“Dad, trust me, I got this!”

For If Not For Me, the difference between playing to a handful of people and walking into a packed room has come from years of sticking with it. Now, fans are showing up hours before doors open, singing along to the lyrics, and bringing gifts to the band. When we caught up with the Central Pennsylvania group at Gramercy Theatre on October 15, they were opening for Wind Walkers on a tour that offered another look at how much has changed.

If Not For Me built their current lineup from their local Pennsylvania scene, which they had each been part of separately for years prior. Patrick initially turned down the opportunity to join the band after leaving another project and settling into a stable job. Filling in for a show changed his mind, but he had one condition before committing. “If I'm gonna do this, we're gonna rerecord the EP with me on it, because I'm not about to release something and me not even be on it.” The band rerecorded the vocals, marking the beginning of the lineup fans know today.

Cody's route into the band was just as unconventional. He was working with Thriller Records when he signed If Not For Me, then eventually stepped in on drums when INFM needed someone. After touring together, it became clear that the fit was right. “I was like, ‘You know, Thriller, do you want this band? I can't be the label guy and the tour guy.’” Looking back at how the members came together after their previous projects fell apart, Cody described it as “all the big guys in the scene kind of came together to make If Not For Me, and then just kind of ran with it.”

That history of figuring things out as they went carried into the making of Where The Light Begins To Fade, released in August through Thriller Records. When asked what the band was inspired by for this record, Hayden kept it simple. “I feel like we just tried to level up the last one.”

Patrick explained that working with producers they hadn't collaborated with before gave them room to experiment without losing sight of the band's identity. “I think we pretty much figured out what our sound is, but we're just basically expanding on it. Since we were trying so many new things, I was trying really hard to not kind of put myself in a box as to what the songs would be about. It was just kind of like a whatever comes out, kind of comes out kind of thing. So I think, really, it was just a lot of exploring.”

For Cody, the record was also a chance to challenge himself as a musician and write parts he could look back on with pride. “I'm trying to write really cool stuff that I can look back on and be like, ‘Wow, that was really cool. Like, Cody was really cooking at this time.’”

The process came with some uncertainty. Hayden admitted he worried for a while that the new material wouldn't measure up to the band's previous album, but things started clicking toward the end. Patrick pointed to “Retrograde” as the moment he felt they were onto something, while Cody picked “Retrograde” and “Unholy.” The latter stood out for how it brought together “metalcore and nu-metal and dark pop and all sorts of stuff that really culminates to something sick.”

The album also gave If Not For Me their first chance to bring guest vocalists into the mix, with Trevor from Wind Walkers, Josh from Catch Your Breath, and Taylor from Make Them Suffer. The first two collaborations grew naturally out of friendships, shared tours, and a familiarity with each other's music. “We've known Wind Walkers forever. Been fans of them forever. They're crushing it, so it was just the perfect timing,” Patrick explained. The Catch Your Breath feature made sense for similar reasons, with the bands sharing a label and having toured together.

Taylor's appearance, on the other hand, came together in the studio almost by accident. He was there helping write the song when he started working out a part for the breakdown and suggested he might as well feature on it.

Once Taylor got to work, Patrick knew there was no reason to change a thing. “He slayed that part. I didn't do a single take of anything that he did because, as far as I was concerned, that was just going to be his section. He just got up there, scatted it out, and then it was done. We were like, ‘Okay, this is sick.’”

Patrick had known Taylor as an extreme metal vocalist, but the session showed him another side of his abilities. “I had no idea that he was as good of a pop songwriter and singer as he is until much more recently.” Meeting him in person also eased any nerves. “I was low-key intimidated to meet him, but he's fucking hilarious. He's a big teddy bear.”

Since the album's release, the band has also watched different songs connect with listeners in ways they hadn't anticipated. Cody wished “Unholy” had received more attention, while Patrick brought up “Teeth,” a deeper cut that fans have been asking to hear live. “Feel Me Now” found its own audience when BookTok started using the track in videos.

“It literally made the song. It made the sound trend. We actually had a trending tag behind it for a little bit,” Cody explained excitedly. “The book community found something they loved in it, and I don't know, it was pretty wild. I didn't even know that community existed.”

Cody has found his own ways to make the most of life on the road, too. He calls his explorations “side missions,” whether that means tracking down comic book stores, gaming shops, coffee shops, or random dive bars after a show. Touring gives him the chance to see places he might never visit otherwise, even if the stop is brief.

