The Alberta quartet open up about the long road to their self titled debut, creative freedom and the seven songs that finally brought their story together.
Famous Strangers may be a relatively new name in heavy music, but there is nothing inexperienced about the four people behind it. Based in Sherwood Park, Alberta, the band brings together Amanda Kiernan on lead vocals, Jeff Kittlitz on guitar and backing vocals, Braden Sustrik on bass and backing vocals, and Brian “Beej” Jolly on drums and backing vocals. Their paths had crossed through friendships, earlier bands and shared stages long before Famous Strangers took shape in 2023.
The vinyl edition of their self titled debut, Famous Strangers, arrived on 6 August, with the digital and streaming release following on 21 August 2026. Across seven tracks, the band moves through heavy metal, hard rock, grunge, punk, progressive textures, blues and quieter atmospheric spaces without forcing any of it into a single box. The sound may travel, but its emotional centre remains clear: knowing your worth, breaking destructive patterns, facing the past without allowing it to define you, and finding the strength to choose yourself.
Some of the music began as ideas Jeff and Beej had carried for more than a decade. Other pieces only found their final identity once Amanda and Braden became part of the conversation. That history gives the album the energy of a beginning, but also the weight of four musicians bringing years of experience, setbacks and lessons into the right room at the right time.
When the opportunity came through to speak with Famous Strangers, I wanted to understand more than how the band formed or how the album was recorded. I wanted to get inside the trust that allowed old songs to transform, the freedom behind Amanda’s most personal writing, and the belief that a band can move from metal to punk, blues or outer space without apologising for any of it.
Amanda, Jeff, Beej and Braden opened up to Crannk about the road to their debut, the songs that made it, the earlier singles that did not, the outside voices who helped shape the record, and why Famous Strangers finally feels like the musical home they had been waiting to find.
The Right People At The Right Time
Famous Strangers may be a relatively new band, but the relationships behind it reach back through years of friendships, previous bands, and shared stages. Why did Amanda, Jeff, Beej, and Braden become the right combination at this point in your lives?
Amanda:
I think everybody’s been there and done that for the past twenty years, different bands and different friends, then moving on to different bands and different friends again. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out at the end of the day, because people have a change in what they’re doing in life. But I think we’ve all been through that enough, and it felt like we all knew that as we got together, and it just seemed to work out. The stars all aligned.
Jeff:
The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. When we were younger, especially for myself, I just wasn’t ready to play music with all these awesome individuals. I felt I needed to be at a certain point in my career to be able to share the stage with Braden and Amanda. I’ve looked up to them my whole life playing music, and I was finally ready to create some music with them.
Amanda, you initially joined the others to play covers without wanting any serious musical commitment. What changed when they presented you with that original song, and what did you hear in it that made you ready to fully commit again?
Amanda:
I can’t remember the first couple songs they showed me, I think they dropped a couple metal tunes on me. But then Rain happened. I’ve always wanted to write slow stuff like that, I’m a huge Pink Floyd, Tool, and slow Opeth lover. When I heard Rain, it just clicked, and then everything poured out of me after that, almost like twenty plus years of holding back all came pouring down like the rain. This time it felt different, and I had a lot of time to feel them out. It was just good vibes the whole time. Every time a jam ended, I was sad and wanted to stay longer, and that was the first clue. I was like, oh wow. We all get along really well, they respect me, they support me, and they let me have complete creative control, so it was a no brainer to continue on with them. It’s crazy how it all started, because here we are three years later and we’ve done so much already. It was the perfect timing. Even though I was hesitant, I didn’t have any other commitments, so I’m really happy the universe works in mysterious ways. I’m blessed to know and be a part of FS with these beautiful boys.
Jeff and Beej continued writing together after This Is War ended, with some of the album’s ideas surviving for more than a decade. What kept that creative partnership alive when neither of you knew whether the material would ever find a permanent home?
