INTERVIEW: Take Steps: Doing it Live
**This article originally appeared in our March 2026 issue**
Photo by Maysen St. Jermain
“Take Steps is a band of the scene, by the scene, and most importantly, for the local scene. Much like the dozens of crowdsurfers at their last show, many hands make light work when it comes to pushing them towards their creative ambitions.”
As I drove out to meet with the guys in Take Steps, I'll admit, I was a bit nervous. I like to come into writing articles with some angle in mind. It's nice to write with a North Star to guide you, but no matter how much I racked my brain I couldn't find one. I'd first seen the band tear it up on the Albany Skyway back in August, and saw them turn a crowd feral at Empire Underground last month. I knew they were friends of friends and were always spoken of highly. I knew whenever they shared my photos online I got a rush of new followers and made a lot of great connections in the local scene. I knew that a lot of people I didn't know knew them. Despite all of this being laid out in my mental constellation, I just couldn't see the forest for the trees. As I got back in the car after the interview, I realized that was the point. Take Steps is a band of the scene, by the scene, and most importantly, for the local scene. Much like the dozens of crowdsurfers at their last show, many hands make light work when it comes to pushing them towards their creative ambitions.
The first thing that struck me was the fact that each of them — Charlie McCloskey, John Lombardi, Kyle Miller, Dylan Galea, and Craig Mahar — are part of numerous other local projects ranging from hardcore, punk, metal, hip hop, and anything else you can push out of a speaker. This project wasn't some laser-focused chariot to success; it was a natural result of time and effort put into something bigger than oneself, and it paid back dividends. They’re playing music with their friends, for their friends. The formula sounds simple, but like some Arthurian legend, only those who believe in it truly can reap the benefits.
Take Steps started out like many bands do, with a few bedroom demos shared among friends. “John came to Charlie and I with the idea of starting a melodic hardcore or pop punk-ish band. We didn't really know what we wanted it to be at first,” Kyle recalls.
“[He] started this out with a small batch of songs,” Charlie adds. “We started working on those and gained some chemistry, but once we got the lineup figured out, we started collaborating a lot more. I feel like this upcoming album is a much more defined idea of Take Steps.” Their upcoming LP, Fighting Chance, is in the final stages of production, and poised to take its place as the long-awaited follow-up to their 2024 self-titled EP.
Fighting Chance takes cues from a wider spectrum of sound than the typical local act. “From the beginning, we made a point not to be worried about genre because all of us came from very different areas of the scene and we all like very different stuff,” Charlie explains. “What I think is more important than genre is that we're playing the music that we love and that it's a collaboration between the five of us.”
In the early days, bands like Have Heart, Title Fight, and Lagwagon were explicit influences alongside thrash giants like Slayer and Metallica. John explains that connecting those disparate parts of the musical landscape was difficult at first. “In the beginning, I wanted a band that was between Power Trip and The Story So Far, which is a lot of ground to cover,” he admits. “Stylistically, I pull from very purely pop punk or crossover which are kind of opposites. Charlie's songs, musically speaking, really fill everything out. I can be scatterbrained and Charlie's contributions really bring everything together.”
Once each of the members got a feel for the space between styles, ideas began to flow and collaboration became second nature to the band. Craig recalls, “Charlie started bringing ideas to practice and we'd just work them out. It was a lot of fun and a lot more gratifying. It's led to a lot of cool things in the moment with all of our minds on it. It felt like we were really starting to work as a band.”
One of the driving factors behind this collaboration (and the band’s name) was the basic idea that self-improvement can’t happen without putting some effort behind it. John explains, “The whole mission statement for the band is striving for self-improvement. A lot of the lyrics are very much about trying to push forward and make the best of a bad situation.”
Kyle adds, “Most of us have another band, and it's cool to see those other bands and individuals shine in their own right. Those people inspire all of us to do a better job with this band and make the best music we possibly can, because we're all part of a larger group. I think we do a good job of standing out on our own in [such a diverse] scene.”
Photo by Pete Perry
While many bands succumb to jealousy when their peers succeed, Take Steps was built around the idea that the success of the scene that surrounds you is success of your own. John adds, “I'm really proud of Albany and wear that on my sleeve everywhere I go. Our scene rules right now. I've been in bands since 2017 and it wasn't always like this. There's just so much talent, it's unbelievable.”
They were all floored by how open and accepting such a talented scene could be. “I feel like there's so much genuine love in the scene, too. It was really crazy to see coming into it. I don't know if that's a hardcore thing or an Albany thing, but [it] was almost overwhelming,” Craig says with deep admiration. “It was shocking to see how many people are happy to support you, buy tickets, and listen to your music. It was a blessing.”
The diversity in our own local scene is part of what inspires Take Steps to buck the idea of genre itself. “I don't think there's a pinpoint of what the ‘Albany sound’ is right now,” Kyle explains. “I think it's really dope that you can have bands like Senior Living, The Glow, Torpedo Lane, Noir and you can mix and match them onto the same bill. Albany has a lot of bands that uniquely stand on their own.”
This close knit collaboration came in clutch when the band started the search for a new drummer. Dylan recalls, “[When] the EP first came out on Bandcamp, I put it on and I just started freaking out, like, ’What is this?’" After months of sharing this newfound obsession, John came to see Dylan’s other project Torpedo Lane. “I was starstruck. Then he's asking me to drum for them and I was freaking out and telling everybody I know."
The band’s plans for the future are simple: Play more shows. While they’ll certainly remain a constant fixture in the local scene, they’d also like to spread their wings a bit and venture out further into the rest of the Northeast and beyond. “We'd like to be playing more and playing in different areas. Just kicking it up a notch in that way, building things from the ground up,” says Kyle.
Take Steps aren’t interested in being the next hot band out of the 518. They aren't trying to revolutionize their genre, they actively reject the concept of belonging to a genre. They aren't trying to blow up on TikTok. They aren't trying to sign record deals or get famous or become anything at all. They're people who love what they do, love doing it live, and would be doing it whether the crowds were in the millions or the single digits. By not trying to do any of those things, they almost guarantee themselves a cleanly paved path right to it all. Whether you're a jaded veteran of the local scene or a young gun afraid to go to their first show, quit thinking so hard and catch one of their sets. I can promise that you won't see live music quite the same way again.
Fighting Chance by Take Steps is out now, and you can catch a bit of the magic live at their release show at No Fun on April 3.