American Football on Reuniting, Reinvention and Their Fourth Album

Photo by Alexa Viscius / Courtesy of Polyvinyl Records

Few bands have left a mark on emo and math rock quite like American Football. Formed in Urbana, Illinois in 1997 by Mike Kinsella, Steve Holmes and Steve Lamos, the band’s original run lasted only a few years, but their 1999 self-titled debut album would go on to become one of the defining records of the Midwest emo movement. Its intricate guitar work, open emotional honesty and quiet suburban atmosphere resonated far beyond the late ‘90s underground, influencing generations of bands in the decades that followed.

After disbanding in 2000, American Football’s reputation only continued to grow. When the band reunited in 2014, joined by Nate Kinsella, they returned not as a nostalgia act but as a group willing to keep evolving. Two acclaimed follow-up records arrived in 2016 and 2019, expanding their sound while maintaining the emotional intimacy that made LP1 so enduring in the first place. Their influence has only become more visible in recent years, from Ethel Cain’s widely streamed 2024 cover of 'For Sure' to the preservation of the iconic LP1 house, which the band helped restore and eventually transform into a cultural landmark for fans.

Now, with a fourth album released on May 1st, 2026 via Polyvinyl, American Football are entering another chapter. Led by 'Bad Moons', which surpassed one million Spotify streams within weeks of its release, the band continues to connect with audiences far beyond the scene that first embraced them.

Ahead of a packed run of dates across North America, the UK, Europe and Asia, we spoke with Steve Lamos about legacy, reinvention, the strange afterlife of LP1, and what still drives them nearly three decades after first forming in the Illinois suburbs.

Looking back to Urbana in the late ‘90s, how much did your surroundings shape the music you were making at the time? 

We were profoundly impacted by our surroundings. Urbana was cheap at the time, and we all lived quite close to one other – within blocks, actually. This all meant that we were able to practice like two or three days a week by walking over to each other’s apartments or houses. We could make whatever sort of music we wanted, whenever we wanted – which really constitutes the perfect set of circumstances for a young band.

Your debut album has become almost mythologised over the years. Does your relationship to that record change as time goes on? 

Our relationship to LP1 has definitely changed with time. While I do think that that record still captures something sincere about how it felt to be alive in the late 90s, we’ve all grown and changed significantly in the 25+ years since. As a result, that record also feels like a time capsule for us in the present: some of those memories still feel relevant, but others feel less so. 

I still personally love 'Stay Home,' for instance – this song feels as fresh to me now as the day that we wrote it, especially in the way that the first part unfolds slowly over time.  I never get tired of experiencing it. Other LP1 songs, in contrast, feel more tied to Urbana of 25 years ago than my present day-to-day life.

The house from LP1 has taken on a life of its own. What has it been like seeing that place become such a lasting symbol of the band? 

I think that the house somehow allows people, especially younger people, to write themselves into a narrative about 90s-era American Football and Midwest Emo more generally: something about it feels 'plain' or 'everyday' in a way that people evidently find attractive in our current moment.

I’ve noted recently that I never actually set foot in that house until the fall of 2025, and so I have no deep connection to it myself except through its growing status over the years as the 'American Football House.'  It’s fascinating, actually, to watch people write it into existence through their interest and their memes and their photos. 

Scholars call this sort of thing 'invented nostalgia.' This is a phenomenon whereby people long for a place or time that they didn’t necessarily experience for themselves, in part because such longing allows them to deal with their present or plan their future. Such invention can be both powerful and healthy for folks, at least if it doesn’t become full-blown escapism. My sense is that the house serves as a vehicle for lots of such invented nostalgia.

 When you reunited, did it feel like picking up where you left off, or starting something entirely new?

Both, I suppose, in some way. When the band broke up in 1999, I personally felt kind of bad, like we’d missed an opportunity to keep doing a cool thing. But by the time we got back together in 2014, it sort of felt like we were never really a 'real' band to begin with. We had to learn how to perform these songs live, including with Nate on bass, more or less for the very first time. It quickly became clear that AF version 2.0 was a new and distinct thing – an impression that’s only gotten stronger with making three new records together. This current version of American Football, that is, feels like an actual band in a way that the first one never did.

You’ve already released ‘Bad Moons’ from the fourth which came out in May. What does this track represent in the wider context of the album?

'Bad Moons' offers up one of the key themes of the record. It tries to get at some sort of middle-aged feeling of disorientation. The beginning of the song, at least for me, offers a kind of calm looking back that quickly turns dark, both figuratively and literally. The middle, with its constant references to things happening 'in the dark,' gets especially grim, leading to the post-rock freakout section. 

On the drums, I try to channel my own low-rent version of Jimmy Chamberlain on 'Silverfuck' during this part: he remains one of my absolute drum heroes. Finally, the return to Nate’s bass at the end of the piece offers a kind of acceptance, or at least a kind of calm, on the part of the narrator after this freakout happens. In a way, I suppose, 'Bad Moons' offers a kind of encapsulation of the larger record as a whole.

Ethel Cain’s recent cover of ‘For Sure’ introduced your work to a new audience – are you open to more collaborations or reimagings of your music? 

Absolutely. Her version of that song – and, truly, each of the covers on that reimagined LP1 – is quite incredible. It’s hard to describe how flattering, and how humbling, it is to watch talented people rethink and rework music that we wrote so long ago.  

I was also personally involved in performing a rearranged version of some AF material for percussion ensemble by a student at my school named Max Adams: he called it 'Everything Between You and Me.' It’s hard to put into words how moving it was to perform some AF music with talented music students less than half my age. I won’t soon forget this experience.

You’ve got an extensive tour planned across North America, Europe, and Asia – how does playing these songs today compare to how it felt in the band’s earliest years? 

As I noted previously, I think that we feel like a 'real' band now in a way that we never did before. I also think that we feel good about what we’re trying to present on this LP4 tour, both musically and visually: the show seems bigger and more ambitious than anything we’ve ever tried. We just finished up our West Coast leg of the tour here in the US, in fact, and it went quite well. I think that we’re all incredibly excited to get back out on the road with this version of the show.

After decades of evolution, pauses, and returns, where do you see American Football heading next? 

I’m as proud of LP4 as anything I’ve ever been a part of, musically or otherwise. I think that it represents so much of who we all are and where we all are in life at the moment. My joy regarding the record makes me want to put on the best shows that we can this summer. It also makes me think that we’ll perhaps try to make some more new music whenever we’re next able to sit and take stock of who and where we are, both personally and musically.

Listen to American Football on SoundCloud, Spotify, and Apple Music.

Keep up to date with them via Instagram, their website and Discord channel.  Special thanks to two dancers PR for arranging this interview.