By Ceoli Jacoby

When COVID-19 first took hold this spring, many artists worried that the pandemic would devastate their careers. For larger creators like BTS and Future, the opposite was true: they were able to push out successful albums, riding the wave of quarantine-fueled boredom and benefiting from an increasingly captive audience. But for the majority of lesser-known performers who rely on touring for the majority of their incomes, the pandemic was indeed a heavy blow. 

Unity for the Outcasts (UFTO), an alternative rock band composed of four students from the University of Maryland, is hoping to be the exception to this rule with their upcoming album, “The Land of Make Believe.” The group released its first single, “Tell the World,” and their debut album’s title song in July and November, respectively – and the response has been better than ever anticipated. 

In the month of November alone, coinciding with the drop of their second single, UFTO’s audience nearly quadrupled. And according to their 2020 Wrapped on Spotify for Artists, the group amassed over 1,000 streams by 268 separate listeners from 31 unique countries. They hope the momentum will see them through until the 2021 release date of “The Land of Make Believe” and beyond.

The title of their seven-song concept piece is an homage to Green Day’s “Jesus of Suburbia,” which includes the lyric: “And there’s nothing wrong with me/this is how I’m supposed to be/In a land of make believe that don’t believe in me.” Green Day is among the band’s greatest influences, alongside Weezer and Muse. 

“[The Land of Make Believe] is about two characters being exposed to life and having to make decisions as to how they want to go about responding to adversity and negativity,” lead singer Rohit Nutalapati said. “It’s some lessons that we’ve learned, and still are learning, kind of put into song.”

Although the exact order is still in flux, Nutalapati gave listeners an idea of what they can expect from the album: A pop-punk style opening track exploring the line between optimism and naivete leads into the title song in which the characters wrestle with doubt. 

In the third track, described by Nutalapati as the “turning point” of the story, one character resigns themself to the society’s negativity – adopting an “if you can’t beat them, join them” mentality. During the fourth track titled “Escape,” the second character resists the urge to do the same.

The fifth track, “Ashes,” is next in line with a tentative January release date and a central theme of grief. In track number six, which has a working title of “Another Word,” the two characters express anger and a mutual sense of betrayal. By the end, though, the pair come to a resolution –accepting that neither will adopt the other’s world view and resolving to meet in the middle.

Though UFTO is well on their way to a finished product, the process of writing and recording an album without being able to meet in person was a difficult one.

“I think we had to shift our mindset when all of the COVID stuff happened,” lead guitarist Samrat Somanna said. “We knew there had to be some way to release music in this kind of setting.”

In practice, this means the members meet virtually on a near-weekly basis to share files from the digital audio workstation and offer their insights. They type their thoughts on each pre-master into a Google Doc, suggesting more reverb here and less bass there, and confer with one another over WhatsApp when writing lyrics and riffs. They have even held two live concerts through Instagram, performing for audiences in the U.S. and India.

Bassist Siddharth Gupta started 2020 as a member of a different band. But without in-person gigs, there was little incentive to stay together during the pandemic. Gupta hopes that UFTO’s approach, though still evolving, will save it from the same fate.

The inability to record in-studio has certainly been limiting in some respects: Nutalapati said that most of the percussion on the album had to be sampled, much to drummer Dillon Kaschenbach’s dismay. However, it has also forced the group to think outside the box.

“If we were trying to go to a studio, we might be in the mindset of ‘these are the instruments that need to be our primary focus,’” Nutalapati said. “Whereas in this case, we can find whatever. I even recorded rain. It’s kind of freeing in a way you might not expect.”

Members of the band were also pleasantly surprised by the positive impact the pandemic had on their bond with one another. Somanna attributed this to the fact that they now have fewer obligations outside of making music.

“The fact that we’re still communicating even though we’re apart says something about the chemistry of the band members,” Somanna said. “I think that’s the most important thing about any group.”

According to Nutalapati, fans can expect the album’s release early in the year if the spring semester is in-person, but closer to the summer assuming the university maintains its largely virtual model. 

“If there is one thing I want people to take away from this album, it is that things fail,” Nutalapati said. “People mess up, we do things that we regret, and we always have a choice to make our next moment different from the previous moment.”

 Unity for the Outcasts’ latest single is available for streaming here.  

Featured image: album cover art by Lakshmi Vidyasagar