Burning Glass’s “The Yellow Pages” Marks the Beginning of the End for the Band
Photo by Daniel Stewart
On Tuesday, June 23rd, I joined a lively Discord call with my good friends in Burning Glass to discuss their new EP “The Yellow Pages”. The South Florida-based grunge rock band released this energetic EP on June 13.
The concept of The Yellow Pages was born when lead guitarist Cole DeRiso Riniker was playing music with friends.
“We wanted to come up with like a name for the project, and I thought yellow pages was cool since […] we’re all very different musicians and play different styles and yellow pages have different phone numbers […] and you can call anyone really from anything.”
Cole further explains that this project idea with his friends unfortunately fell through, leading the idea to be put on the back burner. However, Burning Glass was in the process of compiling their first EP and needed a name for it.
“These are all very random songs, made at different times, and I was like ‘Oh, that actually fits very well to this theme I had already planned out with someone else’ so it just kind of laid out perfectly.”
I was very intrigued by their whole writing process; they used old songs for this EP rather than writing new songs that no one has heard before. When asked about this, drummer and lyricist Evan Michalak explained that this project was a long time coming. Originally, the EP was supposed to be released last October, but life got in the way, causing the whole process to be delayed.
“Marlon became our singer in 2023, and we were still kind of figuring out how and who to record with, and just so many different experiences happened that kind of delayed these songs. But, we knew these songs were going to be the next bunch to release,” Evan further explained.
Burning Glass decided it was best for The Yellow Pages release to be delayed until 2025 so that they could take their time with it and make something that reflects their dedication to the music. Their hard work shows in this EP.
The Yellow Pages is a strong contrast to their first EP, “How About…”. The band describes it as more of a “demo” EP. With three songs and a simple black and white aesthetic, this first EP was just something to get Burning Glass started.
“We needed music out. We needed to put something to our name because we were put down by some other bands because we had nothing out,” Cole explained.
The band was very underprepared, according to Cole, but they were determined to finally release music. “How About…” was mixed and mastered by Evan and put out very quickly.
“If it sounds like shit, that’s what it is!” Cole joked, “That’s what we wanted to do, we just needed music out. We wanted to show people that we have good music and we’re worth listening to.”
When asked about the aesthetic choices made for their first EP, guitarist Iris explained that the black and white style of the EP reflects exactly what How About… was: a rushed demo that was made to show Burning Glass’s potential.
“It’s a black and white CD case of like ‘this is our literal tape’. ‘How About…’ you listen to Burning Glass? Now this (The Yellow Pages) was something we were working on to be more of a serious project, so we added the color to it,” Iris explained.
One thing the two EPs share is that neither of them has an overall central message. Even though the theme and aesthetic of The Yellow Pages are so strong, there’s no major theme that ties the songs together. As Cole stated, the EP is called “The Yellow Pages” because of the lack of connection between the songs.
“The point of this is that these are just a collection of older songs from different points of my life that I’ve written about,” Evan explained, “These songs are about love and loss and have some stories behind them […]. But there is no overall message between all the songs. They’re all kind of like, in their own world, a little bit.”
The writing process for Burning Glass is quite simple, according to Cole: someone has an idea, they send it to their group chat, then they get to work.
“Someone will come up with an idea, send it to the group chat, and then nine months later, Evan will send the audio of him singing over it,” Cole joked, “That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but […] there’s other times where we will just jam and come up with something on the spot, and if we like it, it sticks.”
For example, Iris started writing the song NERVE on his own and went on to share it with the rest of Burning Glass. From there, bassist Isaac Blandon added a bass line, and the rest of the members worked out their own parts.
“Iris sent NERVE and a bunch of others at once […]. I went through those archives, and out of all of them, I liked NERVE the best, and I felt like I could actually write something to that,” Evan explained.
Evan considers NERVE to be one of the newer songs on the EP; however, he points out how long it took for the song to come together.
“I think about six months to maybe even more, like a year later, I finished the lyrics. I gave it more of a real meaning, a meaning that I was feeling more. I was just feeling it more at that time, and that’s kind of how NERVE came to be.”
One interesting fact about Burning Glass is that most of their lyrics are written by Evan, the drummer.
“I’ve had literally so many people after shows like come up to me and they’re like ‘Oh my God, your lyric writing is really good’ because usually the lead singer is the one that writes lyrics, but I have to tell them ‘no, I didn’t write the music, the drummer did,” singer Marlon Alvarez explained, “Almost all of our music in its entirety was written by Evan, which is pretty cool.”
Being in the music scene has greatly impacted the members of Burning Glass. They’re all in their early twenties now, but they entered the scene as teenagers and started playing their instruments at an even younger age.
“Being in the music scene […] is great and one of the best things ever. I mean, music has connected people forever. […] It’s a beautiful and wonderful thing to be a part of,” Cole said.
Burning Glass has many loyal fans throughout Florida and around the world. At every gig they play, they meet new people and connect with fans and friends. It came as a shock to these fans and friends when Burning Glass announced at their EP release show on June 13th that they would be breaking up as a band after their last few scheduled shows.
The decision was ultimately made when the singer Marlon expressed his conflicts with being in a band.
“It’s just career and stuff like that, I feel like me being in the band adds another level of […] responsibility that I really don’t need in my life right now”.
Marlon is not Burning Glass’s first singer. The band has been through multiple singers since forming in 2019; however, Marlon stuck and became such an important part of Burning Glass that the members can’t see going on without Marlon.
“It sucks because we’ve kind of all have history together as this band. We would have to find somebody who would live up to Marlon’s natural talent, natural voice, but also be willing to do this for a living,” Evan explained.
This isn’t the end of their music careers, though. The four other Burning Glass members, Cole, Evan, Iris, and Isaac, all have plans to continue their musical journey together.
“Maybe not doing shows right now, but in the future, we’re thinking about working on some of the songs that we still have and that we don’t have out yet,” Iris explained.
Evan added the fact that all of them are getting older and their lives are changing. Decisions like these are not easy for a band to make, especially since some members have been friends for over 10 years.
“It is a true end of an era. This (Burning Glass) is like a baby for really Evan, Isaac, and myself. We were in high school in 2019 with each other when this started,” Cole explained, “This is like my first band, Isaac’s first band… like this is literally our child.”
The band members hope to continue making music together. In the meantime, each of them is part of other bands outside of Burning Glass. Evan is in the bands Memory Well, Listener 555, and Fasten Passenger Seatbelt. Iris is in the band Disputer and has some personal projects on his Instagram. Cole is in the band Thorns and has some solo projects as well.
The Yellow Pages was, and still is, an important project for Burning Glass. The years of hard work and dedication each member put into this EP are shown not only in the songs but in their design and social media efforts as well. It’s a bittersweet ending for the boys, but The Yellow Pages is definitely not the last thing you’ll hear from them.
Stay up to date with Burning Glass members and their projects with their Instagrams below:
Cole DeRiso Riniker: @coleriniker
Evan Michalak: @evan_endlys
Iris: @__7ris__
Isaac Blandon: @pyr0_isaac
Marlon Alvarez: @filthy.sludge