Pittsburgh local music spotlight: Straight Decline

Mike Palm
Monday, Oct. 13, 2025 7:05 a.m. | Monday, Oct. 13, 2025 7:05 a.m.

Straight Decline

Pittsburgh’s Straight Decline

Straight Decline

Straight Decline’s EP “Mid-Semester Crisis will be released on Oct. 17.

Comprised of five students at the University of Pittsburgh, the band Straight Decline is playing their EP release show, appropriately, this week at Oakland’s Haven venue.

The “Mid-Semester Crisis” EP, which comes out Friday, opens with “There Are No Mathematical Jokes, Only Mathematical Punchlines (Calculus Song),” written by guitarist Nathan Feichtel.

“It was also the first song I had written for the band, and the idea came to me when a friend of mine mentioned that I should take a crack at writing a song about something that I could think of in a second,” he said. “Oddly enough, I thought about calculus. Also the equations on the cover art are taken directly from my notes from my thermodynamics and intro to chemical engineering classes.”

The new EP includes a pair of love songs — “Tomorrow” and “Airwaves.”

“While having two love songs on a five-song EP may seem like a lot,” bassist Ryan O’Connor said, “they are two completely different styles of songs.”

The band has been active lately at favorite venues like Mr. Roboto Project and 222 Ormsby.

“We love when we get to play for new people and when we see those people come back to see us again,” Feichtel said. “We also love getting to meet new people and make new friends from our shows.”

He was able to pass on some band stickers to Silverstein singer Shane Told at a May show in Allentown, earning an on-stage shoutout. But a local show has proven to be very memorable, too.

“On a more personal note, we played a house show at an Oakland house venue called the Pixie Pitt, and the pit was so intense during our last song that we felt the floor move up and down throughout the whole song,” Feichtel said. “This was only our third show, and we loved that people enjoyed our music so much that early on. It’s also really surreal when we see people wearing our shirts around Pittsburgh.”

Straight Decline filled in TribLive on what else we should know about the band:

Band: Straight Decline

Band members: Rory Kaplan (lead vocals); Nathan Feichtel (rhythm guitar, backup vocals); Brady Svor (lead guitar); Ryan O’Connor (bass); David Weisfield (drums)

Founding story: “David and I met on Instagram before the start of our freshman year at Pitt and both of wanted to start a band. David had been in a few bands before, and I had never been in one that got off the ground. David eventually met Rory through a D&D group that fell apart,” Feichtel said. “David also found a guitarist and bassist who also were at Pitt. This initial group had a couple of practices, mainly doing covers before the guitarist and bassist quit a couple months later.”

“When all hope seemed lost, I met Brady through the Pitt jazz band, who fit right in with us and already had a lot of song ideas and demos of his own. Nate posted on the Pitt Snapchat story asking for anyone who would be willing to play bass in a band, and that’s how we met Ryan,” Weisfield said. “We got together for the first time with the new lineup soon after Ryan joined the band, and we played a cover of ‘Lithium’ by Nirvana. That cover helped us click, and we kept going from there. Our first gig was a Weezer cover set on Halloween 2024.”

Origin of band’s name: We were throwing out ideas for the name within the first month of starting the band. One of the ideas was Rush The Edge, and that was our unofficial name for a while. Eventually, Nate brought up the name Straight Decline as a sort of political commentary, and it fit the vibe of our band.

For fans of: Green Day, Blink-182, Silverstein, Thrice, Bayside, Michael Cera Palin, Rise Against, Chiodos

Influences: Silverstein, They Might Be Giants, My Chemical Romance, Rise Against, Descendents, Circle Jerks, Slipknot

Releases: “Tomorrow” single; “Mid-Semester Crisis” EP, out Oct. 17, 2025

Next shows: Oct. 18, Haven; Oct. 30, Mr. Roboto Project; Nov. 13, The New Low; Jan. 24, The New Low

How to find them: Straight Decline can be found on Instagram, and their music is available on every major streaming platform.

Three other Pittsburgh bands to check out: Scrum Force, Urban Doctors, Tilt Contrls

Favorite pizza shop: Weisfield tabbed Aiello’s, while Svor chose Little Caesars.

Mike Palm is a TribLive digital producer who also writes music reviews and features. A Westmoreland County native, he joined the Trib in 2001, where he spent years on the sports copy desk, including serving as night sports editor. He has been with the multimedia staff since 2013. He can be reached at mpalm@triblive.com.

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Pittsburgh local music spotlight: Straight Decline

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