City At Dawn

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      In the fall of 2010, the garage band This Hero, A Legend decided to change their name to City At Dawn. "Overtime, as members changed, the direction and overall sound of the band changed. The group came together and started to develop what we all thought of as 'our sound'.  When Jamie joined the band, (our) sound and identity changed. We decided it was time for a change in name." says the band.
      The pop-punk outfit from Yorktown Heights, NY formed in early 2009. They released a four song demo in August of that year. One of their two singers decided to depart from the band to pursue schooling in Florida and in July of 2010, their second vocalist also left. Through Craigslist, the band came across Jamie Stoffa, who would turn out to be a "perfect fit" as the band's new vocalist. That fall and winter, the band put all of it's efforts into writing new material and perfecting their new sound.

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      About 5 days before the band was to play alongside Just Surrender in April 2011, their bassist informed the rest of the group that he would be unable to play due to a very important job interview. Jamie turned to his friend, Rafael Miranda, for help. Rafael learned all of the band's song just in time to play the show. "It was probably one of our best shows as a band.  We were tight, the crowd was awesome, and it was just an overall amazing experience for all of us"
      The current line-up consists of Alex Richardson (lead guitar), Christian Ference-Gray (rhythm guitar), Bobby Brace (drums), Jamie Stoffa (vocals) and Rafael Miranda (bass).

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      The best way to describe the band's interesting style of pop/punk is to say that the band sounds like A Day to Remember with less screaming vocals plus 90's influences like Blink 182. Imagine a collision between late 90's alternative rock and moden post-hardcore. Their sound includes aggressive guitar riffs, powerful drum beats, and catchy lyrics. "While we tend to have a heavy edge to our sound, it's a style that's a sound that virtually anyone can get into."
      Every performance deserves 110%, that's the bands mindset. "We go into every show  trying to make friends and have as much fun as we possibly can each and every time we step onto the stage.  It's hard to say what to really expect from our performance, because we're constantly working to improve and enhance it in any way we can.  Just like our sound, our performance has gone through a lot of changes over the years, so the best way to describe it I suppose would be to say when you come out to expect to have a good time and be ready enjoy what we're doing almost as much as we enjoy doing it."

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      The band plays shows in Poughkeepsie, NY and Danbury, CT due to the lack of local venues. "We're surrounded by plenty of music scenes we seem to go over well in and we're always looking to expand into new areas and be heard by as many people as possible.  With that in mind we are about to leave on our first tour ever on August 4th, going down the entire east coast down to Florida then back home via the parallel states.  Fifteen days on the road with the band Shake That Bear from NJ, and we could not be more excited.  Hopefully this is the start of many more tours to come in the future."
      As far as bragging rights go, the band has already accumulated a few impressive feats. The band was interviewed and guest hosted "The Local Lockdown" radio show on WRRV 92.7/96.9 FM. "Probably the best part of the whole experience was that it was a prerecorded show, so we got to actually listen to ourselves on the radio when it aired.  From beginning to end we extremely excited and proud of what we had accomplished." 

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      The band also had a live interview on WSPC's Indie Rebellion Radio Show on July 14. "On that show we guest dj-ed and the host Garvey asked us a ton of questions that we had to answer on the spot as best we could.  We also debuted our newest single, The Message, live on the air plus we got to play an entire acoustic version of our song 'The More You Know' which was a lot of fun as well.  To help rally some attention, we brought a pair of tickets to the New Jersey show of our August tour and offered them to listeners and we actually had a few people call in which just topped off the night.  The biggest part of the show for us was the pure fact that were live on the air on a station in a different state. All of these things have made us the most motivated than ever and cannot wait to see whatever lies ahead of us."
      The band hopes to release their full-length album in December 2011. "Our upcoming album is going to be nothing like our first demo. Our sound is a lot catchier with a fuller, well-produced sound.  Our first demo had 2 singers, lots of screaming and what someone once called 'constant build-ups to nothing'.  Since then we have found the kind of sound we're going for. So far, four of the songs on the album have been finished and recorded and we all think that the album is sounding amazing thus far!  The rest of the album is written and just needs to be fine tuned and when we get back home from tour we plan on getting the rest of the songs finished off and recorded."