The Beat He Drums: How Rock-n-Roll Pulled Asalone Thru a Cancer Battle & Emotional Band Break-Up

Abalone (Photo by Heather Chrosniak)

(EDITOR’S NOTE — To say 2020 was a trying time for Buffalo musician Adam Putzer would be a gross understatement. Like the rest of us, Putzer — the former guitarist for the long-running indie band The Tins who now performs as a solo artist under the name ‘Asalone’ — was forced to navigate the unsettling isolation and uncertainty of the pandemic shutdown. But the stress of that trying time was aggravated tenfold for Putzer by the break-up of the successful band of which he was a part for more than a decade, and even worse, a cancer diagnosis that ravaged his health and drained his physical strength. The setbacks left him questioning his future in music altogether. Thankfully, once he was healthy enough to pick up his guitar again, his outlook slowly changed. He recorded a single in 2022. And then another the next year. And he began to gig relentlessly. Today, Putzer is writing prolifically, and on Friday he’ll be dropping on streaming platforms his latest single, ‘The Beat I Drum.’ 1120 Press sat down with Putzer recently for a sweeping conversation, which we’re thrilled to bring you below. Be sure, too, to see the video at the bottom of the page featuring Asalone's excellent performance of The Shoes' classic song, 'Captial Gain.')

1120 PRESS: Thank you for speaking with us. There’s a lot to talk about but where we want to start is with your writing as of late. You’ve been active, which is great to see. Can you talk about that and what’s been motivating you?

ASALONE/ADAM PUTZER: So, I did the two singles — (Slipping, 2022, and Blue Shadow, 2023), and they were kind of like experiments. In 2020, during COVID, I found out I had cancer. And for a year, I basically was too weak to get up and play guitar. But what I did was I invested money into Ableton. That's like Pro Tools, basically. I hate Pro Tools, but I was shopping around, just trying free trials and Ableton was the easiest to use. I bought a little midi keyboard, about 25 keys, and I could just sit there on the computer at least and play. And that's like where those two singles came from — these little keyboard riffs that I could play with one hand and sit there and not think about it, really.

Over time, once I began to feel better, I started playing out again, and I was like, ‘I kind of missed just playing rock music.’ I started doing all these shows, like breweries and restaurants and doing covers. It was like going back to the beginning for me and that kind of influenced my writing going forward. I thought, ‘let's just write some good rock-and-roll pop songs.’ I just love power pop and all that. All of a sudden, I had more ideas, and I could pick up a guitar again, and riffs started coming. So then ‘Ghost, Almost’ (2025) was the first song out of that batch. After that, I wrote like three or four songs in pretty quick succession, and that's where I am now.

1120: After your diagnosis and as you began to recover, what was your attitude toward music? Did you feel an urgency, or did you feel the opposite?

AP: Kind of both. After The Tins had broken up, I made up my mind I didn't want to do it anymore. That was 2020 as well; 2020 was a very rough and interesting year. My longtime band broke up, the pandemic happened, I was diagnosed with cancer, and I became a father. I had a lot of resentment after going through some of that stuff, and I was burned out. I was in The Tins for so long and we were kind of getting teased with a bit of success and we were confronted with ‘How can we step it up to the next level?’ When it all ended, there was resentment.

But after the diagnosis, I did a lifelong recalibration, and I let go of my grudges toward those guys and reconciled. And in doing that, I was like: ‘Do I really need to give up music?’ It's not just the about success. If you really love it, just do it for the love of it. And that made me realize, ‘Yeah, I want to do this again.’

1120: We’re amazed by the number of shows that you did in 2023, especially considering that you were recovering from your cancer diagnosis. How many shows was it — 60? What motivated you to play out that much?

AP: Yeah, it was 60. And honestly, the reason was economic necessity. I was not back at work yet at the time, so I had decided I was going to supplement our family income playing shows. So, I just went hog wild; I booked anything and everything that I could. And I wanted to play too. It had been forever, so I just wanted to get out there. It was definitely a nose-to-the-grindstone kind of thing. I realized after my first show how much work I actually needed to do to get back into playing shape because I hadn't played live in years at that point. And it’s not that I was a big fan of doing three-hour shows, but in a weird way it’s like boot camp: You go out, you play all these songs, and you just try to get through it every night. That year was exhausting. It was fun, but exhausting. Now that I've kind of gotten my legs back under me again, I don't really want to do the three-hour shows anymore. I have a job now again. So, I don't need to do it for the money, even though the money is decent.

I also decided to take time to re-evaluate things. I took occasional recordings of my sets. I could hear pitchiness, or I could feel when I was lacking some energy. I decided I needed somebody to kind of drive me forward. That's what the whole thing is about working now with (Buffalo musician and recording engineer) Joey B.

1120: So, let’s talk about that: Now you’re working with JoeyB and through that partnership you released ‘Ghost, Almost.’ You also have a new song coming out Friday Sept. 26. Tell us about that and does the recent output suggest you’re working toward an EP or anything? 

