Culture
‘Chemicals’ finds Massing sharpening their sound without losing their charm
By: Emily Votaw
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HUNTINGTON, West Virginia (WOUB) – Massing’s Chemicals opens with the kind of roar that might make you double-check that you’re actually listening to the group we’ve all come to know—and love—as “West Virginia’s favorite boy band.”
When you press play, you’re met not with the indie-synth bedroom pop of their 2021 EP Nothin’ to Fear, but with raucous, chunky guitars and a moodier, more muscular sound than the band has ever delivered before.
Not to worry, however, because West Virginia’s favorite boy band also may be West Virginia’s favorite rock ‘n’ roll jokesters.
Just as the song’s big, bruising first half threatens to convince you this might be an entirely different band, Chemicals swerves into a perfectly absurd flourish: a mid-song play-by-play sports announcement from WSAZ’s Tim Irr, breathlessly narrating the track’s “halftime” as breaking news.
Beneath the new single’s more aggressive edge and refined production, Massing’s core identity remains intact—a band unwilling to sacrifice humor, charm, or a catchy chorus, even as they sharpen their sound and push it somewhere louder, darker, and more confident than ever before.
The band’s founding members, Robb Coleman and Heath Holley, told me all about this brawnier sound, working with regional celebrity Tim Irr, and shared a few details about what fans can expect from the group in the near future. Find a transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity, below.
Emily Votaw: Chemicals has a rocked out, punchy sound – where did that come from?
Robb Coleman: Yeah, I think that when we were working on Rejuiced (2024), that last EP where we reworked some older songs, we really loved what the other band members brought to the table. A lot of our earlier music was made on a laptop, lots of files sent back and forth—you can probably hear that when you listen to it. But hearing ourselves as a full rock unit was really impressive, at least to me, and I think to everyone else, too. So we just wanted to push that further and see where we could take it.
How would you describe the sound of Chemicals as compared to the sound on Nothin’ to Fear?
Heath Holley: This song is definitely more aggressive, I think, than anything we’ve ever really done. And not just because it’s a full band, but I think it’s just like a different kind of song.
Coleman: Yeah, like funny enough, that very main riff that comes in the beginning is a guitar riff that Heath came up with in like 2021, or maybe even earlier than that. A pretty long time ago.
Holley: And I mean, I came up with it on a MIDI keyboard I think.
Coleman: There was a time last year when we had a lot of practice time before a show and for no reason at all I just started playing that riff and then everybody played along – and in like 20 minutes we had the whole song figured out. So, we did that with another song at that time as well and it’s not it’s definitely not as like aggressive as Chemicals.
Holley: Yeah, it’s a slower one, but it still keeps that organic, full band sound. And that song will come out in a while – I think that song will kind of be the perfect pairing with Chemicals.
Coleman: Yeah, like the “yin” to it’s “yang.”
I have to ask where the football announcer bit came from. That was just so… I’ve listened to many, many, hours of music in my life. But I’ve never heard a band do that.
Holley: That is WSAZ’s Tim Irr. He’s our buddy.
Coleman: He’s great. Like every time we have to do anything with him, he’s a complete professional. We needed something for that part of the song, and we thought some kind of vocals would be good. Once we came up with the idea to have Tim Irr voice it, we asked him and he was completely game. He didn’t even ask to change any of it or anything. He’s honestly like a really impressive actor. I don’t know if a lot of people know that but he could be an awesome voiceover guy.
Holley: Yeah, he killed it as Scrooge several years in a row at the Foundry Theater’s Good Time Christmas Carol here in Huntington.
Yeah, it’s great. I was wondering whether Massing was vastly different from the band I knew from Nothin’ to Fear when I first listened to Chemicals, but as soon as Tim Irr comes in with the play-by-play announcement, I was like, ‘There it is. This is the Massing I know.’ Another piece is the fact that the subject matter, lyrically, of the song is pretty serious, but the play-by-play evens it all out nicely.
Holley: Yeah, I think so. We don’t ever want to take ourselves too seriously.
Coleman: That’s one thing, like we have plenty of songs that are pretty serious or whatever. But the last thing that we ever want to do is be on stage going like, ‘guys, this song is about when my brother died.’ If you do that, no offense to you, there’s nothing wrong with that. But that’s not really our mission statement. It’s like, enjoy it, take the serious stuff if you catch it. But if you don’t, that’s fine. The most important part is that you just have fun listening to it.
Chemicals is out now, and Coleman and Holley say fans can look forward to an official music video for the single soon. While they couldn’t divulge many details, they did note that they spent quite a lot on props—fake blood and eggs—that their vision for the video is ambitious and, importantly, that it’s “goofy.”
Massing plays The Loud (741 6th Avenue) on Friday with Randy and Pet Bandana. You can find more information about Massing at this link.