In less than five years, Sweet Pill has gone from a local band playing rowdy hometown shows all over Philadelphia to a five-piece touring across North America. What started as a college project for guitarist Jayce Williams (the band’s lone New Jerseyan) and frontwoman Zayna Youssef has expanded into a fully formed band that’s already garnering recognition from artists like Hayley Williams and La Dispute.
Williams and Youssef say it was when they rounded out their lineup and added Sean McCall on guitar, Ryan Cullen on bass, and Chris Kearney on drums that they really became what people know as Sweet Pill. Together, Sweet Pill is crafting a love letter to the Philly music scene and its community through their music — which is exactly what they aim to share with the rest of the world, show by show.
In May 2022, the band released their first LP Where the Heart Is, a 10-track record full of emo anthems that fuse hardcore with pop sensibilities. Their title track takes math rock elements and blends them with strong melodic hardcore guitar riffs and punchy lyrics — confidently introducing the band to the world through their freshman effort.
You don’t have to look any further than the album’s cover art to see the impact Philly has had on the group. “The painter [who did the album art] was my neighbor in South Philly. During quarantine when I used to hang out on my roof, he would be out there on this roof painting,” Williams says. “I would play my guitar and he’d always tell me I should write a record. I was like, ‘I did,’ and sent it to him.”
Little did Williams know: His next-door neighbor was artist Kerry Dunn, a successful portraitist whose award-winning work has been exhibited across the country for over three decades. Through neighborly camaraderie and a shared love of art and music, Sweet Pill and Dunn collaborated to create a portrait for Where the Heart Is that has been captivating prospective listeners since the album’s release.
“The album art helped a lot with people randomly listening to us,” Youssef says of the eye-catching image of her own likeness. After fans were reeled in by the art, they found that Sweet Pill’s music speaks for itself, and kept coming back for more. “All it took was somebody to share it with somebody.” From: https://www.altpress.com/sweet-pill-where-the-heart-is-interview/
