New York grunge revival band Scarhaven have recently released a new single entitled “Clouds”, and are getting ready for their first North American tour supporting Alien Ant Farm. Scarhaven’s vocalist Michael Saint spoke with Metal Express Radio about Scarhaven’s formation, their influences, gearing up for their first tour, and more. Check out the chat below!
Metal Express Radio: How did the formation of Scarhaven come about?
Saint: While pursuing my career as an actor in NYC, COVID decided to ruin the world and shut everything down. So I was forced to move back to DC. While quarantined, I needed a creative outlet, so I taught myself guitar and played around with my voice by singing all types of songs through a karaoke app. For the fun of it, I thought of joining a band. Thinking it would amount to nothing and was solely doing it for the creativity aspect of it, as well as being a good time killer.
I joined my first band circa 2021, after a couple of months of playing local shows with a handful of people masked up in the audience, our bassist decided to quit. That’s when I found Jared Edson [Scarhaven’s other founding member] on Facebook and asked if he’d fill in for a couple of big shows we had lined up that year. Jared eventually stole me from my first band to join his band, and that band also fell through after some time. Then it was just Jared and me who decided to form another project called Embassyrowe, and us just being a duo created a large body of work. It felt super easy, and we were writing a lot. We shot our own music videos and decided to invest in some Instagram ads. Those ads helped us a lot in building a network of connections.
At this point, it was around 2024 when we met our producer, Jim Kaufman, who helped us with our body of work, form our own sound, and rebrand us as Scarhaven at the beginning of 2025. A couple of months later, we added our guitarist Matt Kilroy and our drummer Shap Shapira to the roster, completing the four-piece band you see on stage today.
MER: Who are some of Scarhaven’s influences?
Saint: We all pull from so many other musical artists outside of the whole 90s grunge bands. Obviously Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Alice In Chains, but also Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Linkin Park, Deftones, Coldplay, Radiohead. I myself love Coldplay, Radiohead, Oasis, The Verve, U2, Pink Floyd, Jeff Buckley, Nick Drake amongst the bands I listed above. We also pull from the Ramones, AC/DC, Foo Fighters, Beatles, Iggy Pop, Miles Davis, Tony Williams Lifetime, David Bowie.
I mean, the list is pretty big, so I could keep going. We also like to pull from cinematic scores and other forms of art, that being painting, sculptures, books, and poetry.
MER: You recently released a single entitled “Clouds”. What can you tell the fans about your latest release?
Saint: “Clouds” touches on a relationship struggling to stay alive. In the beginning, it was skewed by smoking weed and having rose colored lenses on, but when the smoking stops and they see each other for who they actually are, the relationship experiences resentment and a desire to want to move on. In a way, it also touches on a sort of toxic codependency. I wrote the song after a buddy of mine told me about his situation, so a lot of that time was me being a shoulder for him and supporting him through this tough period of his life.
MER: Do you feel like “Clouds” along with some of your other singles give the fans a good idea on what to expect from your next full album?
Saint: I think so in the sense that we can also dial it back and write a simpler song that isn’t so riff-oriented or less complex.
MER: You’ll soon be touring North America with Alien Ant Farm. What are your expectations for the upcoming tour, being also Scarhaven’s first tour?
Saint: There are truly no expectations for what the road and the tour will bring us, but the only expectations we have as a unit is that we will always give the audience our all and leave it all on stage. We also got a little taste of what this tour could look like when we played our biggest show in May, opening up for Buckcherry, but we are overall super excited and super grateful for the opportunity.
MER: What do you see as plans for Scarhaven after the tour with Alien Ant Farm?
Saint: By the time the tour ends, which will be late October, the industry tends to slow down a bit in November/December, so spending the holidays with family and friends and having the chance to relax a little will be nice. We will still have shows thrown in those months but no tours.
We start right back up again in January playing Shiprocked, which will be a blast and is something we are also looking very forward to.
MER: Who do you hope to tour with and why?
Saint: Man, that’s a tough question with a probably never-ending list. But Alice In Chains, Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam would be crazy amongst so many other bands that we love on all calibers. One band I say when asked this question is Coldplay.
It’s kind of a joke but kind of not because I genuinely love them, but because our sounds are so different I know the chance is almost non-existent haha Chris Martin’s energy is very contagious
MER: Where do you hope to play live and why?
Saint: We want to saturate as much of North America as possible, but after that it’d be amazing to play in South America and in Europe. I feel like those continents have a higher percentage of listeners who love rock and metal and are more inviting to new bands and sounds.
MER: How would you describe your sound to anyone unfamiliar with Scarhaven?
Saint: I usually tell people we’re a band with some of the 90’s grunge sound in our DNA. The music can be heavy and riff-driven, but melody is just as important to us. Vocally, I might be screaming in one part and singing softly in the next. I’d also say we are an emotionally deep band that touches on basic human feelings, whether they are positive or negative.
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