Words by Ellen Arden
Photos by Adequate Chad
Atlanta indie alternative and emo band Mostly Strangers return with The Dangers, their first release in more than four years. Built around songwriter James W. Dinsmoor, the band started in 2020 as a solo project and is now a five-piece live act made up of Dinsmoor on vocals and guitar, Cody Ojea and Ty Roberson on guitar, Cole Hankins on bass, and Hannah Beamon on drums. Ahead of the show, we spoke with Dinsmoor about the long road to the EP, working with producer Robert Hannon, and what comes next for the band.
Asked to describe the band to first-time listeners, Dinsmoor skips the genre labels. “Pop-punk, emo, and alternative” come closest, he says, but the influences tell it better: Motion City Soundtrack is the biggest, alongside Say Anything, The Front Bottoms, and local heroes Microwave.
The four-year gap between releases wasn’t a quiet one. Before moving back from New York, Dinsmoor began pulling together a live band in Georgia, which played its first show in January 2023. Within five months they were demoing The Dangers, and by February 2024 they were recording it in earnest, planning to release it that year. Then, at the end of 2024, Robert Hannon approached the band with an offer to produce, on one condition: they re-record the whole thing.
“This record was a true manifestation of ‘the best laid plans’ going awry,” Dinsmoor says. The re-record began in January 2025, wrapped that December after scheduling conflicts, and was mixed and mastered this June.
Hannon, a co-worker of drummer Hannah Beamon in live sound production, first mixed the song “Mostly Strangers” as a test run. After hearing it, he came to a show, pulled the band aside, and told them the recordings “could be better.” (“Which was an understatement,” Dinsmoor adds.) His impact was felt right away in the re-record sessions. “Mainly he just knew what to listen for, and was meticulous about making sure everything sonically sounded as good as it possibly could,” Dinsmoor says. “As fledgling artists in this field, we really learned a lot from him — he showed us what’s possible, and what we need to do to get the sounds we’re after.”
The Dangers is also the first Mostly Strangers record written with the live band. The earlier releases, Where the Heart Is and GONE, were Dinsmoor as the sole member, with a few friends guesting. After the live band formed at the end of 2022, “we felt the natural next step was for us to work on the next record together,” he says. He remained the primary songwriter, but “music like this is never made in a vacuum. Everyone brings their own ideas and influences, and it ultimately creates something greater than the sum of its parts.” He has described the EP as having “the sound I’ve always wanted Mostly Strangers to have.” “I have always felt collaboration is the best part of making music,” he adds, “and I think it really comes through on the EP how invested we all were in making something special.”
The EP’s two singles sit at opposite ends of its timeline: “Sad Boy Hours” was one of the first songs written, and “Asking” was the last.
“Sad Boy Hours” was conceived while walking between terminals at Newark Airport. It looks back on a past relationship from the perspective of someone who has since seen the healing power of therapy. “One of the most interesting ironies in life is we tend to put in the work to ‘get better’ after a break up, but that exact drive to get better is what might have saved the relationship from falling apart,” Dinsmoor says. The song opens with the line “We never really talk, do we?” then becomes the most verbose song on the record while returning to that refrain. “Really, ‘Sad Boy Hours’ is the song that best realizes the conceit of the whole EP,” he says.
“Asking” had a simpler goal. Dinsmoor wrote it to be “the catchy one” on the record, and it captures “the oppressive feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop, and fighting the voice in your head that tells you ‘you’ve been burned before, don’t trust anyone, don’t give too much or you’ll get hurt again.’” It was the only song written after the EP was mapped out, replacing one that clashed with the record’s more upbeat sound.
Both point to the EP’s central idea. “For me, ‘the dangers’ are the dangers of talking, and opening up to others,” Dinsmoor says. “It’s a record that holds two things true at once: Talking is objectively the best way to work through things, and grow, and communicate toward something better; and talking honestly can leave you vulnerable to exploitation, and rumors, and disagreement, and heartbreak.” The EP, he says, seeks “to explore the in-between of wanting to be understood and the fear of being understood.”
At their upcoming release show, the band will have a new slate of merch that Dinsmoor says is “all designed by a real human being: Linzi Troilo, who has been the main visual artist for Mostly Strangers from the very beginning.” The wearable pieces were screen printed in-house, so every shirt and hoodie is unique. “(There are no mistakes, only happy accidents.)” Vinyl copies of the EP will also be available, and “may or may not” include a secret bonus track.
Fans also won’t have long to wait for what comes after. Dinsmoor says the band finished studio sessions this summer, and “people won’t have to wait another year for new music from us.”
The Dangers is out today, October 16. Mostly Strangers celebrate with an EP release show at Boggs Social & Supply in Atlanta on Saturday, October 17, presented by Ashthrone Booking, alongside Modern Ghosts, Safety Training, and High Rise Fire. The show starts at 7 p.m. and is 18+. Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the door.
For more info and to purchase tickets visit : www.freshtix.com/events/mostlyep