Today we’d like to introduce you to John Milner.
Hi John, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
So, to start, Golden Week was formed by Rickey Puckett, Maston Lawyer, and John Milner (myself). Though we were all friends at the time, we were each in different bands when we started entertaining the idea of forming Golden Week. As a bit of a trial run to see how well we got a long and how similar our interests were, we took a leap of faith and rented a hotel room at A-kon (an annual anime convention in Dallas) for the weekend. It was a ton of fun, and we all realized that the vibes just felt right, and that’s when we like to think Golden Week was officially formed. Since then, we have been staying busy making music and playing shows across the metroplex from Dallas to Ft Worth and Denton and we have added two additional members to the band, Jonathan Ripley and Olivia Bailey. We released a music video recently for our latest single “Serial Experiments Lame” and are working on another music video for another single scheduled for this summer. The pandemic really slowed down our momentum, as it did with many artists, but it gave us time to start working towards all of the plans and ideas that we’ve been wanting to bring to fruition. Now that things opened up more, we are ready to hit the ground running. We’ve some awesome opportunities lined up next such as So What Music Festival and Sick Tight Fest this summer, and we won’t be stopping there!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It feels a bit cliché to say this, but starting and growing a musical project from the ground up is never an easy task, especially with a band. Whether there is something internal like a writer’s block spell or the health of each member, or something external like tight finances, choosing the right business partners, or a pandemic, we have had to learn the right moves through experience.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Since we all come from different musical backgrounds, it’s sometimes difficult to pin Golden Week down to a specific genre, but I believe that plays to our strengths more often than not. We are more often told we have a post-emo, mathy, poppy, r&b vibe in our recent releases, and since we all love those types of music that’s fine with us for now. Our goal isn’t to fit any genre necessarily we just want to write music we love that will get stuck in someone’s head. Another thing that we are probably known for is our love for anime and Japanese culture. We all grew up in the golden age of Toonami, G4, and early internet culture and fell in love with the art and music behind so many great shows, movies, manga, and videogames, many of which made it here from Japan. We love to show off our interests in our aesthetic, and it’s definitely apparent in our merch. With anime and internet culture being more popular than ever these days, it’s always nice to meet people with similar interests at our shows and nerd out over Evangelion theories, debate which Naruto OP is best, or find out who mains who in Smash. Our latest music video for SEL (Serial Experiments Lame) had a decent amount of references to our interests in it, and the response was amazing. That’s definitely something recent that we are super proud of.
Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
Yes! Thanks so much for taking the time to read a bit about us, and thank you to Voyage for reaching out. We are super excited to be releasing another single this summer along with a video to match so check out our socials so you can keep an eye out for that and upcoming shows! We will be playing So What Music Festival at Choctaw Stadium on May 29th and have a ton of cool shows lined up later as well. Also, if you haven’t heard our most recent release Serial Experiments Lane, give it a spin, watch the video, and let us know what you think!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.goldenweekmusic.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goldenweekmusic/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoldenWeekmusic/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoldenWeekMusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLa3JJfcnixm8Nl1ueRXkiQ
Image Credits
Faye Fetters
Kyle Yan
Richard Tran
