|
Tipped by many as
the next big thing in the world of rock, we catch up with drummer Mike
Miley and Bassist Robin Everhart shortly before they hit the stage for their show in
Newcastle as part of the mighty Judas Priest Epitaph tour.
MM
- The band are currently on tour with Judas Priest and Queensryche and
tonight's you're 5th show, how's it been going so far?
Mike
- The tour has been way more than we could have ever bargained
for. The crowds have not been throwing shit at us ... so we think
that mean's we're a success. (laughs). They actually clap after
the songs as well which is not something we were expecting.
Judas Priest and
Queensryche are more metal type bands and we're not, we're a hard rock
band so we weren't sure how the fans would take to us.
MM
- The band are still relatively unknown here in the UK but you've
already started to make some pretty big waves in all the right directions.
Mike - Yeh, Earache Records are doing a hell of a job promoting us and
the new album. We debuted in the UK rock charts at number 9, which
is pretty cool to get in to the top 10 records.
|
MM
- Your new album 'Pressure & Time' came out on Earache Records in
June, what can you tell us about the actual recording of the album
itself?
Mike - We made it in 20 days. We actually wrote,
recorded and mixed it all in just 20 days. We went into the studio
intentionally without any ideas.
Robin - We were literally a
day off a 6 week tour when we went into the studio.
Mike - Yes we
came home off tour, said "Hi" to our families and then went
straight into the studio the next day to record the album. We made
it in this relatively short period of time because we wanted it to be
raw and just have a real looseness to it, like those old school rock n
roll records that you hear. When you hear those old records you
can hear the mistakes, there's no Pro-Tools, we went with 2 inch tape
and we didn't want the album to sound fake. You wonder in this day
and age of computerised music where every little drum beat is fixed and
tampered with by a computer program. |
 |
MM
- The album's really cool, it has that nice clean pure sound to
it. It does sound raw but in a good way, not over polished like
some of the releases you hear these days.
Mike - Yeh, I
recommend if you get the chance then check it out on vinyl too because
it has that kind of old sound to it. It sounds really amazing on
the vinyl disc.
MM
- The band have also released the title track from the new album
'Pressure & Time' on video. The first time I watched it I
thought it had been shot on a blue screen, but then I watched it again I realised it had actually been shot in
loads of different locations.
Mike
- Yes, 23 locations in
2 days. We'd put it up then tear it down and move on to the next
location. We had one camera and took 5 takes at each place, then we'd drive to
the next location. There was a lot of putting up then tearing down, moving on and setting it all back up again. We had to make
sure we got everything just right so the instruments and all of us all looked
like we were in the exact same position.
Robin - There was no camera
trickery, it was all done with a measuring tape, nothing high tech for
us! (laughs).
Mike - Greg Ephraim was the director, he was amazing.
MM
- Where abouts in California do guys hail from?
Mike
- Southern
California. We always say that we're from Long Beach, which is
about a 1/2 hour South of Los Angeles. I met Jay in Long Beach
about 8 years ago. I met Scott in Huntington
Beach, which is a neighbouring beach town and I met Robin at Isaac Hayes house at a Jazz gig in
Bel Air. I grew up in California my whole life, so did Jay and
Scott. Robin's originally from Toronto.
Robin - I'm the
Canadian import. (laughs).
 |
MM
- Earache Records aren't generally associated with bands who play your
type of music. What was the band's thinking behind signing to a
label like that and what did you
feel they had to offer the band that the others couldn't?
Mike
- Well I think
it's to our benefit that we're on a death metal label because it's
turned everyone's heads. Everyone who's into rock keeps saying to
us ... "What you're on Earache with all the death metal people?!?" ...
"huh?!?" ... I think because of that fact alone its caused us a little bit
of extra buzz.
Robin - I think also because of
the current climate of the music industry today, we're not big enough to
be on a pop label, and even if we did get signed to someone like that,
they might not have the buzz or the energy to spend time on a band like
us. Whereas Earache doesn't have a big publicity crazy push and
then that's it, they're much more into road-dogs who want to be out
there playing the music, and that's very much what we're about as a
band.
Mike - They also have a 25 year track record as an indie
label.
MM
- How long have the band actually been together as a band?
Robin
- We've been
together 3 years now.
|
MM
- During that time you seem to have done a considerable amount of
gigging.
Mike - We
did our first show as the Rival Sons at the end of November 2008.
Our first jam together as a band was sometime in June 2008. We went on
tour with Tony Lucca and Brian Wright then after that the band pretty much solidified. Things have been moving pretty fast since then for such a
new young band.
MM
- As well as playing on this prestigious tour with Judas Priest the band
are due to perform at the High Voltage festival this weekend.
Mike
- Yeh we play on
Saturday, we're really looking forward to it and have heard nothing but
great things about it. Also growing up in the States as musicians
we were always told about the mystical nature of the UK and European
rock festivals. We've seen them on DVD's and videos and stuff and
saw how epic they are. I remember seeing Rage Against The Machine
play a festival over in Germany in front of 70,000 people who were all
going crazy. I was like ... Yeh Europeans really love their music! The Kings Of Leon really broke in the UK and
now we're following in their footsteps.
MM
- Well one thing we have at our festivals that you guys don't seem to
have is we have a lot of mud. We don't seem to do sunshine that
much at our festivals, just a lot of mud. (laughs)
Robin
- Yeh I had head that. (laughs).
MM
- I believe the band have an iPhone app available for fans to download
so they can keep up with what you're up to?
Mike
- Yes you can get
that from the iPhone app store. (You
can also get this nifty little app here - http://www.earache.com/apps).
|
MM
- The band released a self titled EP earlier this year, why release that
so close to the release of the album?
Robin
- Well we had the
songs and we just wanted to get it out there and introduce the band to
everyone. We'd already released our debut album about a year
before that.
Mike - It actually worked out quite nicely
because we introduced the radio stations to one of our songs 'Torture',
we got our names out there ... it was kind of like a dry run before the
full blown album came out.
For me it was a great move.
At
the time we weren't totally sure whether we should do it or not, but
everything moved into place really nicely. |
|
MM
- What will Rival Sons be up to after this tour finishes?
Robin
- After the
Judas Priest tour we go home for a few days then we're back out for some
dates in Japan before heading back home to California. We'll say
"Hi" to our families and friends before flying out again to
play at a Spanish festival. Then at the end of August we have a
couple of weeks off. There's talk of us coming back to the UK in
November.
Mike - We are coming back to the UK in November.
We'll be playing some clubs.
MM
- Excellent, we'll look forward to seeing you again then then.
We'd
like to thank Robin and Mike for taking the time out of their hectic
schedule to chat with us this evening and look forward to seeing them
when they return later this year. If you haven't had a chance to
check out the band live then make sure you do as you're in for a real
treat. They're not being touted as the next big thing for nothing
and their live shows are everything you could hope for and so much more.
|