Jeff:
Since This Is War ended, Beej and I kept playing music, and I think the goal was always to keep that going. We knew we would find a home for it. I remember when we first wrote some of those songs, it was in Brian’s basement, and we even had some people come out and fill in, try to play guitar or sing, trying to find band members. We didn’t know where it would go from there. It wasn’t until we did a reunion show for Brian’s high school band, Pugnacious, that we found Braden, and after that there was more of a direction to find a permanent home for those songs. And it was working. I’ll add to that, the thing that kept that creative process alive was Brian standing by my side through thick and thin. He was the only one who walked out the door with me when This Is War ended, and he stayed by my side. Since then we’ve been through so much together, and it’s just been a good fit. We create great art together, and he’s my best friend. It’s awesome.
Some of those older compositions changed once Amanda brought in her vocals and Braden introduced his bass ideas. Do you believe songs can sometimes exist before the right musicians are emotionally or creatively ready to complete them?
Amanda:
I would agree with that. We have a thing we call going to space. Sometimes when we’re writing a new song and we haven’t totally finalized a part, we’ll play it different styles, different lengths, different ways every time, and it’s this subconscious jam where we’re all talking without saying words. That’s what I was reminded of by this question. There are songs that were kind of skeletons before, but when you add a different ingredient, it goes to a whole different level. They always seem to evolve over time. We’ll write a brand new song, and as you’re honing it over the next few months, it changes so much before the so-called final version comes out, which is pretty cool.
A First Album Years In The Making
This is the debut album from Famous Strangers, but nobody involved is beginning a musical career. How did making a first album together feel after decades of previous bands, touring, recording setbacks, and accumulated experience?
Jeff:
For me, it was a brand new experience, and it was the perfect fit. I’ve always wanted to create a record, I’ve been striving to create a record like this my whole life. That comes straight from the songwriting, to the people I’m playing with and the way we play our instruments together, to the team recording it, the production, and all the work that goes in. Everybody brought their twenty years of experience to create something brand new, exciting, and really cool. It’s my dream record to date.
Beej:
I’ll touch on what Jeff said there. It’s been a long time coming. I’ve recorded lots of albums over the years and never been able to find that sound, that upper echelon sound, I guess. Finally it just kind of happened. We put the right team together and the right musicians, and everything seemed to get to where it should be, and it sounds amazing. I’m pretty thrilled. Want to add anything, Braden?
Braden:
It sounds pretty good, right?
“Deepstar,” “George,” “I’ll See You in the Stars,” and “L.S.C.” helped introduce Famous Strangers, but none appear on the album. Were those singles a developmental period, a separate chapter, or a deliberate prologue to the band’s full length record?
Amanda:
We didn’t plan anything, we didn’t even plan to be a band, so we were taking everything one step at a time. We were also, and still are, finding our sound. We needed to get something out there, we couldn’t just be a band with no music out. It’s hard when you only have four or five songs out, people might lose interest, so it’s nice to have the songs we do have, and now we’ll have the album too. It’s a good chunk for people to listen to, because people’s attention spans are a lot less nowadays. It’s exciting to have a whole album of new music to show, and it’s always going to be changing anyway.
Jeff:
Basically everything Amanda said, but to add on, those songs came from us originally wanting to release our full length record. I think we had nine songs recorded, and there was a blues one and a jazzier one on there. When we went to get it mixed and mastered, it got brought to our attention, and we were introduced to Phil Anderson and Maor Appelbaum, who steered us in a different direction, along with mentor help from Byron Stroud, who said maybe just do singles, I don’t think the record quite describes you guys. They didn’t want us to put the time, money, and effort into something that wouldn’t go as far, when we could build up some singles first and then release it. We’ve really grown from there, from DIY recording to DIY videos to now having the team and getting exactly where we want. I’m proud of every step of it.
The album moves through classic metal, hard rock, grunge, punk, progressive ideas, atmospheric riffs, and blues. Was that freedom exciting, or did you ever worry that audiences might struggle to place Famous Strangers in one clear category?
