When he was a kid growing up in the '90s, punk music played an indelible role in Wes Hoffman’s youth. That translated into him becoming a familiar face in the Midwest pop-punk scene in the mid-2000s.
Today, Hoffman’s band, Wes Hoffman and Friends, brings a mature sensibility to a genre that evokes skateboarding, crowd surfing and noise complaints from neighbors.
“I definitely feel like just because I'm older doesn't mean that I've lost my sense of youth,” Hoffman said. “A lot of times people say, ‘Youth is wasted on the young.’ I agree to that to an extent, but I don't think I would be doing the things that I'm doing now if I was 22. I didn’t have the knowledge … and the life experience that I have [now].”
After the release of several singles and EPs, Wes Hoffman and Friends is now out with a debut album, “How It Should Be.” The band has been touring for the last seven years and, like Hoffmann, the band’s music reflects the age of its members — old enough to be an adult but too young to be called old.
Hoffman shared that in writing the album, he experienced the ebbs and flows that come with adulthood.
“I was finding a new energy and a new life. In [‘How It Should Be’] half of the songs are really happy and hopeful about the future and very positive, but then there's also some hard stuff in there,” he said. “I think those are the things that people relate to the most. We're all fighting some kind of battle that someone doesn't know about, and I think people resonate with that quite a bit.”
For more on how Wes Hoffman found inspiration in his own life’s changes to write “How It Should Be” and how he supports St. Louis’ pop-punk community behind the scenes listen to St. Louis on the Air on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or click the play button below.
Related Event
What: Wes Hoffman & Friends performing “How It Should Be”
When: Nov. 22
Where: Red Flag (3040 Locust St., St. Louis, MO 63103)
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Jada Jones is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.
