Mike Mains and Young Mister

As vocalist, songwriter, producer, and namesake of Mike Mains & The Branches, Mike Mains thinks aloud in his songs. He ponders events and experiences and their ensuing effects on his identity, telling intimate stories through artful pop rock. After generating millions of streams and consistently captivating audiences on tour, the band reflects on these formative mementos on their fourth full-length offering, Memory Unfixed (Tooth & Nail Records).

Mike Mains & The Branches have always bottled complex emotions and relatable stories within hummable homegrown anthems. They have organically progressed throughout Home (2012), Calm Down, Everything Is Fine (2014), and When We Were in Love (2019). Billboard hailed the “buoyant pop” of the latter, while Atwood Magazine praised its “upbeat, energetic, feel-good pop-rock.” Among many standouts, “Briggs” generated north of 5 million Spotify streams as “Breathing Underwater” and “Live Forever” each surpassed the 1 million mark. After trading his native Michigan for Nashville, Mains underwent another transformation era. Stuck at home mid-pandemic, he retreated inward and began to understand his past and, ultimately, himself a bit more. “I’m just a husband, a wounded healer, and a grateful storyteller. If these songs make you feel less alone, I did my job.”

 

Steven Fiore (Young Mister) has a career that reads like a legendary round of "two truths and a lie": co-writing with Art Garfunkel, singing with Jeff Goldblum’s jazz band, and having more than 17 million Spotify streams. But it’s all true—every word of it. Fiore got his break as a songwriter for Universal Music Group Publishing in Los Angeles, securing cuts for artists like Howie Day and Ryan Cabrera. Still, Young Mister’s sacred sense of introspection has afforded him an artistic output that hits far closer to home. Since launching the project in 2016, Young Mister’s trio of albums—2016’s self-titled debut, 2019’s Sudden Swoon, and 2020’s This Is Where We Are Now—has received acclaim from fans and outlets like American Songwriter alike for an adroit, dreamlike balance of folk, Americana, and pop—all crafted with wistful sentimentality and swirling, meditative lyricism.