This week at RockRevolt, we interviewed Roger Raskin from The Raskins. This twin duo has already accomplished more than most do in a career, including a stint at Madison Square Garden.
Who are you and what is your role in the band?
My name is Roger Raskin. I am one of the founding members of the band. I play guitar and sing.
How did the band get started?
This all started as a writing project. My brother and I were writing a lot of songs for different TV and film projects and we were getting hundreds of emails from fans asking where they could get the music. Shortly after, we decided to take our body of work and get it up on its feet to see how it all sounded as a live band. One word: magic. We didn’t have a name for the band but we were always known as The Raskins. All our studio files were titled “Written by The Raskins.” Music supervisors would refer to us as The Raskins. So, as you can see, it just kind of named itself. Although, “Texas Heat and The Shrimp Shack Shooters” sounded like such a really great name for the band at that time. But as you can see “The Raskins” stuck.
How do you handle being siblings in a band together?
Not sure how others handle it, but we’ve always embraced the opportunity of working with one another. We have been writing music together since were 8 years old. Its probably one of the most natural things for us; writing music together. I tend to write a lot of the musical hook ideas and Logan writes a lot of the lyrics; furthermore Logan has a tremendous ability to engineer and produce all of the music. It’s interesting how I can take a song to a certain, unfinished, place then Logan adds his magic and finishes all my ideas. We really are the perfect team and we have so much fun working together.
Who are your influences and how have they shaped your sound?
We grew up in a home where music played a huge role in our families daily life. Our father was a Broadway singer, dancer, performer and our mom was an incredible jazz singer so as you can probably imagine the music that was introduced to us at a very young age was very eclectic. Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Nancy Wilson, Billie Holiday, Johnny Mathis, Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra, Mel Tormey, Ray Charles, Al Jarreau, and many others. But it wasn’t until out mom brought us to the local record store where our lives would be forever changed. I found the Bay City Rollers record “WOW” along with The Sugar Hill Gang, Styxx, Kiss, Meat Loaf, Foreigner, Queen, The Who, and Run DMC. This was just the beginning. Trust me. There were many others and many more different styles of music that we were introduced to but the ones mentioned were the first.
What has been the most meaningful experience of your career so far?
For sure just being able to play music and travel the world professionally and to share that journey with my brother is definitely the most meaningful thing to me. That being said playing Madison Square Garden was THE SHIT!
Favorite memory from a show you’ve played or a place you’ve travelled?
We played The Borgata Hotel in New Jersey and it was the sickest crowd EVER! I love NJ fans because they will let you know if you suck or if you are great. My opinion there is no better judge than the people of NJ. We played two nights there and both nights were off the chain.
What is next for the band?
We are finishing up the last touches on our new record that took us almost a year to make and then we will be going back out on tour to support it. Hitting every major city in the US and even some not so major cities. We will also be touring Europe, Japan, Australia and South America.
Anything else you want to add?
I definitely want to thank all The Raskin fans out there for you undivided love, devotion and support of this revolutionary thing called The Raskins. This has been one hell of a journey and we are taking all of you along for the ride of your lives!