Jeff:
When we’re writing the music, we don’t care, and it feels freeing. Then when we try to collect it into a concise piece for an album, that’s when we had to step back and reassess exactly what songs we wanted to make the album, and decide if there were other styles of songs we thought would balance things out and complement the rest of the songs that made the cut.
Amanda:
We also don’t really want to pigeonhole ourselves into one genre. We love that we’re all about different genres and audiences. So far even some booking agents are a little confused on where to put us, which is okay right now. But as we’ve developed our sound, we’re more just an all around hard rock band with elements of all those genres, and we like that, because we want to be able to fit in with the blues people and the metal people and the rock people. We want to be a part of it all. I do get nervous, especially when we have a show with a really heavy band. We went out with Gravemass and I was like, well, we don’t exactly fit, we’re not as heavy as they are, but the audience responded really well. Obviously people like all different styles of music, and sometimes our music is a nice little break when you have a whole festival of really heavy stuff going on, and we take it down a notch. It makes me nervous, but it’s also really cool, because we want to be able to play any festival out there, not just metal festivals. How cool would it be to travel and do all different genres of festivals? And if we have a whole set for that specific festival, cool. We put our set to who we’re playing with. When we opened up for Danko Jones we had more of a rocker set, and when we opened up for Three Inches of Blood we went way heavier. I hope to play some really cool festivals, jazz festivals, whatever opportunities come.
Beej:
I don’t think we’re ever really worried about what people think about it. The response from the audience has been nothing but great. Like Amanda was saying, we’re a good break and a breath of fresh air. It’s good flow, it takes you through a journey and gives everybody’s ears a variety of listening, which I think is very important.
Amanda:
We’re also at a stage in our lives where we’ve always played music that we love, but with this band we’re all just literally playing exactly what we feel. Of course we want people to like it, but not everybody’s going to like it, and that’s okay. That’s what music is, that’s what art is all about. You don’t have to like it all, but hopefully we have so many different styles that we get you with at least one song. We’re definitely not a one trick pony band. We could put a set together for any genre, any festival, anywhere, anytime. Hells yeah.
Writing Without Rules
How does Famous Strangers normally develop a song? Do Jeff and Beej establish the musical foundation before Braden and Amanda reshape it, or does every track arrive through a completely different process?
Jeff:
It’s gone many different ways now, but it usually stems from Beej and myself coming up with a riff, or even the three of us, me, Beej, and Braden, where we’ll jam on a riff and Braden will hold it down nice and give me the freedom to go write some melody over top of it. Once the trifecta is there and we get a little bit of structure, Amanda can feed on it. But it’s also gone the way where Amanda will write, and we build the structure around her voice and what her parts are doing. I think we’re all open to creating art in different ways, from going A to B to A to C to A to D, as long as we get the song completed and we’re all happy doing what we do. It’s very enjoyable. That’s what this band is about. Because we explore so much, we’re also willing to adventure on different ways to write, because there are so many different ways.
The record centers on knowing your worth, healing, personal responsibility, and escaping destructive patterns. How do you keep those messages honest and human, rather than allowing them to become generic statements about empowerment?
Amanda:
Because it’s literally coming from my insides, and I don’t know how else to do it. Also, my vocabulary isn’t very big, I should pick up a dictionary. Anything I write comes right from the heart and soul, and it is very blunt, so it might come off that way. Every single word on that album is me, all me. Besides Desires, luckily, Jeff wrote that whole fucking thing lyrically.
Jeff:
Same thing. That’s about having desires, and the lyrics just say it straight. It’s about a real life experience that I had, about somebody very special to me, and I just had to write down what I feel, sing it, and express it.
Amanda:
I think I’d tried it before back in the day, writing from experience, but this is the first time I really went hard. I wrote every single song from experience, besides the alien invasion, of course. Or maybe not, maybe that really happened. It’s not easy, it’s very challenging to write from experience, but that’s just how it is.
