Tempt Plays Enticing Rock for the Modern Age

New York rockers Tempt are looking to score big next spring/summer with the release of their debut album. They certainly deserve it. Tempt exemplifies the best in melodic rock, from infectious vocals and tuneful riffs, to fluid rhythm work that drives the band’s upbeat, celebratory, feel-good songs.

Fans don’t have to wait until 2023 to discover this more than worthy group’s music. Tempt just dropped “Christmas Is The Time To Say I Love You,” a fun Christmas song that captures the excitement of being with significant others and loved ones during the holiday season. In addition, the curious can check out upcoming album track, “Living Dangerous.” The song features a duet with singer Dorothy Martin of the band Dorothy. It’s an irresistible piece of Def Leppard reminiscent dynamic vocals and huge guitars that the band is looking to as a breakout tune.

You can hear those songs and more on Tempt’s impressive website, https://www.temptband.com/ Tempt consists of singer Zach Allen, guitarist Harrison Marcello, bassist Chris Gooden and drummer Nicholas Burrows.

We recently had the opportunity to speak with Harrison Marcello.

On your website Temp is described as rock music for the modern age. What does that mean to you?

Harrison: I think it’s part of the band and the vision of Tempt and what we’ll see here for this new album which we’ve had done for a while. It was co-produced and mixed by Chris Lord-Alge (Grammy-winning engineer and mixer who worked on Green Day’s “American Idiot” and many more). It was actually finished during the beginning of the pandemic, but now it’ll be coming out in the summer time. We’re really happy with it and it came out great. Unfortunately because of the pandemic, we’ve had to sit on it for two years. It’s been pretty frustrating, but it’s for the greater good. We know that obviously as a pretty much unknown baby band if we released it during the middle of the pandemic not many people would’ve heard it. So we’re really excited to tour with it in the spring and summer and promote it and get it out there.

We view what we’re doing and what we think we’re doing with this record is a new, completely unique take on rock music. We’re infusing all of our different influences, from the old stuff all the way up to things like Bruno Mars. I think rock is in a place where there is a lot of great rock music but it’s all super heavy or super poppy. We want to bring back, we have stuff that is poppy and stuff that is straight ahead rock, back to that rock aesthetic but with a modern production. I think it’s going to be new for the rock space and we’re really excited about that.

Tempt’s music is energetic and celebratory. It seems like the band have a real love and zest for life.

I believe that music should be escapism. With this record we really wanted to create a unique sound and have that sound really match with the lyrics and complete the atmosphere. We’re all very fun-loving, happy guys, and we want to channel that into our music and make that brighten people’s spirits. Especially when that translates to our live show. We put on a really energetic live show and I think that reflects on the record as well.

Tell us about “Christmas Is The Time To Say I Love You,” your new holiday tune.

We were wanting to do a Christmas song for a few years. We had done some covers for social media. We decided,’ let’s do a serious Christmas song as a single.' My Godfather just happens to be Billy Squier so I had always heard his song, "Christmas Is The Time To Say I Love You" growing up around the holidays as a kid. I traced back my memory. The song’s fantastic. A lot of people do covers. This song is just a really fantastic, original Christmas song. It’s joyous, it’s merry, it’s upbeat, it’s rocking. So we recorded the song and it came out great, and Billy loved it. We did a really fun video. One of the best times to be in New York is during the holidays so went to 30 Rock and Rockefeller center. The whole project was really fun to do and I’m glad people are enjoying it.

People can hear “Living Dangerously,” a song featuring a duet with Dorothy that will appear on the upcoming album, on your website, https://www.temptband.com

We played a show with Dorothy, who’s really blowing up right now. We released the single already. We played a big show with her in the Gramercy Theatre. It was our first really big show back in the city since the pandemic.

When and how did you form?

Actually, (singer) Zach and I met a long time ago when I was a freshman in college in 2013, 2014. He was working with a songwriter-producer named Jack Ponti. He’s Jersey based and helped Bon Jovi with co-writing some of his early stuff. Zach was working with him and Jack said to Zach, you need your partner in crime song-writer. He found me through YouTube actually. We got together and hit it off right away. We wrote a bunch of songs and started playing shows with a mixed lineup of drummers and bass players. We weren’t really serious yet. I was still in college. I’d really only play shows during my winter break or summer break.

Once I graduated Zach and I reconnected with (drummer) Nick and so he came and joined the band as a permanent and creative partner. He knew (bassist) Chris and we had tried some bass players out but it really wasn’t working with anybody. Chris was a perfect fit. That’s when the core of the band really formed, around 2017, 2018. It’s just been amazing. I feel so blessed to have those guys. I know how hard it is to find people who are dedicated and share your vision.

You supported Bon Jovi. What did you learn from the way he operated?

We not only supported him, we played at Madison Square Garden, which was pretty amazing. We grew up in New York so we spent our whole childhood going to Knicks games and Rangers games. To finally be there at sound check looking out at the empty Madison Square Garden was pretty surreal. It was really interesting to see Jon and his crew up close because he runs a super clean, professional ship. Everyone in the crew, roadies, the staff, management, were amazing, really nice. We were sound checking before him and we finished sound check and I’m thinking let’s clear our stuff off the stage and the roadie said, no, just leave your stuff, we’ll work around it. So Jon has such a laid-back attitude when it comes to that We got to meet him right before the show. I was more nervous about meeting him than actually playing!

Will you play any shows in the interim between now and when you tour for the new album?

I think we probably will even if it’s just kind of a rehearsal or warmup show We have so many great fans in the city that no matter what we’re planning to do, we’ll always be looking to play one-off shows in the city.