Meet Northport indie rockers Arcy Drive who play original music and are headlining Mulcahy's

An old mid-size school bus sits at the edge of a circular driveway in Northport. Although it once transported children for educational purposes, these days it serves as the home of Arcy Drive, an up-and-coming indie rock band from Long Island. Inside there’s a certain buzz in the air as the four members recently completed their upcoming album and just released a new single, “Under the Rug.”

“This is the calm before the storm,” says lead singer/rhythm guitarist Nick Mateyunas, 24. “We are about to go on tour for another 100 days.”

The band members, who all still live at home with their parents in Northport, have been off the road and busy recording for most of the year. Currently, they are gearing up for a big 2025. However, Arcy Drive booked a special homecoming gig on Nov. 21 headlining Mulcahy’s Pub and Concert Hall in Wantagh. This kind of marquee treatment is typically given to national touring bands, popular tribute acts and well-known cover groups.. But this month the quartet from Northport is getting the royal treatment.

“This is certainly not the norm for us or most established venues similar in size. It is risky, you really don’t know what to expect,” says Rick Cappiello, Mulcahy’s talent buyer-production manager. “I think Arcy Drive is authentic. They have a distinct sound and are passionate about what they are doing. We love giving opportunities to local original artists any chance we can.”

BECOMING A BAND

Before they were bandmates, the members of Arcy Drive were buds from Northport High School. However, the group didn’t fully come together until they graduated. Like most bands, they started by playing covers at local joints like Gunther’s Tap Room in Northport as well as friends’ backyard parties in 2019 and 2020. But it wasn’t until they began writing their own music in 2021 that sparks came through.

“The first song Nick ever showed me was this track in my garage called, ‘All the Nice Things,’ ” says drummer Brooke Tuozzo, 25, who lives on the street the band is named after. “I knew from that moment we had something.”

Once the writing started to flow, Arcy Drive began leaving the covers behind. Unfortunately, this caused a new hurdle.

“There’s not a lot of people making indie rock on Long Island so not enough venues promote original music,” says Mateyunas, who has a side hustle on a fishing charter boat. “Every venue we wanted to play at required a certain amount of covers. A real band is a band that makes their own music.”

Arcy Drive realized they needed to branch out beyond Long Island.

“We were thinking if we are going to go for this, we have to just do it now,” says Tuozzo, who makes extra money as a server at Salted on the Harbor in Northport.

HITTING THE ROAD

Without any album or single releases, Arcy Drive went across the country on the Barefoot Tour in 2022. The band booked all their own gigs, made their own T-shirts to sell and used social media to get their music out to the masses.

“Austin [Jones, lead guitarist] had a good idea of making an interactive map online. People could place a pin on a map via a website and tell us where you wanted the band to play,” says bassist Patrick Helrigel, 24, who does carpentry work on the side. “It ended up doing better than we thought and we were able to tell where fans wanted to come see us perform.”

Arcy Drive has impressive social media numbers: 121.5K followers on TikTok, 38.5K followers on Instagram, 9.06K subscribers on YouTube and 302K monthly listeners on Spotify. The band set up four mini-cameras around the bus giving fans a peek into their lifestyle on a vlog.

“We try to make it casual, but you catch everything,” says Jones, 25, who works as a barback at The Paramount in Huntington. “The day-to-day is for hardcore fans whereas the average fan cares about big video releases. But, once you get people interested, that’s the stuff they attach themselves to.”

Being the only female in the group is something Tuozzo had to get used to.

“It’s so weird, but it’s good,” she says. “They are my buddies. I just adapted.”

All three guys agree Tuozzo’s female energy is key.

“Having a girl in the band keeps us in check,” admits Mateyunas.

Helrigel notes, “We keep the bus cleaner than we normally would. If it was just the three of us, it could get dark quick. She holds it down.”

In terms of food, the band will hit a Stop & Shop along the way for groceries or grab something at a gas station.

“If we have a day or two, we find a campsite and make burgers,” says Jones. “We always like to get to a city early so we can look around a bit. It helps with morale because not everything is all work and rushing around.”