Jeff:
I think the realism of Amanda’s lyrics isn’t generic. She’s not trying to make a generic statement of empowerment, she’s just expressing empowerment, and it comes across very authentic.
Inside The Songs
“Fire Inside” confronts the past without allowing it to define who somebody becomes. Why was that the right song to open the album and establish its emotional direction?
Jeff:
It was actually chosen for us by Byron Stroud. He helped us arrange this record, and we like to get outside opinions, it’s always nice to have somebody outside of the band weigh in. It just seemed to strike the right chord. It’s a great opener, and I think the lyrics and everything it expresses set the tone for the whole record.
“Ghosts of Men” was rebuilt from an earlier idea and became one of Amanda’s most personal performances. What changed when you returned to that song, and why did the rewritten version deserve a place on the album?
Beej:
The older version we did was still rock and roll, to say the least. We re-looked at it when we were opening for the Danko Jones show, we just wanted to put together a rocker, and we thought, hey, this song from back in the vault is pretty banging, let’s throw a twist on it, write it a little differently, and throw it in the mix. It worked out awesome.
Jeff:
I think it took Amanda being ghosted by a specific person in the time period between when we first wrote the song and when it became this personal masterpiece. It was also very quickly written. By the time we wrote it and got in the studio, or even played the show, Braden maybe had an hour with it. He said yes, but I think in his head he was like, you guys are fucking crazy. But it worked out.
Amanda:
We recorded it in between Christmas and New Year’s, the worst time ever, when nobody wants to lift a finger. We’re ambitious, for sure. It seems like every time I get upset, it’s a great time to write. So maybe I should keep getting my heart broken so I can write more music.
“Please Her” brings confidence, sexuality, and humour into a record containing some very difficult emotional themes. Was it important to show that knowing your worth can also embrace pleasure, and refusing to remain where you are not treated properly?
Amanda:
Since the music is all so personal, might as well get super personal with you. For a really long time in my life, I would chase after boys and not have any boundaries and not know my worth whatsoever. I would literally get treated like garbage, but I would stay. There are so many more feelings behind this song, because maybe at the beginning I was having a nice time with someone, but then things started to get a little messy, and that’s when I wrote the chorus. So it is kind of light and dark. It’s cool how it happened, because it shows exactly what you just said. What’s taken me a lifetime to learn is don’t take no shit from anybody. You deserve to be treated with respect, and if they don’t, then get the fuck out of there as fast as you can. I’ve wasted a lot of years in dark places, but I guess I wouldn’t be who I am today without those dark places. It’s to inspire people to know your worth. You can still be treated really well, you can still have fun, you can have it all. You don’t have to go chasing after people who don’t treat you right.
“As Your Leader” carries anger toward manipulation and division, but beneath that anger is a belief in community and collective strength. How did you approach writing about politics without tying the song to one party or ideology?
Amanda:
It was easy for me to do that, because I’ve always felt this way about the government, even when I was a kid and didn’t even know what the government was. I just had this feeling inside of me. I don’t know enough to say facts or anything about it, but I know they’ve done a lot of bad shit. I also understand that you do need structure, and maybe there needs to be a system, but the system is totally corrupt. I know I’m not knowledgeable enough, so I don’t want to get too detailed. It’s just the government as a whole and how it’s always been. It’s hard for me to answer these questions now, because now that this song is out, I have to talk about it, and it makes me uncomfortable because it’s such a touchy subject and people get really upset. When you work at a bar, one of the conversations you don’t talk about is politics. I’m going off on a tangent, sorry, Art.
Beej:
The whole thing Amanda is trying to say in that song is that unity is stronger than separation, and control is never a good thing. Everybody should come together and have the freedom to speak their mind and have their beliefs heard. At festivals where sixty, eighty, a hundred thousand people are all together in unity, believing in the same thing and doing the same thing for the same cause of good humanity, good things just naturally happen. The universe works out. You don’t need to be told what to do, and you don’t need to be controlled. Division is never a good thing. Everybody knows the overlords in society say one thing and do another. That’s politics, that’s politicians. They’re all backstabbers. They tell you one thing, everybody’s happy to hear what they want to do, and then they do the complete opposite. So fuck em.
