On the heels of two sold-out shows in their hometown of Columbus—where they played a whopping 62 different songs—Watershed will tour this fall in support of their new record, Blow It Up Before It Breaks. Blow It Up showcases the band’s aged-for-decades blend of loud guitars, catchy melodies, and clever lyrics, and is anchored by the lead single and video “Another Night in the Ruts”. The One You Feed (a top 50 iHeart podcast) called it “the best album of the year—by far.”

 Formed while dual frontmen Colin Gawel (guitar) and Joe Oestreich (bass) were still in high school, Watershed has covered a lot of ground over their nearly 40-year career. They were signed (and dropped) by Epic Records. They’ve played well over a thousand shows, at every club that ever mattered, including CBGB in NYC, the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip, and the Metro in Chicago. They’ve shared the stage with Wilco, Ben Folds, Tommy Stinson, Cheap Trick, The Smithereens, Insane Clown Posse (no shit), and a long list of has-beens and wannabes. Their three-minute power-pop gems have been featured on MTV’s Laguna Beach and A&E’s Gene Simmons Family Jewels, and they’ve been in radio rotation from South Carolina to Seattle.

 That’s the short story. The long story of Watershed’s journey from rock’s minor leagues to the majors and back is the subject of Oestreich’s book Hitless Wonder (2012), featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition. Donald Ray Pollock (The Devil All the Time, Knockemstiff) named Hitless Wonder “the best and most honest memoir about the thwarted desire for rock stardom that you will ever read,” while Tom Perrotta (Election, The Leftovers, etc.) called it “a wonderful book about […] a scrappy band that doesn’t know how to quit.”

 Produced by Tim Patalan—who also recorded the band’s best-received albums, The More It Hurts, the More It Works (2002) and Fifth of July (2005)—Blow It Up Before It Breaks is available on all streaming services, at bandcamp (digital), and at watershedcentral.com (vinyl).

 On Blow it Up, Watershed sounds like a (gasp) rock band. That may sound trite, but these days rock bands—real rock bands, the kind that play Les Pauls and Marshalls, not MacBooks—are hard to come by. As Amplifier Magazine’s Tom Semoli writes, a Watershed show is “akin to the manner in which the Replacements and the Faces once bravely blurred the fine line between mayhem and total professionalism.” In the Midwest, Watershed shows are legendary. But Watershed hasn’t stuck it out for all these years to be “legendary” any more than Cool Hand Luke downed all those eggs because he was hungry. No, Watershed takes the stages of musty clubs, belting their songs like their lives depend on it, because they’re one of the last rock bands standing. And that’s what rock bands do.