AP: The new song is called ‘The Beat I Drum.’ It’s a little bit more of a political tune. I would like to do an EP because part of my post-diagnosis recovery ambition is to release some kind of full body of work under my own name. I've kind of accepted the fact that, at this point, I'm just doing this for the love of the game as opposed to trying to ‘grow this’ necessarily. Modern marketing would dictate that I release all these singles and then put it all out as an EP on a streaming service. And that might be how I do it; I still haven't really decided yet. But I have enough songs now where I can make an EP. In a finished state, I have probably 10 or 12 songs in various forms. But if we're going just by riffs and stuff like that, then I have an endless amount. (laughs)

1120: You’ve mentioned before your stubborn insistence on doing everything yourself. What has working with JoeyB done for you and how is it for you collaborating with someone given your acknowledged desire for control?

AP: With Joey, it's more like a ‘live’ thing. I’ve been doing these new songs, alone, with an electric guitar playing live and I decided, ‘I really need a beat’ if I want them to come across loud and powerful. I'd like to do a full three- or four-piece band, but me and Joey have a good rapport. I guess you could say chemistry. He's been a big supporter of my work from the second we met. During the ‘Blue Shadow’ sessions, he was interning at Mammoth Recording Studio, and he was just digging it. I had done most of that song at home, but we were finishing it off there at the studio and he was just really into it. Joey works with so many people, and he's just got a real positive attitude. And I missed playing with other people too. I wanted to play with somebody live. But again, I need to be able to control it and Joey's totally egoless. And he's a really good drummer, too. I'm definitely less of a dictator than I was. And if he wants to play loose and crazy, I'm cool with that too, because, really, the new songs kind of lend themselves to that.

1120: So now that you’re back into this, how do you think your work has evolved?

AP: I think it's evolved in a lot of ways by deciding not to continually chase ‘what's cool,’ and just play what I want to play. Not to keep bringing it back to The Tins, but, I mean, I was in that band for 10 years. Probably longer, actually. And you know, in a band, you're compromising all the time. So now, it's readjusting that mindset and realizing I can do whatever the hell I want. I don't answer to anybody. If I want to play a loud rock song, there's nothing to stop me from doing that except me.

1120: Is that was inspired ‘Ghost, Almost,’ because on that song, you push toward in that direction, which departs from ‘Slipping’ and ‘Blue Shadow.’  

AP: Yeah, I think it's kind of an announcement that this is what we're gonna be doing now. I'm really influenced by pop music; not just The Beatles, but also those obscure 70s and 80s bands. It’s funny: I hate streaming. But the one real big benefit of streaming is you get those ‘suggested other bands’ on your feed and that allows you to go down a rabbit hole in which you then start discovering hidden gems by bands nobody's ever heard of. That's really interesting to me. So that's where my interest in The Shoes came from. I was listening to Bad Finger and then The Shoes showed up as a ‘suggested’ band. I also found this other band called The Jacks that way. They’re another incredible band nobody's ever heard of.

1120: So, what's your focus right now?

AP: Lately, I’ve gotten really into old-school hardcore. I’ve always been a fan of The Minutemen and Husker Du. But I'm also more of a melody guy, so I prefer Grant Hart’s songs with Husker Du if I'm being honest. I love Bob Mould too, don't get me wrong and his work with Sugar was amazing. But yeah, now, I’m like: Let’s play faster. Let's play louder. But let's have good melody.

1120: So, we’re coming to the end, but you mention ‘loud’ and ‘fast’: Is that the shape and direction your new music will be taking now? Is that what we should expect?

AP: I think most of the songs I would consider to be pretty loud rock-and-roll music, but more mid-tempo. There's one song that I really love called ‘There's No Going Back,’ which is kind of Buddy Holly-esque. I think it’s one of my best things I've ever written. But also, in a weird way, a lot of the new songs are driven by politics.

It’s interesting: I was never really a political writer before, but with everything going, it's unavoidable. And plus, you know, having a family now, the anxieties hit me harder than they would have as a young, white man in his 20s. I guess you could kind of like brush that stuff off with your privilege and everything. Now, I own a house, I have a kid, and things are only getting more expensive, and people are getting taken off the streets and it’s generally pretty shitty out there. So, ‘There's No Going Back,’ is kind of like an upbeat, peppy song, but it's picturing a time where there's literally no going back to that. We've hit a line in which we as a country have crossed. There is no going back now. You can only change what's going to happen going forward if we’re going to survive this.

(Follow Asalone’s music onSpotify HEREas well as onhis Bandcamp page. You can also follow himon Instagram... Watch Asalone perform ‘Capital Gain’ by The Shoes below.)

Asalone performs 'Capital Gain' by The Shoes at Amy's Place, Buffalo NY. (Video by 1120 Press)