. He’s amazing. It was our first time writing with someone else in a while.

Wesley Stromberg: Like since the Nothing to Lose album.

Drew Chadwick: Those are like hit or miss, you never know if the chemistry is going to be right and it is always kind of weird because there’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen, but that one came together really naturally. He was challenging us to break the fourth wall, type of thing, and push past our comfortability.

Wesley Stromberg: He’s a heavier rock producer, so he was like this is the perfect

opportunity for him to take a pop band to a different level.

Drew Chadwick: He was like “What would Drake do? Now apply that to a rock song.” I was like “What?”

Keaton Stromberg: And then it ended up working out great!

Wesley Stromberg: A lot of the melodic structures are similar.

How do you feel this song reflects where you are as a band right now?

Keaton Stromberg: I feel like it’s kind of circling back to our roots, even younger roots in the time Drew was just talking about when I was like 9 or 10. We were doing pop punk stuff at that point, just kids in our garage.

Wesley Stromberg: We were straight up hardcore.

Keaton Stromberg: This was before the beach rock phase, so making that felt like getting back to that world which felt really cool.

Wesley Stromberg: It literally did, it established that feeling again.

Drew Chadwick: There was a wave of nostalgia that hit I think when Travis Barker and MGK did "Tickets to my Downfall", it opened the floodgates for this sense of nostalgia for Millennials and young Gen Z people, and we were like “Oh! We’ve been wanting to do that the whole time.” It was like, everybody’s fucking with this so we might as well mess around and make something in this lane because that’s really a big part of our roots, and that’s the precursor to what ended up manifesting that sound. But where that leaves us now, we wrote that like a year ago, so it’s been a while. We moved to Nashville, and now we’re moving into this more timeless, wholesome thing which you’ll definitely hear tonight. But the beauty of the trio and having three different writers is you get the eclectic dynamic where you can do whatever you want, you know. There are really no boundaries, that’s the best way. Then you just choose which songs make you all the happiest and then run with those. I know I’ve had “Looks To Kill” on repeat, who are some artists you guys have had on repeat recently?

Wesley Stromberg: [singing The Dare’s “Girls”] “I like the girls that do drugs!” (laughs)

Keaton Stromberg: The Dare! The Dare’s awesome, I love The Dare. This guy Niko B, he’s a European house artist I guess you would say. He has a song called “Why’s This Dealer?” Also Wolf Alice, I’ve just been listening to a lot of Wolf Alice.

Drew Chadwick: We did our Spotify wrapped!

Wesley Stromberg: Mine was just all my own music (laughs)

Keaton Stromberg: Mine was a lot of my own music, but I had some Wolf Alice in there.

Drew Chadwick: I like this duo called Soft Play, they’re from the UK, and I don’t even know how to describe their style. It’s like punk but this fresh take on it where it’s also folk, and they just crush it.

Wesley Stromberg: I think some of my tops were Zach Bryan, just because living in Nashville now we listen to all that, also he’s like one of the biggest artists in the world now. But then I think my number one played song actually is “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” by Cage The Elephant.

With the holidays right around the corner, what are some of your favorite holiday traditions?

Wesley Stromberg: We usually go skiing, we usually go rent a cabin for Christmas, before or after.

Drew Chadwick: We’re supposed to be snowboarding instead of this tour actually, but then we threw a stick in the spokes. We had to do something. This year was a stalemate in some regards.

Wesley Stromberg: We got a lot of writing done! But we were supposed to tour a lot more. We did hit Brazil! That was amazing.

Drew Chadwick: We also moved across the country, so that takes months and months of

settling in and getting the mind mentally stable to get back in the creative mode.

Wesley Stromberg: But we usually go skiing and rent a cabin either before or after Christmas and do the whole family thing. I don’t know if we’re going to do that this year.

Keaton Stromberg: I’m excited to just relax, I’m excited to just chill.

Wesley Stromberg: I say we just throw a big slutty Santa's party at the house!

Drew Chadwick: Holidays, family, you know, friends and family, closest people in your life. It’s about that, hopefully we can make that happen.

Wesley Stromberg: We’re doing a Stella Studios party.

Drew Chadwick: We should do the Santa game! What’s it called? Secret Santa!

Wesley Stromberg: We’ll all wear slutty Santa costumes, we’ll give each other presents, and we’ll play some music.

Keaton Stromberg: What’s your favorite tradition?

My whole family loves watching The Grinch. We go see the Christmas lights when I’m back in my hometown, and then we watch The Grinch.

Keaton Stromberg: Do you watch the Jim Carrey one?

Jim Carrey one all the way! What’s your favorite holiday movie?

Keaton Stromberg: Die Hard.

Wesley Stromberg: Die Hard!