“There's no reason I would be in these places if I wasn't doing this thing. I feel like in one tour we see what a regular person would see in a couple of years.” Patrick agreed that exploring new places is one of the best parts of the job, especially in Europe, where he gets to try local food. For Cody, finding somewhere good to eat is part of the appeal, too.

Some of the most meaningful parts of touring have less to do with the places they visit and more to do with the people they meet. Cody especially loves when parents bring their kids to shows. If a young fan tells him they play drums, he'll try to bring out his drum pad, play with them, or give them a pair of sticks. It's a small gesture he remembers receiving himself.

“When I was a kid, my dad was taking me to shows, and I really liked August Burns Red. Matt Greiner was one of my favorite drummers. I met him, and he was like, ‘Oh, you play drums? That's awesome.’ He took me down to the green room and had me meet all of August Burns Red. They all took the time to talk to me,” Cody recalled. “That stuck with me and made me want to do this. And now I get to kind of give back.”

For Patrick, the connection often comes through the personal experiences behind his lyrics. Fans regularly confide in him that an If Not For Me song helped them through a divorce, the loss of someone close to them, or another difficult period in their lives. “It sounds so cliché to say, but people will come up and be like, ‘Oh, this song saved my life.’ A lot of the songs that I write are from a very, very personal place. It's shit that I've had to go through, and it just kind of makes that pain a little bit more worth it. If I can make somebody feel a little bit more seen and heard, that's amazing. That's so cool.”

That support has meant even more during a particularly difficult stretch for Patrick. He unfortunately lost one of his cats shortly before the tour began and another while he was on the road. Fans who heard what happened brought him hand-drawn portraits, crocheted plushies, and a bracelet made with their names and colors. Their gestures offered comfort while he was away from home, and the thought behind them clearly stayed with him. “It's been really sweet, honestly, and it makes me kind of speechless sometimes just seeing how loved they were and I am. It means a lot to me.”

After years of playing small shows, that kind of connection is part of what makes the band's current position difficult to imagine looking back. Cody recalled his dad questioning whether the music career was actually going anywhere. “My dad pulls me aside and is like, ‘What's going on? You're not a rock star. What's going on?’ And I'm like, ‘Dad, just trust me. I got this!’” Patrick has a similar reaction when he thinks about what his younger self would make of everything happening now. “If Lil Patty knew any of what was going on, it would just be like, ‘I never thought I'd be doing this.’”

For anyone still in the early stages of chasing something similar, Patrick's advice comes from the years when progress was difficult to see. “Just to keep trying and believe it. It was so hard for so long. We've played a lot of bad shows to nobody for years, and it kind of built us up. It broke us down sometimes, but in general, it built us up.”

That perspective also shapes what the band chooses to play live. The longer opening slot on the Wind Walkers tour gave If Not For Me more room in the setlist, including songs they enjoy playing even if they aren't among their biggest singles. “Retrograde” has become a favorite, while Patrick looks forward to “Lie Awake,” which features Trevor. Having Trevor join them onstage adds another moment for the crowd to anticipate, and it gives Patrick a chance to catch his breath while Trevor takes over for his part.

The extra time also meant the band could bring back songs that might otherwise get cut when they're working with a shorter set. Patrick made room for “Close to Closure” and “Tragedy,” from Everything You Want, because they were songs the band wanted to play for them. “It's nice to have an extra 15, 20 minutes,” Cody said. Patrick agreed, adding, “There's at least two of the not-big singles that we get to play just because we like those songs, which is fun.”

Even as Where The Light Begins To Fade begins to settle, the band is already thinking about what comes next. Cody specifically wants to keep learning from other drummers and producers he meets on the road, and he doesn't want to limit himself to one style of playing. “I don't want to be a musician that's just like, ‘Yeah, this is how it's going to be all the time.’ You learn constantly, or you've got to give up.”

For now, the band has plenty to take in from the road they've already traveled. Looking back, Cody's belief of "Dad, just trust me. I got this" has paid off in ways none of them could have predicted. For Patrick, the most meaningful part of getting here is being able to give other people the kind of experience that first made him want to pursue music. “I remember being a kid in a room of ten people watching my favorite band give everything they had, and now I get to do that for other people.”

Photos and Interview by Bek Allegretti