New York’s latest Utah transplants have had a whirlwind of a year, and 2025 is only halfway done. After years of singles, PERSONA 749 made a decisive move with their debut album at the end of February. Their limitless ambition mirrors a seemingly endless repertoire of sonically diverse material — they always have a song or a remix in the chamber, a habit of consistency that has undoubtedly contributed to their recent success. Now, fresh off of their first proper tour and album, the band is at a special place in its career — a gift for all to witness.

Recently, the band took some time away from their busy schedule to answer a few of my questions.

YY: At the time of this interview, PERSONA 749 just returned from a long run of shows in the Northeast. How was the tour? Any highlights to share?

P: The tour overall went great! It had its highs and its lows, and we learned so much about what it means to be on the road and a touring band. This run of shows was the first time the band had played outside of Utah, and we had no clue what to expect.

But some highlights from the tour were performing in NYC and Chicago. We had a great turnout at these shows, and it was incredible to meet so many people who love the music.

The band relocated from Utah to New York at the end of last year — what has it been like adapting to not just a major change in the life of the band, but presumably in your personal lives as well?

The move from Utah to New York was hard. Most of the band stayed in Utah with only a few members making the move to the Northeast. It was a major change finding new members and getting this tour together, but we have a good team now, and we made the right call making the move. Personally it was hard to go from seeing family and friends every day to being mostly on my own, and the difference in climates was tough to adjust to initially.

What are some advantages of being a New York band versus a Utah band, and what do you miss about Utah?

One of the biggest advantages of being in New York is being able to play in so many big cities, as the Northeast is just so much denser. Moving to New York, a Northeastern USA + Canada tour was always one of our first goals. Also, there's a lot more resources out here that we intend on utilizing to help the band grow further. One of the main things we miss about Utah though is seeing so many friends at our shows.

“JOCK ROCK” came out earlier this year – what kind of emotions did the band experience surrounding the release of your debut album? Any anxiety, or was it mostly excitement?

The release of “JOCK ROCK” came with a little bit of anxiety as this was a project that had been in the works for so long. But the overwhelming feeling was of joy and excitement to finally have our debut album out.

In a 2023 interview with SLUG MAG, the band mentioned you hadn’t quite found your style. Would you say you’ve officially found it on “JOCK ROCK,” or at the very least found a direction that feels right?

I would say we've found a direction that feels right, and we're gonna follow that for a bit. "JOCK ROCK" certainly has its own style. But one thing that's important to us is to be creative and to try to always make something new. We do not want to stagnate and put out songs that are derivative of one another.

A review of the album says that “there’s something on ‘Jock Rock’ for just about everybody who loves rock and/or roll,” drawing attention to the album’s sonic variation. Was stylistic diversity the goal for this album? If not, was it challenging to compile everything into a succinct body of work?

Initially such stylistic diversity on "JOCK ROCK" was not intended. But we found that the further along we got with its development that is just what ended up happening. It was a bit challenging compiling such different songs onto one album, and we're very aware that "JOCK ROCK" isn't as stylistically uniform as other albums.

Prior to settling in to record this album, the band underwent a “creative cleansing” of 15 songs not related to the album or each other. I haven’t ever seen a band release a single every week for 15 weeks, but it’s a killer concept if you have the material for it. Was that just a product of having a back catalog of songs you wouldn’t use for anything else, or had you been planning it for a while?

It was something we had been planning for a while, and it was very fun to have something new coming out every week for nearly 4 months straight!

With the recent tour and the release of your debut album, 2025 has already been a big year for the band — what’s next?

2025 has been such a great year so far and we have some other big plans before it ends. We're going to be taking the summer to do mostly behind-the-scenes stuff writing/recording etc. while some of our members are away. But we plan to have some new music out this fall coupled with some shows on the West Coast before the year ends!