A new band in the alt-pop rock scene has entered center stage, and they are currently headlining Amazon Prime.
On Sept. 1 Amazon released its new series “The Runarounds,” a fictional show about a real band. While the lines between what’s real and what’s made for television may be blurry with “The Runarounds,” there’s nothing fake when it comes to the hype around this show.
The show is centered around a group of friends, desperate to make it in the music industry with their band, The Runarounds. Through a series of, at times crazy, events, the band begins to grow a following and form friendships they could have never expected. Their journey in the show is as messy as it is full of musical talent, but it also started long before the Amazon series was even fully conceptualized.
It goes back to 2022, when Netflix’s hit series, “Outer Banks,” began filming its third season. Now, this information may seem superfluous at first. After all, what does a highly dramatized Netflix show about a group of teenage treasure hunters have to do with Amazon’s latest series? It turns out, the answer to that question is pretty much everything.
Producers put out a casting call for season three of “Outer Banks” looking for musicians to act as a fictional band that plays a party during one of the episodes. Among the people that auditioned were Axel Ellis, Jesse Golliher, William Lipton, Zendé Murdock and Jeremy Yun, the real-life musicians eventually cast for the fictional parts in the band The Runarounds. After their debut in season three, episode seven of “Outer Banks,” Jonas Pate, co-creator of “Outer Banks” and creator of “The Runarounds,” began working on the pitch that would eventually result in the Amazon series.
The series officially began filming in Wilmington, North Carolina, last year, but the band had already started performing together two years prior. They released their first single, “Senior Year,” and a live recording of their performance at The Windjammer in South Carolina, in December 2022.
It’s songs like “Senior Year,” that the bandmates of The Runarounds have written and recorded almost entirely on their own that make this series feel so real to me. A good soundtrack can be beneficial to the success of the series and in the case of “The Runarounds,” the soundtrack definitely exceeds expectations.
Unlike shows like Amazon’s 2023 series “Daisy Jones & the Six,” where some cast members had to learn to play certain instruments or sing for their roles, the cast of “The Runarounds” are experienced. Ellis, who plays Neil Crosby, is the frontman for the band Ax and the Hatchetmen. Lipton and Yun aren’t just best friends Charlie Cooper and Topher Park in the series, they’re also longtime friends and bandmates in real life. Every performance in the show feels like the real deal. From their stage dynamic to the reactions of the crowd, at times the show feels more like a concert recording than it does a fictional series.
It wasn’t just the music that drew me in though; the actual plot of the series kept me on the edge of my seat almost the entire time.
The tight-knit group dynamic between the band mates and their friends is the first thing I really enjoyed when I started watching the show. Reminiscent of season one of “Outer Banks,” the group of friends and nostalgic, carefree summer vibes are exactly what the latest seasons of the Netflix show have been missing and are the perfect way to cling onto the warmer months as we march into fall.
This show isn’t without its romance either. While there are multiple romantic subplots, the main storyline of the series features a budding relationship between Charlie and his longtime crush Sophia (Lilah Pate). They may be awkward at times and often fall subject to the “miscommunication trope” far more than I would like, but the songs that come out of their relationship make it all worth it. In the show, the two work together to write songs like “Hypocrites,” perfectly encapsulating that idea of young love and yearning.
I can’t make the claim that this was a perfect show though. If there is one critique I have for it, it’s that for all the interesting plots and songs and characters, at times it felt like “The Runarounds” was just doing too much. Every character, no matter how small, felt like they had to have their own side plot and backstory. It made for dramatized television, sure, but it also felt like they were trying to cram three seasons of plot points into eight episodes.
You can’t just throw every idea you have at a wall and hope something sticks. I know the frequency of which streaming platforms cancel shows in their early seasons is alarming, but having a dozen random side plots doesn’t create a show that’s for everybody, it just makes things crowded and confusing.
I am hopeful that “The Runarounds” won’t be another victim to the “one season cancellation,” but even if it is, I am grateful that it was able to at least introduce me to some new music. For anyone looking for a fun, comedic coming-of-age drama, “The Runarounds” is definitely worth checking out. And, who knows — you may even be introduced to your new favorite band.