Braden:
The themes of corruption, we all four totally agree on. We might differ slightly in the subtleties of our politics, but that’s the big thing we definitely all agree on, more than what colour tie someone’s wearing.
Jeff:
It’s like history repeats itself with the government. If you look at the history, over and over, it doesn’t matter who’s at that podium, the same things happen again and again. Honestly, I was appalled when I started to learn about what’s further down in the history. I don’t even want to get into it, because a lot of it is horrific. As far as musically, this was one of the first three songs Beej and I had written after This Is War. To think of where the lyrics would go, I would never have expected it. For how angry and metal and fast and fierce that riff is, it’s very fitting for how Amanda wrote it and what the song is about.
Amanda:
I feel like most people can relate to the anger, because it’s like, turn and face the real enemy. We’ve got to stop fighting each other. Everyone deserves to have shelter and food and happiness, why is that not a thing? The system sure makes it difficult for any of us to get by. No wonder everybody’s stressed out, and there are some people out there living awful lives. I just feel like the system could be way better.
“Desires” is the main lyrical exception, because Jeff wrote the words. Amanda, how did you step inside someone else’s personal story and deliver it as though the emotions were your own?
Amanda:
It took me for fucking ever. We even played it a few times live and I sucked at it. It was so bad, I wasn’t even singing it the right way at the beginning. It stresses me out when I have to do that, because I want it to be perfect and exactly what they need, and it just wasn’t happening for so long. I feel so bad for Jeff, because he was probably just being nice, like, oh, it’s great, when inside he’s like, what the fuck, where’s the Amanda that I know? But unfortunately, sometimes a couple beers, a couple Lucky Lagers, will get you in the zone. The only reason my vocals came out the way they did was that day recording it, we were having a lot of fucking trouble with it, I was getting really frustrated, and then I started to get pretty drunk, and I was probably taking some weed oil, and then it just hit me. I think it was the last take too. We were pretty tapped out that night, it was a long night of recording, and I was like, just one more time, roll it one more time. Sometimes something happens to me where I can just wing it, which isn’t always a good thing, because you should be practiced and everything should be planned. But I like it when it just pours out of me, and after you’re like, whoa, what just happened? That’s not the best way to do things, but I’m glad I was on it that night, because that’s what came out in the recording.
Jeff:
Sometimes it is the best way. That’s the great thing about art, there’s no right or wrong way to do it.
“Far Away from Home” combines punk energy, alien abduction, and the desire to escape into space. Did that song give the band permission to have fun and avoid treating every heavy idea with complete seriousness?
Braden:
I’d say it’s a pretty fun song. You can tell compared to the other ones, it’s pretty uppity, it’s pretty quick, it’s pretty fun. The lyrics make it even better. The story behind it, getting abducted and all that stuff, is pretty cool, really.
Jeff:
It’s again just giving Amanda that creative freedom. We kind of put on space lights, get our own little vibe, and go to space and jam, and that one day she was feeling it. I had kind of the chorus written, some lyrics, and wanted her to build off of that. When I originally wrote the chorus, my idea of the song was definitely not being abducted by aliens or any of that, but the way she made it work and tied it all together is again why Amanda’s such a great vocalist and songwriter.
Amanda:
There were so many times I was like, are you sure, you guys? Are you sure this is good? There’d be times I thought they were lying to me. A lot of the songs we have right now would not exist today without these boys supporting me and being like, no, no, that’s good. Otherwise they would have been a crumpled up piece of paper in the garbage can or all over the floor. I’m so happy to have these three boys in my life that support me like this, because everywhere I used to be afraid to go is where I’m going now, the places nobody wants to go, and getting silly with it and being all crazy. And it’s so crazy how Jeff’s lyrics combined with mine. I was like, does this make sense? It doesn’t make sense, running, running far away. And he was like, oh yeah, no, if you think of it like this. And I was like, oh, crazy.
