New Years Day did not begin with a carefully designed concept or a musician casting call. In 2005, bassist Adam Lohrbach, who had left the pop-punk band Home Grown, met vocalist Ashley “Ash” Costello and guitarist-keyboardist Keith Drover. All three were going through difficult breakups at almost the same time. They gathered at the guitarist’s house, drank wine to dull their problems, ate cheap food, and eventually wrote the song “Ready Aim Misfire.” Then they wrote another one. An evening of group therapy turned into a new band.
Guitarist Mike Schoolden of Wakefield and drummer Russell Dixon joined the founders. The name New Years Day was perfect: a new starting point after several destroyed relationships. There was no festive optimism in the songs, however. Even the early material was filled with jealousy, resentment, and emotional arguments—still set to melodic pop-punk with elements of emo.
The musicians found their first audience not through radio or a touring agent. They regularly uploaded songs to MySpace, communicated with listeners, and promoted their shows themselves. “Ready Aim Misfire” appeared on the compilation “MySpace Records, Volume 1,” while another song was included on the soundtrack to the video game “Saints Row.” For the mid-2000s, this was almost a textbook example of an internet breakthrough.
The band considered an offer from Decaydance Records—the label founded by Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz—but ultimately signed with TVT Records. On November 29, 2006, the digital EP “New Years Day,” also known as “Razor,” was released. Physical copies were sold mostly at shows. The following spring, the musicians performed at the South by Southwest festival.
The debut album, “My Dear,” appeared on May 8, 2007. It was recorded over eight months with producer Eugene Perreras, and the musicians financed the work themselves. Members of Reel Big Fish and Motion City Soundtrack contributed to several songs. The video for “I Was Right,” directed by Shane Drake, won the MTVU Freshman Face viewer poll and entered the channel’s rotation. New Years Day toured with Hawthorne Heights, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Ozma, and The Fall of Troy. Everything was moving upward. For a short while.
In 2008, TVT Records lost a legal battle with Slip-N-Slide Records, took on multimillion-dollar financial obligations, and declared bankruptcy. The company’s assets were sold to The Orchard. “My Dear” was left with virtually no proper promotion, while New Years Day was left without a functioning label at the worst possible moment.
Mike Schoolden and Adam Lohrbach left. Keith Drover had previously moved to Sweden. Only Ash Costello remained from the original core, and the band’s subsequent history became, to a large extent, the story of her stubbornness. The lineup changed frequently: over the years, Jake Jones, Matthew Lindblad, Tyler Burgess, Nick Rossi, Frankie Sil, Austin Ingerman, and other musicians passed through New Years Day. The list would be longer than some concert setlists.
In 2011, the band signed with Hollywood Waste Records and released the EP “The Mechanical Heart” on June 21. Melodic pop-punk gave way to heavy guitars, screams, and horror theater. In the video for “Two in the Chest, One in the Head,” Costello ripped a heart from a character’s chest—a fairly clear explanation of the new direction.
The second full-length album, “Victim to Villain,” was released on June 11, 2013, through Century Media. Producer Erik Ron recorded and mixed the material at Grey Area Studios in North Hollywood. The title accurately described the record’s internal story: the heroine stopped being a passive victim and became a source of danger herself.
The centerpiece was “Angel Eyes,” featuring guest vocals by Chris Motionless of Motionless in White. The track did not enter the Billboard Hot 100, but the video and constant touring sharply expanded New Years Day’s audience. The visuals established Ash Costello’s hair split into red and black halves. The contrast proved to be more than an eye-catching hairstyle—it became a ready-made emblem: attraction and aggression, a pop chorus and a metal riff, heroine and villain in the same frame.
The EP “Epidemic,” featuring “Defame Me,” followed in 2014. The band became heavier without abandoning choruses designed for large venues. Around this time, the lineup settled around guitarists Nikki Misery and Jeremy Valentyne, bassist Brandon Wolfe, and drummer Trixx Daniel.
Before recording the third album, Erik Ron asked Costello a question that was standard in their work: “What are you feeling right now?” Her answer consisted of two English words—“pissed off.” That anger became the foundation of “Malevolence,” released by Another Century Records on October 2, 2015.
The record dealt with betrayal, loss, insecurity, and the feeling of being abandoned. “Kill or Be Killed,” “Malevolence,” and “I’m About to Break You” combined nu-metal rhythm, Gothic presentation, and vivid choruses. Approximately 19,000 copies were sold in the first week; the album reached No. 8 on Billboard Top Rock Albums and No. 45 on the Billboard 200. It remained New Years Day’s best result on the main American album chart.
The single “Kill or Be Killed” was first presented during the 2015 Warped Tour, with pre-orders accepted directly at the merch tent. In the fall, the band embarked on its first headlining North American tour, The Other Side, with Eyes Set to Kill and Get Scared, then opened for Motionless in White in the United Kingdom. After ten years of lineup changes and broken contracts, New Years Day had finally moved beyond the status of a perpetually promising band.
On January 26, 2018, the EP “Diary of a Creep” was released. It included the new song “Disgust Me” and five covers selected with a remarkable lack of stylistic order: “Bizarre Love Triangle” by New Order, “Fucking Hostile” by Pantera, “Crawling” by Linkin Park, “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt, and “Only Happy When It Rains” by Garbage. The last song featured Lzzy Hale of Halestorm.
On paper, the list looked like the contents of a randomly shuffled playlist. In practice, it explained New Years Day’s music better than genre labels could. From Pantera, the band took direct physical heaviness; from Garbage, a dark pop sensibility; from No Doubt, vocal drama; and from New Order, a love of cold atmosphere.
The fourth album, “Unbreakable,” appeared on April 26, 2019. The producers were Mitchell Marlow and Scott Stevens, who had worked with Halestorm, Shinedown, and In This Moment. They made the electronics more prominent, the guitars cleaner, and the vocal hooks even bigger. “Shut Up,” “Skeletons,” and “Come for Me” were designed not for a small Gothic club, but for a festival stage.
The album sold more than 2,500 equivalent units in its first week and accumulated approximately 850,000 streams. It debuted at No. 3 on Current Hard Music Albums, No. 16 on Current Rock Albums, and No. 61 on Billboard Top Albums. The numbers were more modest than those for “Malevolence,” but by then the market had definitively shifted from buying discs to streaming.
Work on the next album began back in 2020 and stretched over several years. The pandemic, the loss of ordinary live music, and further internal changes entered the lyrics directly. On March 1, 2024, Century Media released the fifth album, “Half Black Heart,” produced with the participation of Scott Stevens, Mitchell Marlow, and Blaire Daily.
Nikki Misery, Jeremy Valentyne, Brandon Wolfe, and Trixx Daniel returned for the recording—not the literal 2005 lineup, as promotional materials sometimes claimed, but the familiar configuration from the “Malevolence” period. The twelve songs included “Vampyre,” “Hurts Like Hell,” “Secrets,” “Bullet Proof,” and “I Still Believe.” The song “Vampyre” was performed during the opening of the first night of WWE NXT Halloween Havoc back on October 24, 2023.
Ash Costello called the title track a personal anthem: no one is entirely good or evil, innocent or guilty. The red-and-black image she had worn for years finally received an album-length explanation—half metal, half pop, half darkness, half entertainment. The math is questionable. For New Years Day, it is perfect.
