Releasing the second single from their upcoming debut record, late night drive home opens ‘she came for a sweet time’ with the familiar screech of guitar feedback. The next scene in the band’s portrait of living their entire existence in the shadow of the internet, the new single is a case study on dating apps. Intoxicated not only by the endless options to swipe through, but by the feeling that you always have to be with another person, there’s a moral panic behind how we only show the best of ourselves online. After much back and forth about using other people as an escape, the song comes to a sobering, sudden halt with the line, “But you still got to work a ten hour shift after this” — Stream.
“The song speaks about online hookup and meet-up culture — the instant gratification cultivated by TikTok and Reels,” says the band’s guitarist Juan “Ockz” Vargas. “Online dating apps work the same way; you’re able to swipe between hundreds of individuals in the span of five minutes, turning love into content.”
Singer Andre Portillo continues, “Isolation is an interesting concept when you factor in the idea of millions of people in the palm of your hand. We see face after face, yet we don’t think twice about our social interactions. The cure instantly becomes the downfall of your mental stability. Relationships lose meaning, I mean, there’s no point in worrying about the previous interaction when you’ll have a new one the next day.”
The new single also arrives with a frenetic and eclectic official video. Starring the band, they are surrounded by flashing, glitchy content that represents the unquietable online mind.
On June 27, late night drive home will release their LP as I watch my life online via Epitaph. A commentary on the World Wide Web, the 13-track offering codes together vignettes of mistaking online connection for something real. With their success outgrowing the bedrooms they used to create in, late night drive home’s debut album is the first time they’ve worked in proper studios. And with this growth, we see them move from the indie-rock bucket to a more expansive, electronic realm.
So far from the record, the band released the glitchy yet crystalline‘terabyte,’ a rumination on an addiction to adult content and the unending cycle of seeking online validation and destroying self-worth. The first release saw early support from DIY, AltPress, Glide, The Line of Best Fit and more, as well as a placement on the cover of Spotify’s New Noise playlist.
Praise for Late Night Drive Home
“…their sound, and goals, are all their own — reinventing indie music for a modern age while increasing representation for Latin artists in the genre.” – Alternative Press
“…the young band deliberately lean into more expansive textures and darker thematic territory, distilling all their coming of age angst into a decidedly mature trio of soundscapes.” – DIY
“late night drive home reminds us that we shouldn’t form a picture of the world through make-believe.” – The Line of Best Fit
Late Night Drive Home
ABOUT LATE NIGHT DRIVE HOME:
late night drive home have never known a world without internet — without access to the endless stream of joy, sorrow, and titillation that we all tune in and tune out to on the daily. In many ways, the guys can’t extricate themselves from that reality, but they’re trying to grapple with it. The culmination of that, then, is the buoyant yet ominous as I watch my life online, the band’s debut album on Epitaph, out June 27th.
“The record is a critique and a meta representation of the current online landscape: a whole new world or giant united country that connects us between cities, forcing us to be online. Instant gratification is at our fingertips — likes, follows, and entertainment a click away,” says guitarist Juan “Ockz” Vargas. “It shows the listener how we grew up in the early days of peak internet — how we saw it all unfold. We want to give our perspective on the internet while creating art alongside it.”
late night drive home was born in El Paso, Texas, and Chaparral, New Mexico, hardworking communities where the collars were mostly blue — a quality that the band would bring to their music as self-taught craftsmen. Comprising guitarist Juan “Ockz” Vargas, singer Andre Portillo, drummer Brian Dolan, and bassist Freddy Baca, the entirely self-taught quartet released their first EP as a full band, 2021’s Am I sinking or Am I swimming?, and blew up with the single “Stress Relief,” a blast of early-Aughts indie that racked in tens of millions of streams. Their first pull compilation of songs, How Are We Feeling? dropped in 2022, and after signing with Epitaph in 2023 — and releasing 2024’s grunge-inspired EP i’ll remember you for the same feeling you gave me as i slept — they found themselves playing stages their indie idols previously shredded: Coachella, Shaky Knees, Austin City Limits, and Kilby Block Party.
Since the end of the pandemic, though, the band has been dreaming up as I watch my life online. “Sonically the record is expertly produced — it was the first work we put out that was recorded in professional studios and not our bedrooms,” Vargas says about working with producer Sonny Diperri. “Topically, the album is about the internet. As a Gen-Z band, we want to give an accurate representation of how it feels to be always online. Our generation is forced to care so much about its online identity, it’s like ‘your profile is as important as your outfit.’”
The resulting suite of tracks is a series of online vignettes that hammers home the band’s message: the photos on your phone shouldn’t be your identity; your posts aren’t your inner monologue.
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