Jeff:
Everybody can interpret it differently, and I think with the final product, everybody’s interpreting it the way we wanted it to come across.
“Rain” stretches beyond nine minutes and closes the album with fear, pain, release, and finally choosing yourself. What allowed that song to grow without concern for conventional length, and why did it feel like the natural ending to the record?
Braden:
I always pictured that song, obviously it’s an Amanda song, white spotlight on her. It’s her talent that takes the song. We all love playing jazz and blues, that kind of stuff, so it was kind of easy to write, in a way. It’s one of our better ones, I think.
Jeff:
When we play it, I think we’re all shocked, because we record all our songs when we jam, and we were shocked when we looked at the length and saw it was over nine minutes. When we’re playing it, it certainly doesn’t feel that long to me. It’s a couple verses, a couple choruses, and an end, but I guess they all spread out to be about a minute or a minute and a half each segment, and sometimes that’s just the way it works. Beej is a big advocate for providing space, letting a riff develop, and giving it enough time, and that was one we could really do that with and let Amanda have her reign with it. To me, after nine minutes you’re still not sick of the riff. It’s those three chords, and you can do so much with them. Every little part of that song develops and has a nuance that’s different from the previous verse or the previous chorus. And it ties in so nice as a closure. You’re here, six songs in, and all of a sudden your ears can take a break and you relax. After all the lyrics Amanda’s spouting, you know your self-worth, you’ve broken through, and you deserve to have everything washed away and let that rain pour down.
Amanda:
I definitely feel like music heals, but I didn’t realize it could heal this way. Now that I’m writing very personal experiences, I have a hard time writing it. The paper is soaking wet to the point where the pen doesn’t work on it anymore, and when I’m recording, I’m bawling my eyes out in the session. But after it’s out and released into the world, for the whole world to see my whole insides, it’s almost like I healed myself. All these issues I’m writing about, once the song is released, they’re gone. I let it go. It’s a really cool thing. And again, this was the song that made me want to join FS, so I do hope to have a lot more rainy songs coming.
Outside Ears And The Final Shape
Jeff and Famous Strangers produced the album, with Phil Anderson involved in the engineering, Joel Wanasek mixing, and Maor Appelbaum mastering. What did those outside perspectives bring that the band could not hear while standing so close to the songs?
Jeff:
I’ll start with Phil. We brought Phil Anderson in for some pre-production, and he had a lot of ideas for me and my parts, some of the song arrangement and structure. Some of it worked, some of it didn’t, we kept some and not others. But after the four singles, and wanting to do this record to the best of our capabilities, we were really open to outside opinions. We all talked about it and agreed that having some of that wasn’t a bad idea. Whether we used it or not, just having the opinion, an outside perspective, was very valuable.
Beej:
Definitely. Having an outside perspective makes you think a little more. It opens your learning capabilities to stuff you didn’t think of before that somebody else sees. It can only make you better, it expands your abilities.
Braden:
As the bass player, you’re usually the only bass player in the band, so it was nice to have Phil come in and have two bass players who could team up and gang up on people together.
Byron Stroud helped sequence the record after listening to it with the band. What did he hear in the songs that you may have been too close to recognize, and did his final order reveal a stronger emotional journey?
Amanda:
One hundred percent. Every single thing he has told us, not just this, but other things too, he’s just spot on. We’re so honored to have a mentor who has literally done exactly what we’re trying to do. It was so perfect, because I wanted Rain to come out immediately, and this all works out. Everything he said about this album, I don’t know how he did it, but it all makes sense now. It’s gold, Jerry. Gold.
Visual Identity And Creative Connections
Every Famous Strangers single has received a music video, while Art has helped create the band’s black and white visual identity. Why is it important for the visual world to be an essential part of the band, rather than something added after the music was completed?
