East Boston native Sal Baglio along with bandmate Dan Kopko continues his fidelity to that distinctive and authentic rock and roll sound that is long his own with a new album.
BOSTON, Mass. [August 1, 2025] – Everyone has a favorite band; everyone has a favorite album; and everyone has a favorite song. The Peppermint Kicks wanna be yours, three times over, all in the name of rock and roll.
And they make it easy, too, at least when it comes to the first two. The Boston duo of Dan Kopko and Sal Baglio return with their first new Peppermint Kicks album in three years in Pop Rocks In My Chewing Gum, a livewire collection of anthemic, retro-kissed power-pop and neo-glam belters out via CD and streaming on Friday, August 1 on Rum Bar Records.
The tough part, however, comes in choosing which song emerges as the fave, as each of the adrenalized 10 tracks – swirling around playful themes of lollipops and candy, crushes and longing, breakups and redemption, all served with a sizable sonic dose of hope and fun – explode out of the speakers with distinct personality and purpose. And the lyrical subject matter is varied, but oddly pointed.
“The Peppermint Kicks go international on Pop Rocks In My Chewing Gum – perhaps even unintentionally, but we are not telling!” says Baglio with a laugh. “There are songs about French girls, candy, and trash cans. Twiggy-esque Lollipop Girls in the UK. An Italian female pop star from the ‘60s, paeans to classic Japanese cartoons, NYC, and Boston, too. And it would not be a Kicks record without songs about radio and rock and roll.”
Pop Rocks In My Chewing Gum, its title taken from a lyric in the album’s riff-tastic spotlight single “Too Sweet (Oh Yeah!)” – “Excitations on my tongue / pop rocks in my chewing gum,” coos Kopko with an enrapturing effect – finds the collaborative pair, known for their previous work in bands like The Amplifier Heads, The Shang Hi Los, Watts, and others, in fine collaborative form as they bang out sugary-sweet, 2-and-a-half-minute pop bangers with seductive muscle.
The album arrives fresh off the June release of dynamite lead single “Radio Wam Bam Boom,” a thunderous ode to the airwaves that Baglio describes as “an eardrum of rock candy about radio past and present, transistor, satellite, vinyl records revolving, guitar licks dissolving, disc jockeys spinnin’ & rock n roll dreamin’.” It features a DJ cameo from The Underground Garage’s Palmyra Delran, bridging eras from this modern digital age back to the 20th-century AM and FM era the two songwriters credit with first introducing them to rock and roll back as teenagers.
True to its calling, “Radio Wam Bam Boom” shot up the digital radio charts to hit #1 on the Radio Indie Alliance global Top 100, earning widespread blog praise and airplay around Boston and beyond, including being named the BumbleBee Radio Bee’s Knees Song of the Week. Its grandiose momentum, retro-rock swagger, and effortless cool helped set a tone for what is to come throughout Pop Rocks In My Chewing Gum.
“The new album is chock full of pop-rock goodness, and ‘Radio Wam Bam Boom’ hits like a shot of adrenaline straight into the vein,” Kopko adds. “It is a statement of what’s to follow on the rest of the LP, musically and spiritually – a monster floor tom beat, dueling call-and-response vocals, and a mix that is threatening to rip your speakers out – what’s not to love? It was a no-brainer as the leadoff song for the record, and the first single.”
What follows is a barrage of hooks and pop smarts all tightly wound around an infectious power-pop core. The aforementioned “Too Sweet (Oh Yeah!),” the first song cut for the album, takes us for a blissed-out dance through the aisles of a candy shop, “Number One Record” takes on a vintage ‘70s NYC punk vibe, and “Little Doll (Piccola Pupa)” throws it across the Atlantic with a new type of British Invasion sound so loud it’ll wake up the ghost of Paul Revere.
At the very least, it’ll provide a necessary escape for the day’s tension.
“Perhaps the melodies, rhythms, and word paint on this record will be a respite from the atrocities and madness that is the new norm today,” Baglio admits. “Let’s sing and shout and dance about until the sun comes out again.”
There’s plenty of sonic sunshine across Pop Rocks In My Chewing Gum in its meaty middle section. The hypnotic daydream of “Shangri La,” the animated guitar-rock hyperactivity of “Lollipop Girl,” and the yearning heartthrob ballad “Out of the Trash Can Into Your Heart” showcase the easy chemistry between the two songwriters. Both performed all the instrumentation on the record – Baglio on guitars, piano, vocals and Kopko on guitars, bass, vocals – aside from drums, which were provided by Kevin Rapillo, Chris Anzalone, and Napoleon Hashimoto. The album was mixed and mastered by Kopko’s alter ego, Danny The K.
“As is typical, we started with way too much material,” Kopko reveals. “But three or four tunes in, the personality of the record revealed itself and the rest sort of picked and wrote themselves!”
The record wraps with a bang – the soaring “Gigantor” sets its thematic site on classic Japanese monsters called to save the world from humankind; “Speed Racer” shouts out the titular character with a punk rock urgency and almost surf-rock-like heartbeat, and album closer “We Did It All For Rock & Roll” swells with the type of sing-along aspiration fit for an album where each of its 10 tracks could all be singles. “Hidden” bonus track “Tout Fait” wraps things up with a consistent, stripped down refrain heard in the prior track and a loose round of applause – and is its own Easter egg as the type of tune that would have been Number 99 on a compact disc back in the ‘90s.
“I truly love this entire record,” Baglio says, “and am always grateful to work, write and rock with Danny The K!”
After a long mutual admiration, the pair first met in the 2010s at a radio station-hosted holiday concert, where Baglio led the house band and Kopko’s former band was on the bill. A quick IRL conversation led to becoming online pen pals, which then led to a casual exchange of demos. Kopko reached out during the pandemic, armed with some free time and a bunch of song ideas, and asked if Baglio wanted to play on a track or two, to which Baglio replied, “Let’s make a record!”
What transpired was their 2021 self-titled debut. Three years later, the Baglio and Kopko writing songwriting dynamo show off an even greater flex, taking their sound and cranking it up to 11.
“For me, it is just an awesome privilege to be able to trade ideas and develop songs with a songsmith and musician like Sal,” says Kopko, who is quick with his long-held admiration and praise for his songwriting partner. “There’s an ease in the exchange that’s super rare.”
With live shows being planned for the not-so-distant future, The Peppermint Kicks are content to exist right now inside your stereo, allowing the songs to transport and inspire. And the duo is not too concerned about releasing an album in the playlist-fueled age of the streaming single, instead putting faith in the listener who wants something a little bit more from their listening experience.
Pop Rocks In My Chewing Gum is a throwback record not just in style and sound, but also in the sense that it slots back to a time when albums mattered to those who listened.
“Other than the 44-second bonus track, every song is a single, and perhaps even the 44 second song could be one too, in keeping with most modern day listeners’ attention span,” Baglio says with a chuckle. “Personally, I love making albums. I only think and write in those terms.”
Kopko thinks an album like Pop Rocks In My Chewing Gum has a firm place in 2025, despite what the algorithms or focus groups or board members may tell you.
“Wasn’t the 1950s the age of the single?” he reasons. “The entire album is only 26 minutes long! There were singles in the 1970s longer than that!”
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Bandcamp: https://thepeppermintkicks.bandcamp.com/
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Faster and Louder Blog by Lord Rutledge https://fasterandlouderblog.blogspot.com/2025/06/the-peppermint-kicks-radio-wam-bam-boom.html
