As an undergraduate student at Towson University, Anthony Dye said he didn’t have a typical college social life.

Instead, Dye said, he was a “hardcore kid.” His life revolved around playing in bands and going to shows at the Charm City Art Space, a DIY venue on Maryland Avenue near West Lafayette Avenue in Station North that’s since closed.

“There were so many hardcore kids going to Towson at that time,” said Dye, who graduated in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and studies. “It’s crazy. Like dozens.”

Growing up in Damascus in Montgomery County, Dye said, there were a couple of kids who liked the same music, but no community. That’s what he found in college, he said, and it continues today to be a big part of his life.

Since 2010, Dye has been a guitarist in the melodic hardcore band Praise, which on June 14 released an EP on Revelation Records called “Coming Up For Air.”

The Baltimore Banner recently spoke with Dye, 34, of Hampden, about the EP, the experience of recording at Magpie Cage Recording Studio and the punk and hardcore scene in Baltimore.

The following Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

What has the reception been like to the EP?

You know, I never know how to answer that question. I’ve seen people that liked it, I’ve probably seen a couple people that didn’t like it that much.

I love it. I think that it was really cathartic or — I don’t know, a really nice experience — to do that record, and do it kind of quickly and have it kind of come out a little bit more naturally and a little more quickly than the last record did.

I guess I don’t know what the reception is, but I feel great about the record and it being out there and playing the songs.

Could you explain what you mean by the EP coming together more naturally?

Naturally’s a bad way of putting it. I think it just came together more quickly. It’s less songs, so it comes together a little more easily. And we recorded it, pretty much banged it out, in a weekend.

With an LP, it’s really painstaking. You’re obsessing over all the details. And this EP was just like a more relaxed process.

What was it like working with engineer Matt Redenbo at J. Robbins’ Magpie Cage Recording Studio?

It was cool. Matt is awesome, super talented. I knew him a little bit. He assisted on a lot of our previous record.

We knew Matt, we were familiar with him, liked hanging with him. And doing this record got to know him a lot better and see him kind of doing things on his own.

It was really cool, and he kind of helped us dial in an approach that I think worked for us. It was awesome to record in that room.

It was my first time ever actually being in there, which is kind of crazy. But I’ve been wanting to record there for a long time. I love a lot of records that J. has made, so it was cool to be in J.’s space.

You’ve previously talked about chasing the “powerful melancholy” that you experienced when at 16 you first heard Rites of Spring. Why does that band in particular resonate so much with you?

It’s not just Rites of Spring.

They’re a pillar in my life, for sure, but Rites of Spring, Embrace, Dag Nasty, the spirit of that mid-80s melodic hardcore music that was coming out of D.C.

To me, it’s powerful but it’s emotional and it’s just very relatable to me. I think a lot of the things that they were singing about on those records resonated with me in a formative time in my life. And it’s also just some of the most f---ing bad--- music ever made. Like cool guitar playing. Just extremely expressive vocals and lyrics.

I love a lot of music, and I love a lot of different types of hardcore and punk. But that stuff is at the center of my musical orbit.

I don’t know. There’s something intangible about it to me.

How has, if at all, Baltimore influenced your music?

Baltimore, as far as hardcore goes, it’s a hard town. And I love the hard bands that have come from here, too. I basically grew up, became a person coming to see TUI [Trapped Under Ice]. It was a big part of my adolescence and everything.

But that was never the music I felt was authentic for me to make.

There’s a lot of bands from this town that are as hard as hardcore gets. And we might be as soft as hardcore gets.

But I still love the music that came from here. It maybe had an influence on me as a person and not so much as a musician.

And then there is some more melodic stuff from this town that I really love. Reaching back into history, something like Lungfish. And then somewhat more recent bands that I’ve loved. Post Pink is one of my all-time favorite punk bands from Baltimore.

I don’t think that we sound exactly like anything that’s really come from here. And I’ve never felt like we needed to, and I still felt like there was a place for us here.

What other bands in Baltimore should people check out, if they haven’t already?

The band No Idols has a member from Baltimore, and that’s one of my favorite new hardcore bands.

The band Sinister Feeling is great. One of the best new hardcore bands from here, just in general, they’re awesome.

I’m looking forward to new music from both those bands in the future.

Praise played the Drain Memorial Day Beach Party at Baltimore Soundstage. How was that experience?

I mean, it was cool.

Hardcore happening on such a big level so consistently, it feels a little bit like virtual reality or something.

When I was a little younger, and the art space would pack out, and you got like 200 people in there, that felt like the biggest show of the year.

So to have Drain play, and they’re doing their thing on such a huge level, I mean, it’s cool and inspiring.

Not every gig’s going to be like that. But we’re grateful to be asked to be included in stuff like that. It was a super cool experience.

What’s next for Praise?

What is next for Praise? I don’t know.

We get together, and we play with new music, that’s been happening a little bit. We don’t really have any shows booked right now.

The band is pretty part time. I think anybody who knows anything about us knows that we kind of move at our own pace. So that’s definitely happening.

We’re all pretty busy with the things that we have going outside of the band, but we will just keep doing Praise in the way that we can. And hopefully release another EP or something like that, hopefully play some shows.