New Year’s resolutions

Drummer Trevor Smith says the next 12 months should prove to be a promising time for This Calendar Year—the band, that is.

“We’re more excited for this year than anything else,” says Smith. “We’re really hopeful that something can happen.”

The five-piece, indie pop rock outfit has seen the release of an eight-song EP and a lineup change (swapping bassist Colin Ward for Roger Brown) during their two-year run. However, among Smith, Brown, guitarists Jack Rolli and Garry Dubay and singer Tommy Bartoldo, the consensus is that their third is shaping up to have the most potential.

On Feb. 1, This Calendar Year enlisted the help of Craig Bellis, owner of local label Battle Born Records. As the band’s manager, Bellis is their go-to guy for press kits, tour booking and other endeavors as they begin to map out their plan to make it big.

“I want to do this as a career,” Bartoldo says.

Smith echoed the sentiment.

“I want to do it for a living,” he says. “I can’t work at Hollister forever.”

Tipping their hats to acts like NOFX and citing Bellis’ knowledge of the business end of their effort, the band says that DIY bands very rarely make it big on their own. Brown hopes Bellis’ ability to maneuver in the music world and his comfort with legal issues will help them get their name out to labels, as well as secure an agent.

As for what they’ll be marketing, Bartoldo says the band is all over the map. It’s a musical mix comparable to their name, which Bartoldo says represents their various influences.

“Our music is basically a reflection of emotions and different aspects of events that have occurred within the past calendar year,” says Bartoldo. “I felt that those events and those emotions stay fresh in our minds because of the period of time. … People basically collect all the events and things that have happened within that past year and reflect upon it, and that’s how we write our songs.”

Brown says the band members are all “into totally different music.” He cites a range of influences, including Incubus, Death Cab for Cutie, MxPx and Blink-182.

The group’s brand of rock is by turns melodic and jarring. The sound is emphasized by their style, which carries the sass of their former stage compatriots, including Angels & Airwaves, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and Rufio.

This year also brought the band the opportunity to share a larger stage. They’d already broken in venues like Sparks’ New Oasis and the Grand Sierra Resort Theatre. On Feb. 18, the guys split the bill with the likes of The Used and 30 Seconds to Mars at Lawlor Events Center.

Brown says the response was tremendous for This Calendar Year, which was selected for the 20-minute slot through an Ernie Ball-sponsored contest.

“People were chanting our name after the set,” he says. “We’re extremely thankful.”

In conjunction with Bellis’ help, the band sees the start of this year as a jumping off point for what they hope will be a time of great progress.

“We couldn’t have asked for anything better,” says Brown. “I think everybody in the band is feeling the same way because so much has been happening lately, things starting to speed up, that if there’s going to be a year that we do something, it’s going to be this year.”