Amanda:
I think it’s a whole package, we want to put it all together. There’s something to be said about releasing the song and then maybe the music video after the fact, which we have done, because it does take time and money. But we’re very thankful to have Brad Thompson Visuals with us. I love film, and I love behind the scenes. I’ve always wanted to be in a horror movie, or in a movie at all, I’ve wanted to be an actress myself. So in my perspective, this is my way of doing short films with the band. I love music videos, I think they’re so cool, and I hope to just continue doing that.
Jeff:
I think the black and white theme stemmed from our very first video, which we created on the iMovie app, and Amanda put a black and white filter on it. That’s where the album cover came from, from that video. The black and white just seemed to really signify our image and what we’re going for, even our messages. The message is black and white, there’s not much gray area in what we’re saying. For an image, I’ve always wanted to be in a band like the ones I look up to, Judas Priest and stuff, coming in blazing leather and just looking badass. I’ve always been into that. When we all took this band seriously and started making it a go, it was nice that Amanda had come from that kind of environment and knew stage outfits, that image, the whole package. I know Beej really wants to develop the lighting show for us a little more too. It’s a very important thing, people are very visual creatures.
Beej:
Since we’re talking about videos, I’d like to do a video one day, or even add to one of the videos we have, just for fun. MTV used to do Pop Up Video, where from the start of the video to the end there are tidbits of information you would never know otherwise, about the lives of the band, things on the set, or how somebody was feeling that day. Just cool things you wouldn’t know. I really like that.
Jeff:
That’s a great idea, Beej. Amanda has a strong vision for most of our videos, and it’s been interesting to watch. Before she’s even finished writing the lyrics, she’ll be describing a scene from the video and how it’s going to interplay with the lyrics she’s coming up with on the spot. I’ve never been in a band where that happens that way. It’s been really cool.
Amanda, I have interviewed Matt Hanchuck from Wreck-Defy several times over the years, so it was great to hear you appear on “Under the Sun.” How did that collaboration come together, and did that song allow you to explore different emotional or vocal spaces from Famous Strangers?
Amanda:
I was blessed enough that Stu Block hooked me up with Matt Hanchuck, and then he and I spoke through Messenger a whole bunch, and still do. He sent me a few things, and I worked with my buddy Drew Copeland at Vector Sound. It was a really cool journey, and it was really cool to be on that record with him and his band. It’s always fun to collaborate with different people, because you’re always going to get inspiration and new ideas, not only doing guest vocals for a band, but even just listening to music every day. There’s inspiration everywhere. It was an honor to work with Matt and Wreck-Defy.
A Debut Built On Trust
Across this Q&A, Famous Strangers come through as a band built on trust. Jeff and Beej gave old ideas time to survive. Braden changed the way those ideas moved. Amanda found a space where the words could come directly from experience, however vulnerable, angry, playful or strange they became. Around them, Phil Anderson, Joel Wanasek, Maor Appelbaum, Byron Stroud, Art Szabo and Brad Thompson Visuals helped the band hear and see the larger world they were building.
But the heart of Famous Strangers remains those four people in a room, recording every jam, allowing songs to go to space, and following the feeling until the music tells them what it wants to become.
That is why this debut feels like more than an introduction. It is the sound of four experienced musicians recognising that the right combination had finally arrived.
The Famous Strangers self titled debut is available on vinyl now, with the digital and streaming release arriving on 21 August 2026.
pre-order / pre-save (Vinyl/Digital) – https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/famousstrangers/famous-strangers
Official website: famousstrangersband.com
https://www.facebook.com/FamousStrangersBand/
https://www.instagram.com/famousstrangersband
Band
Amanda Kiernan: Lead vocals and lyrics
Jeff Kittlitz: Guitar and backing vocals
Braden Sustrik: Bass and backing vocals
Brian “Beej” Jolly: Drums and backing vocals
