The Dangerous Summer

Melodic emo outfit the Dangerous Summer emerged straight out of high school in the late 2000s playing a passionate, anthemic brand of rock. After signing with Hopeless Records, the Baltimore band gained widespread attention with their 2009 debut Reach for the Sun and a Warped Tour appearances before breaking up in 2014. Following a four-year hiatus, they reunited for 2018′s The Dangerous Summer and 2019′s Mother Nature. Moving to Denver and retooling their lineup, the Dangerous Summer re-emerged in 2022 with the their seventh album, Coming Home.
Formed in 2006 in Ellicott City, Maryland, the Dangerous Summer came together during the bandmembers’ senior year of high school. Originally, the group featured lead singer/bassist A.J. Perdomo, guitarist Bryan Czap, drummer Tyler Minsberg, and guitarist Cody Payne, the latter of whom had moved back to town after a brief stint in Florida. Taking their name from the classic Ernest Hemingway novel and looking to groups like the Starting Line, Third Eye Blind, U2, and Name Taken for influence, the band hit the studio that December to lay down their first tracks together. The resulting EP, There Is No Such Thing as Science, was self-released in January 2007 (limited to 1,000 copies), and the group supported it on the road whenever school would allow, hooking up for shows with likeminded bands the Ataris, Cartel, and Hit the Lights.
The EP eventually made its way to the California-based Hopeless Records, courtesy of the band’s hometown friends All Time Low. A deal with the label was subsequently inked that spring. High school graduation followed for three-fourths of the Dangerous Summer before their next EP (and Hopeless debut), If You Could Only Keep Me Alive, appeared in August, which contained four songs from the previous Science EP and three new ones.
The group’s first full-length, Reach for the Sun, was released on Hopeless in 2009. Produced by Paul Leavitt (Cute Is What We Aim For, All Time Low, American Diary), it reached number 42 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart. A darker, more mature follow-up, War Paint, arrived in 2011 and landed on the Billboard 200. Following the album’s release, they joined Lower Than Atlantis on tour.
Around this time, drummer Minsberg and guitarist Czap left the band, replaced by Ben Cato and Matt Kennedy, respectively. The new lineup’s first album together, Golden Record, was released in the summer of 2013. Shortly after the its release, Perdomo left the band, citing ongoing turmoil between himself and Payne, as well as the birth of his first child as the main reasons. With his departure, the Dangerous Summer called it quits and went on indefinite hiatus.
In February 2017, Payne was charged with a felony stemming from a burglary conviction and sentenced to a year in prison. The remaining members reconvened later that year and headed into the studio to record the band’s fourth album, a self-titled LP which was released in January 2018. Another record, the Sam Pura-produced Mother Nature, arrived a year later and marked the end of the band’s tenure on Hopeless Records, the label they’d been with for nearly their entire career. Relocating to Denver, Colorado just prior to the global pandemic, the band self-released an EP, All That Is Left of the Blue Sky, in 2020. Perdomo and Kennedy soon recruited drummer Christian Zawacki and former touring guitarist Josh Withenshaw and signed with Rude Records. The Dangerous Summer’s seventh studio album, Coming Home, arrived mid-2022. ~ Corey Apar