Interview with Ed Cuozzo of University Drive: Finding Authenticity Through Grief and Sonic Experimentations
- Julie Simmons
- 4 hours ago
- 5 min read
By Julie Simmons | Music Journalist
“She was my best friend, and then she had a heart attack out of nowhere. I’m still working that stuff out. The only way I know how to deal with those sorts of things is through music.”
Lead guitarist, songwriter, and vocalist for University Drive, Ed Cuozzo, is at a truck stop somewhere in Indiana. Soon, his band will be performing in Chicago, a city that’s inspired his artistry. But for right now, we’re talking on the phone about how his mom’s death paved the way for him to encounter musical authenticity.
ACT I
The year is 2016. After almost a decade of chasing success through his previous band, A Social State, the members finally parted ways. Confronted by silence, Cuozzo turned inward and focused on a new music project, University Drive. For the debut album, he sang solo and played every instrument. At last, he was content making music on his own and “for the love of it.”
Then his mom died.
As a consequence of this devastating event, Cuozzo deconstructed his beliefs and searched for answers in others. He invited followers on social media to leave an audio recording about their takes on death, the afterlife, God, and love.
Cuozzo recalls, “I thought I’d only get 10 people that I knew. I ended up getting 50 submissions from people I’d never met before. Some were three‑minute answers. Some were 30 minutes. Sometimes people broke down in tears. I’m up in my music room listening to these voice messages while writing songs. I was living in a death world.”
ACT II
Described as a “half band, half solo effort,” University Drive released CLEAR with most tracks cushioned by and interwoven with those raw audio clips.
Some iconic albums have leveraged audio clips and vocal interludes. The use of an ambiguously accented woman from a shortwave radio broadcast on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot changed fans' perception of Wilco from being gifted to also experimental. Meanwhile, Anderson .Paak received two GRAMMY nominations the year Malibu was released which heavily relied on vocal interludes from a documentary about surfing.
On CLEAR, Cuozzo took the interludes a step further.
“Sometimes, on [CLEAR],” he muses, “the voices are even more powerful than the songs.” In fact, they were so powerful that the band brought the recordings on tour to play between songs during live performances.
ACT III
It was at this point that things finally started to come together for Cuozzo and University Drive. After years of musicians stepping in to help, Ryan Grutt (bass), Angelo Maruzzelli (guitar), Mark Naples (guitar), and Tony Kruszka (drums) became permanent members. Now a fully formed band, fans at live shows were offering valuable feedback: “Your records are good, but you guys live—holy shit! That’s a whole other thing!”
Cuozzo admits, “It would almost kind of annoy me because I’m proud of all our records, but I also wanted to capture the thing we did. I figured the best way to capture what we do live is to record ourselves live.”
In 2022, University Drive released its third LP, Heal, followed by an EP, First Stage Separation (2025). This time, it was a full band effort, and they took another creative swing.
“For our EP, we tried to lean sonically into our weirdness and our punk ethos—a little bit more like Fugazi, PJ Harvey, Nirvana. We recorded our EP live-to-tape because of Steve Albini. He was such a gi-normous influence,” Cuozzo emphatically sighs.
Live-to-tape is a traditional style of recording in which musicians perform tracks together in the same room without cuts. The technique pretty much died by the 1950s with the inventions of multitrack tapes and commercial overdubbing. That is, until decades later when Albini resurrected the approach for albums like The Pixies’ Surfer Rosa and Nirvana’s In Utero.
The combination of fans’ feedback and Albini’s death in 2024 was interpreted as a sign that they needed to record their EP live-to-tape. As an ode to the late Albini and Kurt Cobain, University Drive recorded First Stage Separation live‑to‑tape with Electrical Audio’s chief engineer, Greg Norman.
Cuozzo confirms, “Yeah, we did it all live‑to‑tape. The only thing we did digitally was remaster it. The five of us went into a room with great microphones and tape machines. I think we did three vocal overdubs, and everything else was completely live. I tried my best to capture the first three full takes. No slicing shit up. No sitting there for two hours trying to get perfection. That’s why I think [the EP] has this energy to it—because it feels like you’re in the room with a fucking rock band."
Leaning a little closer to the phone, I share an observation: “If you’re familiar with the band OK Go’s music videos, you can see where Damian’s [Kulash] passion for semiotics in art is that authentic touch that makes their band unique. It seems University Drive is finding its authenticity in sonic experimentations.”
Cuozzo audibly nods. “Yeah, even if you don’t know our music, there are sections where me, Angelo, and Ryan are screaming the same phrase altogether. I'd like to think that in those moments, people are realizing, 'There's some serious shit happening here.'"
ACT IV
“Do you have anything in mind for the next thing you want to push sonically?”
“I do,” he responds with enthusiasm and hesitation. “I’m not sure how much I want to reveal. It’s funny that you brought up the voice memo thing earlier. I did another reach‑out to people, telling them there’s going to be a part‑two narrative. I’m asking about what people think about what’s going on now and ‘What makes someone a good person of faith?’ My plan is for something really big and sprawling and a giant metaphor for what’s going on nationally and internationally. I want to include all voices—even those I disagree with. I need the opposition. If I don’t have the opposition, I don’t have reality.”
Noticing the clock on my cell phone I ask, “Do you have a sense of urgency around this next act?”
Cuozzo replies calmly, “I have a sense of urgency for the little bit of life I have left on this planet,” he confides. “My ultimate goal is connection through the art form. I’m passionate about three things in my life: my wife, my dog [Wilco] and my band.”
“Do you feel you still need to work stuff out regarding your mom’s passing in future recordings?”
I hear him smile. “Every record I do, she’s in it.”
University Drive is scheduled to perform at Chicago’s Bottom Lounge on June 24, 2026.
***
Do you like to talk about music in a way that's intellectual, civil and collaborative? Ask to join the Facebook Group, Music Makes You Think.
Comments