emocapella

On the eighth day, God created emocapella. And it was good…

There are a cappella groups, and then there’s emocapella – the world’s only non-sucking a cappella group. Emocapella is a fifteen man strong all-male purposeful deviation from traditional a cappella. In fact, we’re so different that we spell emocapella with one “p” and yeah, we keep it lower case. The group sings mainly emo and punk songs, but also throws a few others in there just to lighten things up. Basically, emocapella takes the lame barber shop quartet doo-wop model and does to a cappella music what speakeasies did to prohibition: we turn the rules upside down and have fun doing it.

A Legend is Born…

Emocapella is the brainchild of George Washington University senior Eric Denman, who wanted to form an a cappella group that strayed from performing traditional “a cappella numbers” and sing some good songs by some of our favorite bands like Taking Back Sunday, Alkaline Trio, My Chemical Romance, Brand New, Reel Big Fish, Further Seems Forever, and The Vandals to name a few. Emocapella has been together since Fall of 2001 and since then has had an amazing time.

After getting picked up by a few punk webzines, we soon found ourselves getting mentioned in national publications such as Maxim Blender, Spin Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, and Britian’s Kerrang Music Magazine as well as MTV and VH1 and even have a bit of a cult following in Japan as a result of a Japanese radio interview. We also found ourselves singing on stage with some of our favorite groups, like Taking Back Sunday, when they played in Washington DC, which was one of our most amazing experiences together.

Recently, we recorded and released our second album, Is it in Yet? The album follows are debut album, I’m Sorry which features 11 songs, including the first ever emocapella original. We recommend you go pick it up today.

The Punk Band that Lost its Guitar

When you come to an emocapella show, come prepared to have your face rocked off, metaphorically of course. Think rock concert. It’s all about the style… the mentality… the energy… Our shows typically feature a hefty amount of rock jumps, plenty of emotion laden, offensive lyrics, and we have been known to push a girl or two to the edge of tears (she volunteered to come up on stage, so its okay). Featuring lyrics like “with every shot of yager, yeah you loose a couple pounds” and such emo classics as “Even Hitler had a Girlfriend” or “My Girlfriend’s Dead,” you are guaranteed not to have a dull moment.

We also lay claim to inventing what we call guerillacapella. Essentially this means going out to a random spot on campus or wherever, and singing our hearts out for all the unsuspecting passers by. We usually do this a bunch of times during a semester, and people seem to enjoy it. or at least pretend to.

To learn more about the individual members of the group, check out our member biographies.

Press Quotes:

“Emocapella are punk rock without the instruments. Or the punk. Or the rock.” — Entertainment Weekly

“Apparently, it can get pretty emotional.” — Maxim’s Blender Magazine

“A group that combines emo, the wimpiest of rock genres, with a cappella singing, the wimpiest of campus activities, is just asking for abuse.” — Spin Magazine

“They’re taking it to a whole new level of whininess.” — Dan Adriano of Alkaline Trio (from Spin Magazine)

“I downloaded your guys’ version of Cute and I wanted to let you know it’s awesome. Keep up the good work!” — Shaun from Taking Back Sunday

“If you don’t know these guys, you don’t know the half of it.” — Kismet

“Aside from their great sense of humor, these kids only sing kickass songs.” — Toxic-Voltage.net

“Emocapella do not take themselves too seriously. But these days, to their surprise, everyone around them seems to.” — GW Hatchet

“Singing their hearts out to the public, these 13 males deliver it with style and emotion in ways only explained by the rawness of the human voice alone.” — GWBlitz

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