Ex-The Amity Affliction vocalist/bassist Ahren Stringer and Yung Yogi (aka ex-Volumes vocalist Gus Farias), have started a new band dubbed Self Checkout. Both musicians have had public struggles with addiction and mental health in the past, and both were ousted by their previous bands
Farias was fired by Volumes in 2019, while Stringer was, in his words, “kicked out” of The Amity Affliction earlier this year. Reflecting on that shared common ground in a new interview with Blunt, Stringer shared:
“Yeah, we both needed rehab. We have both lived such similar lifestyles… and we just ended up just joining forces and just being like, let’s start a new band.”
According to the interview, this new project will tackle confronting ones demons and facing recovery, while also venting on the stigma associated with mental health and addiction. Farias was quoted as saying, “[Suicide has] profoundly impacted my life, and I want to share that. I’m kind of healing expressing that with the world.”
Recording sessions for the project, which is said to combine, screaming, rapping, melody and more into a “cosmic gumbo”, have been taking place in Mexico City. Per the aforementioned interview, two tracks have been completed with more to come. Stringer is also sitting on 13 songs from a shelved solo project.
Stringer also addressed the support the pair have found, despite their public struggles, offering:
“Thank you for sticking by me. I can’t wait to show you… because you’re gonna love it. I know we both have a very bad reputation… because we’re like, admitted addicts, everyone thinks we’re just like POS, but you’re gonna see that we’re not. We’re gonna prove the world wrong. And we want to thank you guys for sticking with us and we hope you love what we’ve produced. It’s gonna be fire.”
