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All-around Breakdown: Stud Wiser's Members Share Their Favorite Tracks from Debut Stud Wiser EP (3 Feet High & Rising Edition)

Stud Wiser in a live scenario (CREDIT: Kevin Michael Smith, @kms_foto)

Stud Wiser started as a two-piece just with drums and guitar, consisting of David Adler & Nicholas Malfara, during the height of The Pandemic. They lived close enough, at the time, and had a lot of similar interests, so they could still figured to get something going together. They've said a lot of the initial ideas and demos were very much in the vein of Royal Blood and/or The White Stripes. After Adler & Malfara wrote about three and a half songs, they decided to branch out to find some more people to help fill out the project. They were all friends through friends in other bands, so they decided to make a "super-group" of sorts. Malfara believes it's, actually, Matthew Grace's first band being a singer—previously only serving as a guitar/bass player—and he personally thinks "he's killing it." Malfara always wanted to do some sort of musical project with Chris Swanson and he was the perfect fit for the bill. Eric Anzalone was in a previous musical endeavor with Adler and Malfara says, "he was a shoe-in for this." Malfara told us he and Anzalone even shared a near-death experience together.


If you put all of those components in a blender and mix it up, you get Stud Wiser: two words. Malfara explains, "over this summer, we're gonna try and plan another short EP to "feed the baby birds.'" We've been talking to guitarist Chris Swanson through Instagram Messenger for a while now and have had a High-res advance of their Stud Wiser EP. We, actually, first met at a The Color Fred Bend to Break 15-year anniversary show/Terible Things original line-up reunion show at Underground Arts in Philly late last year. Swanson's other band, AMORA, was playing the show in support of their latest EP, Cutting Teeth, and opening up for their label boss, Fred Mascherino, and his bands. Swanson and I bonded over our My Chemical Romance shirts and the summer show we both recently attended at The Wells Fargo. I soon learned about Stud Wiser and here we are today, as they've released their debut EP. Malfara, Swanson, Grace, Adler & Anzalone were kind enough to do an All-around (track-by-track) Breakdown of sorts exclusively for The Witzard going through their favorite tarcks from the EP. Stud Wiser's Stud Wiser EP is now available on Bandcamp and will become available on streaming services fairly soon.


Matthew Grace: The themes of the songs spiral somewhere in between a dream and the end of the world. I think about bands, like The Doors, that had some perceived mysticism, that I think gave way for some of the darker melodies, like in "O12." August Axcelson, who recorded and produced the EP, also, drove the influences forward, specifically, in some of the more anthemic-sounding songs, such as "Stud Wiser" and "Nascar." There were moments and happy accidents in the studio layering different parts of the songs together that I think we're all really thrilled about.


David Adler: "Stud Wiser" is my favorite song because it's the most challenging to play for me. Lots of little things to remember throughout it. Definitely gave it the most thought drum-wise while writing it.

Chris Swanson: Aside from being the first song we all collaborated on, "Stud Wiser" is my pick. The whole extended chorus ending wasn't even supposed to be there, but it ended up working so well. Also, it's my favorite song to play live; just non-stop riffage from start to finish.


Grace: The exciting part of writing and listening back to the release is picking up on how many influences everyone packed into their respective parts. An example might be "The Desert," which captures some early Metal sounds before being interrupted with a big Pop-punk bridge—an unlikely pair.


Nicholas Malfara: My personal favorite on this release has to be the song "Nascar." It reminds me of a 90's Grunge song. It keeps going left and it's very fun to play. I get to use all [of] my pedals on this one when we play it live.

Eric Anzalone: "Nascar" - I think this song just sounds huge. The "just take it away..." sections are aggressive. Collectively, [it] has my favorite riffs—each one is solid. Top-to-bottom, [it] has the coolest guitar-work, in my opinion.

Stud Wiser (CREDIT: Abby Volpe, @abbyy_volpe)
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