THE OVERJOYED: A BAND PUTTING THEIR NAME ON THE LINE

Athens-formed punk outfit The Overjoyed are entering their most confident era yet. With a new self-titled, self-produced album landing on 20 February, the band strip things back to what matters most: identity, collaboration, and songs that hit hard without losing their heart. Moving away from the cleaner edges of their earlier 90s punk sound and leaning into dirtier, mid-tempo power-pop, the record captures a band fully owning who they are — and where they’re going next.

After more than a decade together, major tours, festival stages, and support slots with Green Day and The Offspring, this release feels like a line drawn in bold. It’s The Overjoyed, unfiltered. Below, the band break down the mindset, the shift in sound, and why this album marks the opening chapter of a new era.

1. Your new album is self-titled and self-produced, which feels like a bold statement this far into your career. Why did now feel like the right time to put your name front and centre like this?

I think there are many reasons we made this choice. Most of all is that we feel it’s a new era for us, as a band and as people, and we felt like the songs on this record feel like The Overjoyed that represent every member of the band equally.

2. You’ve described the record as moving away from cleaner ’90s punk into dirtier, mid-tempo power-pop territory. What sparked that sonic shift, and how did Pressurepop help bridge the gap between eras?

This question has a simple answer. I always write music that I would wanna listen to. So when our taste shifts, our song writing does too! We still love 90s punk to the bone, but we’ve always been into older stuff like The Buzzcocks, The Ramones, The Damned etc etc.

3. The opener “Can’t Write Music” tackles creative block and personal darkness with a striking sense of irony. How did writing that song help you process that period, and why was it important for it to open the album?

This was probably the fastest and easiest song I’ve written in my life. The only other time I’ve felt like this is when I wrote “Cartoon” and “If one green bottle”. During that rough era when I couldn’t pick up the guitar without wanting to throw it across the room or when my thoughts were so cloudy and overall having such a shitty mood all day that I could not write about anything. So I was like “Ok I cannot write anything, maybe that was it for me, I’ve lost it, it’s time to stop all these crazy rock’n’roll band stuff, I am an adult now’’. And then I just said fck that, and I wrote a song about not being able to write one. So it feels right to start the album with it.

4. This is the most collaborative release in the band’s history. How did sharing songwriting duties change the dynamic in the studio and shape the final sound of the record?

Absolutely! It wasn’t that we didn’t collaborate as a band before, It’s just that this time Thanos and Stef came in with really solid ideas from the start. Usually I brought the basic song ideas at first and most of them were almost already finished. There’s actually one song where I had zero input in it (apart from the lyrics) but the real missing link was Vangelis (Drummer) he pushed us to jam the songs live in the studio even before they were complete ideas. Furthermore his drum parts brought out dynamics in the songs and complimented them really nicely.

5. After years of touring, major festival appearances, and supporting bands like Green Day and The Offspring, what do you feel this album says about where The Overjoyed are now—and where you’re heading next?

Who knows, we try to not overthink that stuff. But I do feel like this era might be our strongest yet. The band feels super tight live and people seem to really connect with the new songs. We just hope we can keep making records and playing shows for as long as we can, especially in these weird times.