GET ON THE BUS

The band travels on the aforementioned used school bus they purchased upstate for $10,000, which they raised via concert merchandise sales. They gutted the bus, which had 92,000 miles on it, and Helrigel built bunk beds plus a storage area for their gear.

“The backdoor of the bus is used like a garage. We load and unload from there,” says Jones.

This involved a bit of a life adjustment, learning to live on a bus…without a bathroom.

“We figured out Planet Fitness would be our best friend,” says Mateyunas. “For $20 a month, you get a shower, gym, massage chair and bathroom. We also stop at gas stations and there’s an outdoor RV shower hook up on the back of the bus for the summertime.”

Each band member takes turns behind the wheel, cup of coffee in hand.

“It’s an automatic so it’s not as bad as you think,” says Helrigel. “You drive it like a boat, taking it wide on the turns.”

Tuozzo adds, “I was definitely scared in the beginning. But I don’t drive in the cities, just straight on the main roads. You have to be fully aware that it’s a big bus.”

However, the bus kept breaking down, causing traveling stresses.

“We realized the bus had a faulty sensor, which caused us to only be able to drive 40 miles per hour,” says Mateyunas. “She kept breaking down and we had to regenerate her every 200 miles, which is why we nicknamed her Jenny.”

Things hit a breaking point in Virginia after Jenny broke down for the 10th time.

“We were still on the East Coast and had to ask ourselves, ‘Should we turn around and go home or shoot it across the country?’ It was a big moment for us,” recalls Mateyunas. “We figured let’s keep going and run this thing into the ground.”

MAKING MUSIC

While at a tour stop in California, a fan allowed the band to use their recording studio, Big Bad Sound in Los Angeles. Within four hours, Arcy Drive laid down eight tracks that would make up their debut album, “Attic Sessions,” which was released after the tour in November 2022.

“We call our music ‘attic rock’ because we’d stay up in Pat’s attic 10 hours a day or my attic playing,” says Mateyunas. “None of us really had a musical background so we had to learn together. We formed this sound between ourselves that we relate to the attic.”

The first single, “Roll My Stone,” garnered attention and to date has more than 7 million plays on Spotify.

“We knew instantly it would connect. The chorus just has something that’s easy to understand,” says Mateyunas. “The song came out very carefree.”

Tuozzo adds, “It’s the biggest one in our set. We usually play it towards the end.”

By 2023, the band hooked up with producer Jon Gilbert, who is famous for his work with their favorite indie rock band, Mt. Joy. Together they created the “Beach Plumb” EP, named after the road Jones lives on, containing popular songs, “Time Shrinks,” “Superbloomer” and “Wicked Styley,” which has an accompanying video filmed at United Skates of America in Seaford. Additionally, they got a booking agent and manager while venturing out on the “Static Tour” in 2023.

“It feels good to have a team around us and people that believe in what we are doing as much as we do,” says Tuozzo.

ROCK LEGEND HELPS WITH NEW ALBUM 

Arcy Drive spent most of 2024 making their first full-length studio album, which is set to drop in April. They worked in locations including Nantucket, Nashville and Woodstock with producer Angelo Petraglia (Kings of Leon). “We were seeking a raw live sound for this one,” says Mateyunas.

In fact, John Sebastian of  the '60s band the Lovin’ Spoonful makes a cameo appearance on the album playing harmonica on “Oak Tree (Daydream).”

“When we went to record the song, Angelo Petraglia’s manager was like, ‘I think it might be a little too much like ‘Daydream’ but let me call up John Sebastian. He lives in Woodstock,” says Mateyunas. “John said, ‘This is amazing. Don’t worry about anything. I’ll come over and play on it.’ We even ended up going to barbecues with him. He’s the man!”

  HOMECOMING GIG

The gig at Mulcahy’s is what Jones calls “a full circle moment” where they will debut some new songs in front of a crowd containing family and friends, who have watched the band evolve.

“This is one of those shows that you want to go all out for. They have a sense of pride in being from Long Island and love to play in New York,” says manager Lou Nocito. “It’s a great way to end the year and set the tone for a ton of new music and touring next year!”

By David J. Criblez

david.criblez@newsday.comDavidJCriblez

David J. Criblez is a reporter for Newsday's exploreLI, covering entertainment-related events from local music to stand-up comedy to festivals.