Bad News

Zoo Freaks, the Crew just dropped the needle on "Bad News," track seven from Ace Monroe's self-titled record, the one that hit the street on November 17, 2023. The boys have said this was the last song they wrote for that album, and they do not have anything else on the record that moves like it. It is three minutes of straight-ahead, in-your-face rock and roll that starts fast and never lets up. They have called it three minutes of pure adrenaline, the kind of tune you cannot imagine the album without. On the college radio show The Wave, right before the record came out, they talked about locking themselves in a room and arguing their way through songs for hours. Some of those tunes took months and five or six different choruses. "Bad News" was one of the ones that just popped out.

The story in the song is one everybody in the room already knows. The band has said we all know her, we all know one person this song depicts. It is about meeting a girl who is maybe not the best idea you ever had, having a good time while it lasts, and knowing full well it is not going to last long. They have also called it a fun song about somebody you never want to see again, with a chorus that carries an old-school punk attitude from start to finish. Drummer Jonathan Tatooles has said he took a page out of Stewart Copeland's book for the verses, holding the backbeat and keeping the floor tom rolling the way a lot of Police songs do, with accents here and there. His whole approach was a mash-up of Copeland and Tommy Lee, hard-hitting the whole way through, no breath in it. He has compared the feel to jumping in a 1978 Trans Am and flooring it. Everybody in the band has a writing credit on it, Tatooles, Erik McIntyre, Jack Kaiser, Josh Alfano, and Robbie Dylan, and Andy Freeman produced it.

Ace Monroe got rolling the way a lot of good bands do, by accident and a dorm-room jam. Guitarist Josh Alfano slid into drummer Jonathan Tatooles's messages during freshman year and asked him to play. Tatooles has said he did not really feel like it, but he went anyway, and the first riff Josh played was "Gospel." He knew right then there was something there. Jack Kaiser, who was rooming with Tatooles, was the audience of one on his way out the door. He stayed, watched them jam, and decided whatever was forming, he had to be in it. Singer Robbie Dylan got the call after a songwriter round at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville. A friend told him she knew a band that was good and needed a singer. Dylan has said he was skeptical. He did not want to be in a band, and he had seen plenty of college outfits that thought they were the stuff. He gave them his number anyway. Bassist Erik McIntyre found a Facebook ad from a bunch of guys in bell bottoms and long hair, with a blonde singer who could belt and a drummer hitting harder than Keith Moon. A few coffee-shop meetings and a tough audition later, he had the gig. The name did not come from any of them. Tatooles was sitting in a microeconomics class at the University of Tennessee, not paying attention, trying to dream up a band name, when the professor hit "Ace Monroe" on the roll call. It hit him like a ton of bricks. Next class he walked up to a guy he did not know, introduced himself, and asked if the band could use the name. Ace said sure. The real Ace Monroe and his family have been friends of the band ever since, and they get free merch and tickets for their trouble.

That self-titled album was the first one where the whole band wrote together, and they have said that is why they put their own name on the cover. They felt like they had finally found what Ace Monroe sounds like. Robbie Dylan sang on "Bad News." In early 2026 the band and Robbie parted ways on good terms, and Jack Kaiser, who had been playing rhythm guitar and singing backup, stepped up front. The records they made with Robbie are still the foundation, and "Bad News" is still the one that does not slow down.

You can find the band at their official site, acemonroe.com, on Facebook at Ace Monroe, on Instagram at @acemonroeband, and on X at @AceMonroeBand. Fans hang out and trade show videos on the Ace Monroe Discord, linked from their Linktree. That is "Bad News" by Ace Monroe, Zoo Freaks. Turn it up.