Cherie Amour

Cherie Amour are both an established
act and a new band. Its members – vocalist Trey Miller, guitarists Casey
Reid and Brendan Willis and drummer Ronnie Sherman – had been playing
together as One Life To Lead, but felt that name didn’t suit their
evolving musical style. As a result, they renamed themselves Cherie
Amour, and it’s with this moniker that the self-styled nu-punk outfit
have truly found their true selves. The four-piece have done so by
mixing together a killer blend of genres that, on paper, make for odd
bedfellows, but which, in the band’s capable hands, sound like they’re
meant to be together.

“It was amongst our goals to not
try to prescribe to a certain genre,” says Allen. “We wanted it to be
all-encompassing so that you can get out of it what you want and need,
and we felt that nu-punk was the best way to describe that simply.”

“It gives us absolute freedom,”
adds Miller simply. “We just don’t have any rules, and so sometimes
strange stuff happens. But it works!”

You only need to listen to new single “Sin City” once to hear that that’s true. The follow-up to their 2021 debut EP Internal Discussions, it was, like that release, recorded with Four Year Strong’s Alan Day, and cements the promise of those songs emphatically.

“With the EP,” explains Sherman,
“we blindly trusted Alan, and it worked out. With this song, we were in
the same room and so we were like ‘What can we get away with?!’ This
picks up where Internal Discussion left off but we also didn’t want to do what everybody expected us to do.”

The result is a catchy,
hook-laden, emotion-laced song that mixes a pop-punk foundation with
heavy breakdowns, but also contains unapologetic undercurrents of
mainstream hip-hop-inspired pop. Add a self-aware existential edge to
the equation and you have a song that runs the gamut of emotions while
also confidently breaking down the barriers of genre. Not least because
of the influence that Day had on the song.

“The first verse, in my mind, was
what I had written as a hook,” explains Miller. “So I was laying down
the vocals and thinking this hook was one of the best things we’ve done.
And I’m really hyped, and then Alan plays it back and just says ‘You
put the hook in the wrong part. That’s the verse now. Now go write a
better hook!’”

“He literally moved the hook to a different part of the song,” laughs Sherman.  

That jarred the band at first,
but in the end, the result is undeniable. “Sin City” is an unforgettable
anthem that shows exactly how limitless the talents and ambitions of
Cherie Amour truly are.