The Bad Penny (beta)

It could be argued—hell, let’s have it out right now; why wait for a rainy day?—that there’s actually no better time for a musician to launch a side venture when their primary project is experiencing peak success. Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme pulled it off with Them Crooked Vultures and Eagles of Death Metal. Jack White kept his seat with the White Stripes warm while engaging in extracurricular activities with the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather. And Chino Moreno put them all to shame by dividing his time between Deftones, Team Sleep, Crosses, Palm s and Saudade. And you have the nerve to call yourself busy?

The latest band to experience the music equivalent of polyamory is Sheer Mag. The Philadelphia punk-rock posse quickly started gaining traction less than a year after congealing in a dilapidated house in which they creatively made room for a studio too. Slipknot started out in a similarly shared dwelling, and it took them about four years of surviving their hellhole before terrestrial radio came a knockin’. Sheer Mag managed to do it in less than half that time, finding themselves transported to Coachella and a late-night TV talk show only two years after they set sail with their band.