Cartel

Breaking out in the mid-aughts, CARTEL artfully threaded the space between the turn-of-the-millennium pop-punk tidal wave and the widespread virality of the social media generation. Their blend of hyper-melodic pop-rock was matched with reflective lyricism and ambitious sonic versatility, setting them apart from the crowd.
The Conyers, GA-based group quickly rose through the underground on the back of their 2005 breakthrough LP, Chroma, which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart. The album spawned the Gold-certified hit "Honestly" and launched childhood friends – vocalist/guitarist Will Pugh, and guitarists Joseph Pepper and Nic Hudson – onto Warped Tour, TRL, Epic Records, and into millions of MySpace Top 8s. Nearly two decades and more than 250,000 copies later, Chroma still resonates as a genre-defining album, hailed as one of the greatest pop-punk records of all time by Rock Sound and Loudwire, and it remains a sing-along staple at emo nights around the world.
While the lightning-in-a-bottle energy of Chroma catapulted Cartel from regional buzz band to mainstream names, it’s their relentless desire to never settle that’s kept them one of the most respected acts in the genre to this day. The evolution of their sound, from the moody, angular guitars and experimental song structures that colored 2007’s self-titled Cartel album, to the heavier impulses of 2009’s Cycles, and the atmospheric, airy melodicism found on their 2013 self-released Collider, has always demonstrated the band’s commitment to self-fulfillment over commercial or critical approval.
“There’s so many little things we pull from that I think often go unnoticed,” Pugh explains. “We love blink-182 and Green Day, but we don’t reference them; we reference Soundgarden. ’90s grunge and alternative was the seminal stuff that spoke to us as young musicians, and it’s given us a completely different toolbox in terms of how we think about making music.” This diverse influence has fueled their ongoing evolution, shaping their unique sound.
This desire to innovate and grow was again evident in 2022 when the band released their first new music in nine years. The singles "17" and "The End" marked their return as direct support on the Hello Gone Days tour alongside Dashboard Confessional and Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness. “Now that we’ve gotten away from some of the pettiness of the way things were in the past, it’s given us more allowance to go back to the well and not have to feel like everything’s a response to what we just did,” Pugh reflects. “When we were writing ‘17’ and ‘The End,’ all we were concerned about was what Cartel would sound like right now – not what we sounded like earlier.”
This mindset has allowed Cartel to age gracefully, resisting the pull of nostalgia. Rather than trying to recreate the past, they’ve focused on their role as elder statesmen of the scene, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the bands that inspired them – a prime example being Pugh’s production work with New Found Glory. At the same time, they continue to inspire the next generation of bands to chase their own unique musical path.
As the group approaches the 20th anniversary of Chroma in 2025, they do so with both an appreciation for the past and an excitement for the future. Recent live appearances at events like Warped Rewind at Sea, Emo’s Not Dead Cruise, Slam Dunk Festival, Is For Lovers Festival, and When We Were Young have introduced Cartel to a whole new generation of listeners – some of whom weren’t even alive when they first played the iconic dual guitar intro of “Honestly” on the Billboard Hot 100.
“Thinking about having done this for over half of our lives sort of breaks the space-time continuum,” Pugh says. “It’s so cool, because it constantly feels like being rebirthed every time you hear the records.”