Fame On Fire, Bryan Kuznitz (vocals), Blake Sual (guitarist), Alex Roman (drummer), Paul Spirou (bassist), came on to the scene in 2013 pushing the boundaries of rock, hip hop and heavy music. Their debut album LEVELS, released in late 2020 is about going through the motions of life, the different levels, ups and downs that all of us can relate to. Continuing to progress and move forward. It is representative of the band that does not stand for complacency as they continue to try to evolve their sound and craft. RockRevolt had the opportunity to speak with Kuznitz about LEVELS, touring and if it’s feasible for a new band to make a living solely off of their music.
RockRevolt Magazine: How are you guys holding up during this crazy pandemic?
Bryan Kuznitz: We’re doing pretty good. We wish that we could be touring right now. Unfortunately due to the pandemic we can’t be touring. Keeping busy writing new music, working on new content, new videos. We have found a way to keep ourselves busy and stressed out.
Well stress is a good thing to a certain degree, right?
It’s a good stress. We are working toward something we really believe in. That’s the kind of stress you want.
Tell us about the metamorphosis of the band. If I read correctly it started as a solo drum project, to a cover band and now producing your own material. Is that correct?
You nailed it right on the head. Our drummer Alex wanted to do a drum cover of Katy Perry’s “Unconditionally”. I had him come to my studio, he laid down the drums. Blake, our guitar player, was there and he said this would sound sick with some guitar in it. So Blake throws guitar on it. Then they were like why don’t we get a singer and do a full on cover of this. And I’m looking at them saying who are you going to get to sing it? They are like, I don’t know do you want to sing it? I said no I don’t want to sing it (laughing). They pressed me and I said no I’m not being in a band or doing any of this shit. They said fine we’ll find a singer. A week goes by and no luck finding a singer. Blake then pretty much begs me to please just do it. It will sound sick. Just do it, try something new. I agreed to do it. The backstory behind that, Blake and I were actually in a band prior we both played guitar in. I was never a singer. This was my introduction to being a singer in a rock band. I go in and hit the vocals and to my surprise I’m hitting them pretty well, it’s coming out really good. Now we are all hyped on this cover of Katy Perry’s “Unconditionally”. I mix it then we go off and Alex’s friend Bobby shoots a video for us. We release the video and think nothing of it. About a week goes by and we get a phone call, I don’t even remember from who asking if I checked Twitter. No I haven’t, why? They are like your music is all over iHeart Radio right now. They are playing your Katy Perry cover. So I go on Twitter and there are a ton of people Tweeting at our personal Twitter’s because Fame On Fire is not a band yet. People are asking what band is this? Then I go on YouTube and see the video has over 50,000 views in the first week. This is crazy it’s more views then I’ve gotten on anything in my life. Blake and I are sitting there the next day smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee per usual and I say I guess we’ve got to be in a band. I then ask him what’s the name. He said I’ve been holding on to this one, Fame On Fire. I said I love it let’s go. After that strange coincidence we became a band. Then we just started doing covers together as we saw that it worked. Being in a band prior doing no covers we got no traction. To be fair we were not as good musicians as we were at this point. So we stuck to the model of doing covers. We saw some money come in and from there we could fund some original music. Then it almost becomes a natural evolution. We put all our resources into making everything bigger and better. Running it as a proper business at the same time working to become rock stars.
Sounds like a good way to get going. No initial stress or intent. It started out just having some fun and the band kind of built itself.
Really that’s what happened, it was truly awesome.
What was the timeframe that this all took place?
This was 2013.
It’s not like it just took right off.
Correct, it took a while to build everything up.
Now getting to your first full length album that just came out in 2020, LEVELS, who are the major influences that listeners might take away from it? Who might you compare this record to?
A lot of the musically style there is a lot of modern Hip Hop influence in there. On top of that there are a lot of old school influences such as Korn or Avenged Sevenfold with that modern Hip Hop twist to it.
Now you released the album in the middle of a pandemic. Was there any thought to maybe holding off a bit until you could tour behind it? Or was it now is a good time because people are sitting around not doing much.
We were watching our streams just climb during the pandemic. We saw that and figured we should just release this album. It seemed like people were just listening to music all day. We did talk about waiting, in fact we did wait 3 months. The album was supposed to come out in June but the label wanted to push it back because of the pandemic. Once it became known that this pandemic wasn’t going away anytime soon we decided that we cannot sit on this album forever. We have this very new and modern sound to us that we want people to hear. We didn’t want to wait a year and then everyone sounds like this style. At that point we figured we have to get this out and continue writing new music. We didn’t want to sit on any songs. We wanted to get it out and get to work on our next batch of songs, which we had already started doing. We are a very fast moving, hard working band. We are always writing new music but if our older material hasn’t come out then we can’t put out the new stuff.
