Gamblers Tap into Their Italian Heritage with the “Agita” Music Video [Premiere]

Perceptiveness is an underrated quality of any artist, and it’s something that Gamblers have in high supply. Today, the band premieres their new music video for “Agita,” the latest single from their 2024 record Pulverizer. The video is a mixture of the band performing the song in a living room and other assorted household activities, like a large-sized family dinner! The song features a punk rock energy with sunny, surf pop-inspired melodies. It’s all spearheaded by Gamblers founder and bandleader Michael McManus. McManus goes to great lengths to create diversity within the group’s sound, never being over-reliant on a particular genre or time period. Even with a song like “Agita,” he demonstrates great skill at concocting a classic-sounding song and injecting it with hip-hop production and alternative rock characteristics.

With a comment on the background behind “Agita,” guitarist Jimmy Usher offers:

“I love the use of the word that everyone in the band is very familiar with growing up in Italian households on Long Island.”

Building upon that, drummer Johnny Hoblin states:

“When I was a kid my Nana would say the words in this song to me constantly. ‘You’re giving me agita.’”

Based in New York, McManus has had his share of ups and downs in life. He’s used Pulverizer as a platform to get some things off of his chest, but interestingly enough, he had most of the album finished before any of these challenges began to arise. He states that it’s “eerie how much of this stuff turned out to come to life.” As a songwriter, McManus is an astute observer of life and tends to follow his intuitions. These intuitions lead him towards lyrical themes that end up coming to life for him. It’s as if his future self was sending messages to his current self through the music. But that’s just the way art is sometimes. It works in mysterious ways.

But don’t think of Pulverizer as an ominous listening experience. Most of it is quite upbeat, with funky songs like the title track and other elaborate electronic sounds. There’s no time to hang your head. Only time to reflect, learn, and use this newfound knowledge wisely as you navigate forward.

Tour Dates:

10/24 – Cobra Lounge, Chicago, IL
10/26 – The Bowery Electric, NYC
11/07 – The Rockwell, Boston, MA
11/08 – The Black Oak Tavern, Oneonta, NY
11/09 – Sacred Root, Ithaca, NY
12/27 – Spotlight at The Paramount, Huntington, NY

Gamblers “Agita” single artwork