Being in a touring band in 2025 is far different than the rock star lifestyle that only the acts at the very top of the food chain get to experience. The sheer amount of music being made and content being put out around the world can make it hard to break out, but when the momentum starts to shift, there's plenty of excitement to come with it. That's what is happening right now for Los Angeles-based band Good Terms, whose mix of pop punk, emo, and metalcore is beginning to amass a sizeable following on TikTok and Instagram. The band are bringing that mix to X-Ray Arcade next Thursday alongside Youth Fountain, Sad Park, and Milwaukee's own Minnesota Fatts, and before the tour, we talked with frontman Brian McShea about the band's work ethic and their dedication to the road.

OMC: You're touring with Youth Fountain, and it's part of two tours that you already have booked. How did you get hooked up with that band to start?

McShea: We share a manager, actually. We’re managed by Casey Cavalier from the Wonder Years and Mark Woodbridge. So, yeah, we’ve been talking about this for nine months now. It's been a long time in the making. I’m glad we could make it happen.

OMC: Then you're going on tour with Emery as well. How do you keep that in check? That's going to make for a busy summer. How do you prepare for that much touring in a short amount of time?

McShea: Man, there's a lot of preparation. It used to be so much work just to get the band up and rolling. Last year was really our first year. We called it the year of becoming road dogs. It was our first year playing like 50 shows. So now this is the first time we're like, "okay, we have a set." We're going to change a couple of songs, but we mostly know what we're going to be doing. Now I’m just trying to stay in shape vocally. I’m also trying to stay in shape literally so that I can do spin jumps and run around and sing and whatnot. I'm trying to keep up the vocals, make sure I remember that I’ve got to do this right multiple times in a row.

I also do all the social media for the band, so there’s a lot of prep work for that to make sure that while we’re on the road, I have enough stuff—materials prepared or at least a plan. We just put out a new song called “Progress” ahead of this tour. The song was already written, but writing it with the band, recording it, getting the art together, getting it together for the live set—that was all stuff we had to do ahead of tour. A lot of work but a lot of fun.

OMC: Far beyond the old-school rock star motif, right? The old thoughts of being able to hang out and party and play shows from city to city?

McShea: Yeah. There’s absolutely none of that. Everybody is working pretty much the whole day. Ivan, our guitarist, if you haven’t seen our band, he’s physically imposing. He’s in charge of all the touring logistics. He does the bulk of the driving because he doesn’t like to physically fit anywhere else in the van. He builds all of our live rig himself. He’s always the one interfacing with the audio engineers in every venue. He’s always searching for wireless frequencies, fixing a cable, doing something.

Then Zach has been in charge of merch. We do now have a new team member, Victor, who does merch and video/photo content. But we’ll see if Zach actually relinquishes his responsibilities. Usually, as soon as we get to the venue, Zach is dipping to set up. He wants his merch setup to be perfect so nothing goes wrong and nobody misses the cool shirt or whatever.

I’m usually either trying to make social content or helping Ivan, because Ivan usually has three hands’ worth of work to do. Our drummer this tour is our friend Nick Cervone, who is our backup boy from Massachusetts that we love very much. He doesn’t have responsibilities outside of drumming, but setting up a drum set is a job in itself.

OMC: It’s a well-oiled machine. Everybody in the band has something they’re doing besides just being the guy in the band.

McShea: Yeah. There’s no time for getting drunk, man, that’s for sure. I used to smoke a lot of weed, up until last year, and actually just about wrote songs about it. I quit at the end of last year for health reasons. I couldn’t smoke on the road in 2023 and I lost my voice. I was like, "okay, only edibles from here on out." But even then, I found that most of the day I don’t really want to be that out of my mind. I’ve got stuff I want to do. I want to make sure I’m open, or I’m doing the social content for the band.

OMC: Let’s talk about “Burnout” a little bit, too. It sounds like the record came out last year and you guys really pushed to put as much as possible into that record. How long of a process was that for you?

McShea: I think it took us just over two years to make the record. The oldest song is called “Blurry,” from the very end of 2018. A lot of songs were written pretty far in advance. Usually a song starts as an acoustic guitar demo, then slowly develops from a voice memo to a drum idea to a ProTools file to something finished.

Zach produced our record. He has high standards, which is great for us, but it’s a lot of work. He’s tuning vocals, editing drums. Brendan, our regular drummer, started doing his own editing. Just a lot of work went into it. I’d say maybe two and a half years condensed.

OMC: Translating that to live performance and finally seeing the fruit of that labor, what’s the most gratifying part about playing the record live?

McShea: It’s fun. Like I said, last year was the year we became road dogs and started putting in more songs from this record than the first one. We’re so proud of these songs. Every song has something we were trying to do. When we play a song like “Hear Me Out," it’s all pop in the voice, but vocals are djenty and there’s a 7/4 breakdown and silly polyrhythms. Playing that live for the first time, we’re like, “We’re doing it. This is cool.”

We made most of the record in Pro Tools and didn’t play it together until the music video shoot or rehearsal. So to play it on stage and have it be our fourth time ever playing the song, it's great. And lately, people are singing along, which is the dream. We have a song called “Cough,” and people sing along every night. It starts with just vocal and guitar, so it’s easy to hear. I’ve started dropping out and just letting the crowd sing. That’s it.

OMC: That’s got to be surreal. Are there any songs that are harder to replicate live than others?

McShea: Most of them (laughs). It’s easier to talk about the ones that aren’t. Like “Reaching,” which has a fast punk beat and hardcore breakdown. We played it at rehearsal and were like, “cool, that rips.” But every other song, we usually have to change a lot of things. We play it for the first time, and everyone looks at each other like, “Man, that’s hard.” I’m focusing a lot to make it all happen. Of course, we don’t want to just stand there either. We want to headbang, have a rock show. So it’s like, how do we turn all this into rock and roll?

OMC: Nobody wants to watch a recital, right?

McShea: Exactly.

OMC: So with two tours coming and lots of work ahead, what does the near future look like for you guys? Are you just focused on summer or already thinking past it?

McShea: We definitely do both. I’m a big-picture guy. Zach is very detail-oriented. Ivan is just trying to live between us. We have more tours in the works. I think they’re confirmed. We’re always working to secure those and make them worthwhile for all parties.

We’re also releasing more music. We just put out “Progress.” We plan to release more singles and we’re writing the next record. We’ve got guitar riffs, acoustic songs, writing with friends. “Progress” was really the first time we got in a room instead of just writing in Pro Tools. So yeah, more singles this year, and we’re writing a new record.

OMC: Very cool. We’re excited to see you here in Milwaukee when you come to X-Ray Arcade.

McShea: That venue is great. We played X-Ray last year for the first time. It was the last stop on our tour, opening for Boys of Fall with Great Wavelength as direct support. Very celebratory. Such a good feeling venue. I didn’t even play any of the arcade games. I clearly screwed up. I also didn’t know about the really nice green room until we were packed up. So this time, I’m going to be chilling up there.

OMC: Hang in the green room, play at least one game, and then get to the show. That would be great.

McShea: You know it, man.

You can catch Good Terms supporting Youth Fountain alongside Sad Park and Minnesota Fatts on Thursday, June 19th. Tickets are available now at the X-Ray Arcade website.