State Champs

Breaking out in the mid-aughts, CARTEL artfully threaded the space between the turn-of-the-millennium pop-punk tidal wave and the widespread virality of the social media generation, cutting their blend of hyper-melodic pop-rock with reflective lyricism and ambitious sonic versatility.

The Conyers, GA-based group quickly rose through the underground on the back of their 2005 breakthrough LP, Chroma, which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart, bore the Gold-certified hit “Honestly” and launched the childhood friends – vocalist/guitarist Will Pugh and guitarists Joseph Pepper and Nic Hudson – onto Warped Tour, TRL, Epic Records and millions of MySpace Top 8s.

Nearly two decades and more than 250,000 copies later, the album still resonates as a genre hallmark, hailed as one of the greatest pop-punk records of all time by Rock Sound and Loudwire and a singalong staple at emo nights around the world. But while the lightning-in-a-bottle energy of their debut took them from regional buzz band to mainstream names to know, it’s their insatiable desire to never settle that’s kept them one of the most respected acts in the genre to this day.

From the moody, angular guitars and experimental song structures that colored 2007’s top-20 debuting Cartel through the heavier impulses of 2009’s Cycles and atmospheric, airy melodicism the group elevated on their 2013 self-released Collider, the ebbs and flows of the band’s career have always shown Cartel’s desire to prioritize their own self-fulfillment over critical and commercial acclaim.

“There’s so many little things we pull from that I think often go unnoticed,” Pugh says. “We love blink-182 and Green Day, but we don’t reference them; we reference Soundgarden. ’90s grunge and alternative was the seminal stuff that spoke to us as young musicians, and it’s given us a completely different toolbox in terms of how we think about making music.”

That evolution was once again on display in 2022 as the band released their first new music in nine years, singles “17” and “The End” to accompany their spot as direct support on the Hello Gone Days alongside Dashboard Confessional and Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness.

“Now that we’ve gotten away from some of the pettiness of the way things were in the past, it’s given us more allowance to go back to the well and not have to feel like everything’s a response to what we just did,” Pugh says. “When we were writing ‘17’ and ‘The End,’ all we were concerned about was what Cartel would sound like right now – not what we sounded like earlier.”

This mentality has ultimately allowed Cartel to age with grace, resisting the tangles of nostalgia. Instead, they remain focused on their position as elder statesmen of the scene, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the bands that inspired them – look no further than Pugh’s production work with New Found Glory – while also inspiring the next era of acts to fearlessly chase their own muse.

As the group stares down the 20th anniversary of Chroma in 2025, they do so with both an appreciation for what their past has afforded them and an excitement for what the future holds. More recent live appearances on Warped Rewind at Sea, Emo’s Not Dead Cruise, Slam Dunk Festival, Is For Lovers Festival, and When We Were Young have introduced Cartel to a whole new generation of listeners – some of whom weren’t even alive when they rode the dual guitar intro of “Honestly” to the Billboard Hot 100 all those years ago.

“Thinking about having done this for over half of our lives sort of breaks the space-time continuum,” Pugh says. “It’s so cool, because it constantly feels like being re-birthed every time you hear the records.”