Photo By: Travis Neely Photography

When the band members from The Composure released their album, “Strings Attached,” in November 2010, it stood as the culmination of three years of recording, multiple member changes and depleting bank accounts. It is a rock story of creative sweat and personal sacrifice that turned out to be both punk and pop.

Since the band mates have been playing under the name The Composure, it has had a number of member changes.  Now they know they have the lineup right, and it consists of Paul Menotiades, Jeff Wendle, Seth Milberger and Cory Muro. “We kind of have the cliché story of a band that has member changes and a bunch of problems happen, almost to the point where nothing’s going to happen and then you kind of push through that,” says Muro, the drummer.

They triumphed over the pitfalls by creating an album that straddles the lines of punk, pop and rock. Call it what you want, but Menotiades’ brother calls it “hard pop.” Menotiades, who is the lead singer and plays guitar, says he thinks they sound a little like Weezer and Taking Back Sunday. “To say we’re a pop-punk band is not really what we are,” says Menotiades. “We just chose to present [the songs] the way we do with a lot of power. We like to rock.”

The band doesn’t fit perfectly into any mold of a genre, but rather the group pulls aspects and influences from all genres. “You could take any of our songs and put the punk beat to it, and it would be an awesome punk song,” says Muro. “But on the other hand, you could take the drums out of our songs and put a beatbox to it, and it would be an awesome pop song. So it’s somewhere in the middle of that.”

At the end of 2010, the band was doing weekend shows to promote its album. The guys played shows in their hometown of Pittsburgh, but they also traveled to Cleveland, Chicago and Philadelphia to play shows. During the days in between shows, they were back in Pittsburgh practicing.

“Imagine a garage on the seventh floor of a building,” says Muro. The practice space on the South Side of Pittsburgh is about as big as a bedroom with white walls and bright white lights. “It’s a little —what’s the word — drab. But it works fine just the same,” says Menotiades. “It’s cool because it’s only a couple blocks from most of the venues we play in Pittsburgh.” Some notable venues The Composure has played include The Rex, Smalls, Diesel, Club Café and, in December 2010, Stage AE.

The Composure shares their practice space with Modern Short Stories label mates Punchline. Menotiades and Muro also play in Punchline, but they say playing in both groups is less of a juggling act and more of collaboration. Since Punchline has been around longer its name is out there, so The Composure will often play shows with Punchline. “Punchline is kind of a well-oiled machine. They have their stuff together as far as playing shows and getting shows,” says Menotiades. “Our main focus is The Composure, and then it’s all thrown into one pot where we all benefit.”

When they’re back in Pittsburgh, the guys aren’t just practicing — they are writing. Because each member has experience writing songs for other bands they all bring ideas to the table. Menotiades says they work well together creating new music. “Nobody has an ego, really, in our band. No one is like that with their music, so things get changed,” he says.

In March, the band plans to tour back and forth from South By Southwest, an annual technology, film and music conference in Austin, Texas. In addition to the touring, the group will continue writing, and the band hopes to put out a new album within a year. “We’d like to release another album as soon as possible, so that will be an ongoing thing, writing songs,” says Menotiades. “Even though we have to play shows in support of [‘Strings Attached’], we’ll still be writing the whole time.”

Since they worked for three years on the album ‘Strings Attached’ the group want to move on to making new music.  “On that record, a lot of those songs are really old to us, even if they’re new to people because we just released them,” says Muro. They have a backlog of old ideas for songs, and Muro says they have songs they demoed but didn’t include on the album. Consequently, they have a lot of material for a new CD and that’s one of the band’s top priorities. “You have to put out new music as much as possible. You can’t really just sit on one set of songs for too long,” says Menotiades.

However, with producing music come financial troubles. Menotiades says they are “broke as hell,” but that doesn’t stop them from doing what they love. “We’d be doing a million things with a million dollars, but I think that’s everyone’s biggest hang-up,” says Menotiades. “We’re not going to let ourselves be victims of being broke.” Their anti-victim mentality carries through to all aspects of the band. The Composure has faced typical rock band problems, but rather than quit, the guys remained poised, true to their name. “In everything that’s happened, now it all makes sense, and we’re happy that it all did,” says Muro. “We’re happy with the lineup, and it just feels like what’s going on right now is the happiest we’ve ever been and the strongest our band has ever been.”

After the band’s experiences the members now just want to see some profit from the music they have poured their souls into. “Seeing a dime from music is like seeing a unicorn,” says Menotiades. The guys want the struggle to change, but fame and fortune isn’t necessarily the ultimate goal for The Composure. Sure, they wouldn’t mind it, but really they just want to worry about writing and releasing music. Having food in their stomachs also wouldn’t hurt. “If we can be in this band and not be homeless and hungry, I’m cool,” says Muro.

by: Nicole Aikens