Kevin Bronson on September 26th, 2020

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Sean Van Vleet was a principal in Chicago indie-rock monsters Empires until the band pulled the plug in 2015. He eventually connected with Josh Ocean of NVDES as one of his collaborators, wrote for other artists, television and advertisements and matriculated to L.A.

Van Vleet’s debut under the name Blame My Youth came in the form of “Right Where You Belong.” The anthemic rocker made its way into the soundtrack to the funtastic film “Bill & Ted Face The Music,” in which it plays during the closing credits.

On Friday, he pulled back the curtain on Blame My Youth’s first official single, “Fantastic,” a song that recalls the dashboard-pounding radio anthems of the ’90s as co-opted by the contemporary hook-obsessed pop masses. Best of all, it is “f*cking fantastic” that is doesn’t linger beyond its 2 minutes 13 seconds, lest it drown in its own bombast.

“With this song I get to tell the story of my life in about two minutes.” Says Van Vleet. “The first lines of the chorus hit my brain one morning like a mainline of coffee, I got instant PMA. Got me out of bed feeling refreshed. ‘Fantastic’ set the tone for a lot of good days, even if I was feeling bad.”

The single was produced by Joey Moi (Morgan Wallen, HARDY) and was released by country-leaning label imprint Big Loud Records.

||| Watch: The video for “Fantastic”

||| Also: Stream “Right Where You Belong”