We were lucky to catch up with Luke Dapuzzo recently and have shared our conversation below.

Luke, appreciate you joining us today. Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?

I feel most Belmont bands have the same path of playing house show shows and gaining a gain base solely of students from the school. We tried starting in this path but have always felt like the outsiders in the scene having such a different sound and musical background. It wasn’t until we started breaking out the cycle and start trying to open for more established artists we saw things start to happen for us. It was a big leap of faith but I think it played out well in the long run

Luke, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Sugar in the Gas Tank is a four-piece band giving a new take on the Alternative/Pop Punk music scene of the early 2000s. The band based out of Belmont University was created by Luke Dapuzzo (Vocals and Guitar) in the fall of 2019. Later on Reese Marshall (Drums), CJ Christianson (Guitar), and Jack Samter (Bass) joined to help make Sugar in the Gas Tank what it is today. One of our biggest moments was opening for The Offspring at Brooklyn Bowl in 2021 to a sold-out crowd of 1200 people. I still can’t believe we got that amazing opportunity.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

We decided to create the band at the absolute worst time. Our first show was in February of 2020 and we have another lined up in April actually playing with Drake Bell from Drake and Josh. Unfortunately with Coronavirus, it took us a year and a half till the band was able to play a show again. But we kept playing and writing together in the meantime and really got the momentum going in the fall of 2021

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Our main goal at the moment is to get signed to a label. In the past few weeks, we have been putting together a team to help with management, booking, and promotion. It was getting to be a bit too much for me to deal with all three of these things AND keep writing/recording music for the band. Hopefully, this will help both the music and business sides of the band be as good as possible. We have a new single coming very soon and an album close behind.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sugarinthegastank.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sitgtband/