THE LOWER AETNA IS AN INDIE ROCK PROJECT FROM PHILADELPHIA.
Hometown boys. Qanon moms. 20k kings, lonely gay farmhands, and hopeless romantic carnies. These are the kinds of complicated characters and oddball outcasts who populate the music of The Lower Aetna.
Balancing alt country influences with classic rock instincts, The Lower Aetna crafts character-driven songs that feels as though they've been ripped right from our shared reality. With a relentless dedication to telling powerful, evocative human stories, the band's music is an expedition into the complexities of the human condition and the shadows with us all.
In 2024, The Lower Aetna released their second record, Pine, country-tinged collection of character-driven songs that all unfold in frontman Dylan Gallimore's native Pine Barrens. With the release of Pine, the band drew favorable comparisons to Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bruce Springsteen, The Hold Steady, Zach Bryan, and more. The Lower Aetna celebrated the release of the record with a packed show at the World Cafe Live Lounge in Philadelphia, followed by a string of successful shows, including an appearance as the musical guest at That Show with Chris Gethard.
The Lower Aetna is currently writing their third record and will begin production in 2025.
Photo by Jeff Familetti
Photo by Jeff Familetti
social media is ~bad~ for our noggins...but yeah we're on it
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Podcast: The Lower Aetna
on NEW JERSEY IS THE WORLD
on NEW JERSEY IS THE WORLD
The Lower Aetna's frontman Dylan Gallimore sat down with comedian Chris Gethard and his fellow co-hosts to discuss the band's second record, Pine, as well as a metric shit-ton of absurdly nuanced details about Southern New Jersey.
Click below to take a listen.
Podcast: The Lower Aetna
on 25 O'CLOCK
on 25 O'CLOCK
Fresh off a packed album release show at Philadelphia's legendary World Cafe Life, The Lower Aetna's frontman Dylan Gallimore sat down with Dan Drago, the host of 25 O'Clock, for a talk that covered everything from songwriting and shreddy guitar playing to growing up closeted and finding meaningful expression creating fiction.
Click below to take a listen.
Interview: The Lower Aetna in RAINBOW RODEO
A few weeks before releasing Pine, The Lower Aetna's songwriter and frontman Dylan Gallimore talked to queer county zine Rainbow Rodeo. Their conversation covers songwriting, tattoos, queerness, the Pine Barrens, and Craig Finn, all of which constitutes roughly 60% of Dylan's entire personality.
Click here to read the interview.
Podcast: The Lower Aetna
on LITTLE KNOWN TRACKS
on LITTLE KNOWN TRACKS
While mired in the highs and lows of producing The Lower Aetna's second record, Dylan Gallimore Little Known Tracks to talk songwriting, storytelling, filmmaking, queer millennial loneliness, and (of course) Lord of the Rings fan fiction.
Click here to listen now.
Podast: The Lower Aetna
on LEFT OF THE DIAL
on LEFT OF THE DIAL
The Lower Aetna lead singer and songwriter Dylan Gallimore joined host Andrea Quinn for a wide-ranging discussion that touched on everything from shlocky lyrics to dadly poetics to ABC's Lost. (And, of course, The Lower Aetna's debut record Waiting for God to Turn on the Lights.)
Click here to listen now.
THE LOWER AETNA NAMED 2022 "BEST OF JERSEY"
The folks at Left of the Dial named Waiting for God to Turn on the Lights as one of their favorite releases from an NJ-connected band in 2022, alongside records from L.S. Dunes, Senses Fail, Armor for Sleep, and others.
PINE - the new record, streaming everywhere August 9, 2024
What happens to the people we grow up with, but don’t think about anymore? As we age and go our own ways in life, what secrets do we silently start to carry, without even realizing it? How do they weigh us down? What regrets do we eventually accept that we’ll have to learn to live with?
As the clock ticks down and the years flash by, how do we grapple with the choices that we’ve made? Choices, that, for better or worse, have carried us to where we are?
These are the kinds of questions that The Lower Aetna investigate on their second full-length record Pine, a country-twinged collection of ten character-driven songs about love, lust, desperation, and regret.
On Pine, Lower Aetna frontman and songwriter Dylan Gallimore draws inspiration from his experiences as a queer man and his youth in South Jersey’s sprawling Pine Barrens. Pine follows a cast of queer characters living quiet lives in the archipelago of small towns that speckle the Pines, all desperate for something—lost love, a human touch, a memory of better days, or even just a flicker of hope that things might be better tomorrow.
Breaking new sonic ground after their 2022 debut, the stadium rock concept album Waiting For God To Turn On The Lights, Pine finds The Lower Aetna balancing folk and alt country influences with classic rock instincts. Pine features contributions from members of Modern Baseball, Steady Hands, Darla, and Honeyjar, plus Philadelphia pedal steel legend Mike “Slo Mo” Brenner.
As we grow up and get older, we all cut our own deals with the world we’re born into. Pine is a record about the deals we take, the consequences we suffer, and what we must live without as a result.
Pine is produced by Gallimore and Richard Straub (Steady Hands, Darla), mixed by Brendan Monahan, and mastered by Ian Farmer and his cat, Onion, at the Metal Shop.
Waiting For God To Turn On the lights
The debut record - now streaming on all major platformsA concept album characterized by rotating narrator points of view, Waiting for God to Turn on the Lights tells the story a fictional American family whose mother absconds reality in favor of the dopamine-driven temptations of a digital fantasy world—namely, the deranged Qanon conspiracy theory.
As their mother descends further and further down the rabbit hole, the songs, which are written from different fictional family members' perspectives, trace the psychological and emotional toll her journey exacts from those who love her most.
Click here to listen to the full album.
I BELIEVE TOO MUCH
INSIDE THE WORLD OF WAITING FOR GOD TO TURN ON THE LIGHTS
Download the free companion lyric booklet