That’s a bit of old school mentality putting out an album or even two per year. Kind of relates to your debut album title LEVELS you want to take it to the next level, keep moving forward.
Exactly.
Now it sounds like there is a bit of a personal message behind LEVELS?
Yes, the whole album is very personal to me. It’s about the levels of life. The various stages you go through. Not even so much like growing up, it could be even a day to day basis. Some days you hate yourself, some days you are ok with yourself, some days you love yourself. All days are different, everything is a different level. “I’m Fine”, that level is just going through life and everything is ok. Not being an open person being numb to the world really. “Her Eyes” to me is about a toxic relationship and that just another level within itself.
Some strong messages there. Now you’ve already done quite a of touring already having played 200-300 shows already. Is there a moment that really stands out?
Yes I’ve got two. The first was when we were a much younger band. We were playing at the weirdest venue we’ve ever played at. It was in NC. We actually did a digital tour bus on this recently. I’m pretty sure the owner of this place was a murderer. Like a full on psychotic serial killer. So there is this really shitty build wooden stage. There wasn’t a lot people there. That was the first show that fans were singing back the lyrics that I wrote. To me that will always be a memory in my head. I was tearing up on stage, it was insane. It was amazing. There was only like 14 people there but all 14 of them meant so much to me.
That’s great how that show stands out. It’s not the size of the show but you obviously made a connection with the fans.
Yeah, it was truly amazing. We hung out when them after. Then we went out on the murder house tour (laughing). Then the second show that will always stand out for me was in Pittsburgh. It was a bar and upstairs was a venue. Not big, 250 capacity. We had to go these extremely steep stairs, no a/c, the sound guy smelt like death. We go to play the show and our tour manager comes up and says the show is sold out tonight. There was a headlining show for us. We sold out a show in a city that was very far from home for us. I remember playing, it was so hot and so many people in there but it was the best time I had in my entire life. The crowd interaction. I was sick as well and my voice was a little rough but people were just screaming the lyrics with me. I was in the crowd the whole show. It was amazing.
It’s one thing to sell out shows in clubs around your hometown. But to be that far from home and sell out a show I could see why it stands out. Two very good moments. Now tell me two bands that exist today that you would love to tour with?
Really want to tour with Avenged Sevenfold. They are a bit older but I think they would be a lot of fun and they could show us some things we might not know while being on the road. And Post Malone, artist like that are amazing. I think a show like that would be great. I think to have a rock band open for a major Hip Hop act would be really cool. It would be really interesting, not everyone wants to hear the same song played 100 times a night. Many bands sound similar to each other and it would be a nice change of pace to go out with a rap star.
I’ve been to quite a few festivals in Europe and that’s what they do they mix in different genres allowing fans to take in different types of music and get exposed to something they normally wouldn’t.
I get why they book how they book. It’s based off of demographic. Our listeners might be the same as I Prevail, Ice Nine Kills or Bring Me The Horizon and that’s why they’ll put us together.
Speaking of streams you’ve had over 1 million monthly streams. Now I know the music business isn’t as profitable as it once was but does that translate into enough that Fame On Fire is all you do or do you need other streams of income?
We can live off of Fame On Fire full time easily. It says 1 million monthly listeners on Spotify and such but that’s not streams, it’s more like 5-6 million streams. That’s really sustainable and that’s just Spotify. Then you have YouTube, Apple Music, Amazon Music, all these different platforms. There is a lot of money to be made in streaming music. There’s a lot of money coming in from different avenues so it’s definitely sustainable. And if you go on tour it becomes even more sustainable.
That’s what I was figuring is a lot of bands make money from touring and not being able to tour and sell merchandise might make it tough. It’s good to hear it is sustainable. But there are many different avenues to make money. It’s not just Spotify. So what can we expect from Fame On Fire going forward and is this your band for life?
Yeah this is the band for life. Long term goals you’re definitely going to be seeing a lot of us in the second half of 2021. From touring to releasing new music to potentially having a very massive rock single the shakes up the industry. I can tell you the stuff that we are working on no other band is doing it. I think we are going to have a lot of success and be pretty big. I’m really excited for it.
All started from something you didn’t want to do. At least you recognized you had something when it initially caught on. Sounds like you are headed toward a lot of success. Any final words for the fans?
Check us out on all the socials and thank you!
