With an E Street-inspired saxophone lead and an arrangement straight out of Quincy Jones' playbook, "Cooler" is The Graduating Class leaning into the nostalgia of the 80s. The track features punchy drums, cascading synths, crisp rhythm guitar, and the aforementioned blazing sax line. "Cooler" also marks the Graduating Class' first foray into production, as the band recorded the song themselves in the basement of a shuttered music venue. Lyrically, "Cooler" tells an all-too-universal story about working up the courage to ask someone out; the song's setting is reminiscent of a scene from a John Hughes movie. According to songwriter/producer John Queant: "'Cooler' is about the inner monologue in a person's head as they're trying to ask someone out. I imagined a scene from a cheesy movie, where a total bombshell walks into the club, everyone's jaws hit the floor, and the record skips a beat. The song's narrator is just trying to work up the courage to ask them to dance." Produced by John-Michael Queant Credits: Nathaniel Burmeister - Vocals Keenan Dorn - Guitar Elijah Hansen - Bass Guitar (Electric) Nathan Hansen - Drums, Percussion Instruments August King - Keyboards John-Michael Queant - Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals Tracking Engineer - John-Michael Queant Mixing Engineer - Matt Huber Mastering Engineer - Thaddeus Moore Liquid Mastering Artwork by Brad Phillips Photography by Oliver King ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy1JNWP2sSM

Dragondeer worked with director Jason Melino to produce a remote, collaborative music video for their track “Stay High.” Amidst the whirlwind of COVID-19 lockdowns, civil unrest, and general uncertainty, the video was held onto and never released. After a year of resilience and things now looking up, the band is excited to start performing again and release a full-length album on Color Red in 2021. In 2020, Dragondeer was slated to do a video shoot and a new tracking session at Color Red Studios three days after Colorado’s first mandated stay-at-home order. Rather than wallow at the conditions at hand, the group decided to pivot and worked with Melino to capture individual footage in their “personal bunkers” where they danced, played along, and set the scene for the collaborative video effort. The group shot individual videos and sent them to Melino where they worked out edits via video chat discussing texture, cuts, look & feel, and more as Melino edited the video in real-time. Lead vocalist and guitarist, Eric Halborg remarks, “It probably wouldn’t have happened that way if it wasn’t under those circumstances. It was a super collaborative effort and it opened our eyes that digital collaboration is a new normal and silver lining to what’s going on—we see this as a new way to mix music, work together, and open a whole new wave of possibilities.” Melino adds, “For me, the music video came together conceptualizing the idea with Eric and Cole as we were shooting the shit over Zoom and reflecting on how all of our current interactions are through screens. That’s how we were seeing each other. We spliced together a live performance of ‘Stay High’ along with shot-at-home video from the band members and just started evolving our idea into this happy, poppy, fun dance video. This epitomizes the creativity of the band and myself and what we can accomplish after scrapping our original music video shoot dates. We had fun finalizing the video as the whole band screen shared my edit bay and helped to make the final touches exactly how they were envisioning. That part, in particular, was a fun collaboration with instant feedback and changes.” The track complements the events over the last year as effortlessly as it flowed through guitarist/lap steel player, Cole Rudy’s pen. Rudy recalls sitting on his back porch in the Baker neighborhood of Denver late one summer night beginning with a simple guitar riff and pouring out the lyrics and framework shortly after. The song presents a dual meaning—through the lyric “sacraments for you and me,” Rudy reflects on using cannabis as a “sacrament,” especially for engaging in musical activities. Historically, the term “sacrament” is used in the Catholic church to describe a re ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMRVaYMNURg