LOS ANGELES, CA- Back in the early 2000s, The Ataris were a staple of every pop-punk kid’s mixtape. Their breakout album So Long, Astoria offered road-trip anthems and late-night laments that were tailor-made for burned CDs and backseat singalongs. For me, they arrived during my senior year of college—an unlikely kinship for a guy from L.A. County living in an Upstate New York fraternity house. Despite their roots in Anderson, Indiana, I claimed “San Dimas High School Football Rules” … San Dimas is in Orange County, mind you… like it was my own backyard.
It’s been over 15 years since the band’s last full-length release, but now frontman Kristopher Roe and The Ataris are back with a new track—and a new emotional weight. “Car Song,” the first single off their forthcoming (and still untitled) album, isn’t just a return. It’s a reckoning. It’s a road hymn soaked in grief, memory, and a flickering hope that still refuses to die.
Recorded straight to analog tape and saturated in vintage tones, “Car Song” is a tribute to Roe’s late father, William, who passed away in 2014 due to complications from alcoholism. It’s a deeply personal song, but it’s also written with the kind of lyrical transparency that made The Ataris beloved in the first place. Roe doesn’t mask sentiment in metaphor. He gives it to you straight: “Now this victory dance, it belongs to you and I.”
The lyrics are filled with rusted Americana—abandoned factories, state-line shadows, drive-in nights, and a car-crash heart born in the blizzard of ’77. There’s something beautiful in how Roe ties personal and generational memory into one long, wistful road trip. California becomes a mirage, a dreamscape. The Midwest becomes haunted terrain. And the ghost of his father is somewhere in the back seat, riding shotgun in spirit.
The vinyl release of “Car Song” takes that metaphor even further. Roe partnered with Hellbender Vinyl in Pittsburgh to press a limited edition 7-inch that literally contains his father’s ashes. As far as tributes go, it doesn’t get more intimate—or more punk rock—than that. A portion of the proceeds will go to Shatterproof, a nonprofit dedicated to ending addiction.
There’s also a wild footnote to all of this: the band’s new studio sessions were kickstarted when Roe traded Walter White’s Volvo—yes, the one from Breaking Bad—to his producer in exchange for recording time. It’s one of those strange origin stories that feels perfectly on-brand for a band that’s always thrived in the space between earnestness and mythology. Truly, a “Car Song”.
With “Car Song,” The Ataris aren’t just back. They’re evolving. Roe’s voice is more worn, but it’s also wiser. The music has softened in some places, but the weight behind it has only deepened. This is a heartfelt continuation of a story that still has more to say. And for those of us who came of age to So Long, Astoria, it’s a reminder that the road goes on—and sometimes, the victory dance is simply surviving long enough to sing another song.
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