It’s no secret that the music industry is a bit schizophrenic these days with so many “here today, gone today” artists everywhere you look. It seems as if labels are focused on their immediate return instead of investing in an artist for long term rewards. Longevity and true talent are far down on the list of artist requirements these days. Then, along comes a band from Peoria, Illinois that makes you stand up and take notice. Ladies and gentlemen, and fellow appreciators of great music, I give you Mindset Evolution.
The five man band from Illinois consisting of Rob Ulrich on vocals, Brad Prentice and Skyler Baer on guitar, Josh Bodeen on bass, and Joey Gibbz on drums, has been creating a buzz since their inception in 2005. They were the victors in the 2011 Rockstar Uproar Festival Battle of the Bands over 5,300 other bands, and went on to play 30 dates on the tour. They’re gearing up to release their full length debut album this summer and I caught up with lead singer Rob Ulrich and guitarist Skyler Baer after their killer set at this year’s Rock on the Range to talk about that album, spitting verses, and ponies.
Hey guys, thanks again so much for putting up with all of the insanity that a show like this can bring with it. I appreciate you taking the time to sit down and talk to me. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while now. I actually bought your EP from some guy walking through the crowd selling them earlier.
Rob Prentice/Mindset Evolution: Oh yeah, that’s great! That was his little brother! (points at Skyler)
Skyler Baer/Mindset Evolution: Yeah, that was my brother and he’s going to be doing merch for us later on. At a show like this, you just give them your shirts and they sell them for you; so, he was selling our CDs today instead.
Rob/ Mindset Evolution: We’ve done that quite a few times man. If you don’t take advantage of every opportunity like that to expose yourself to the people, then nobody will hear you. A closed mouth doesn’t get fed, right?
What can you tell us about your upcoming full length album?
Rob/MSE: Right now, the album is slated for a summer release. It’s called Brave, Bold and Broken and it’s my fondest work. I think we really found our voice on the record. It’s a great combination of our first record, which was really aggressive and a lot of groove metal, and our third which was a lot of hard rock. Those two came together in a beautiful way on this album and it’s very exciting. I’m super pumped to get out there and play it for the fans and see their reaction to it.
Will the songs from the EP appear on the full length album?
Rob/MSE: This EP is essentially almost half of the album, but all of these songs got remixed and remastered. We did some small tweaks on them, but nothing too crazy. They do sound sonically much different though.
How did you guys hook up with Johnny K (Staind/Disturbed/Three Days Grace) to produce the album?
Rob/MSE: When we were preparing to sign with Prospect Park, they began asking us who were our dream producers and his name was number one, at the top of the list and we gave them a couple of others that we’d also like to work with. He showed up at the Chicago stop of the Uproar Festival and talked to us. We all clicked, we had the same vision and ideas of how it should end up sounding and it got locked in. It was all pretty crazy man!
Yeah, to get your first choice of producers to do your debut album is pretty awesome. It’s like a little kid who wants a pony for Christmas, so they put a new baby brother at #1 on their list, a new baby sister at #2 and then the pony at #3 because they know the first two are not going to happen.
Rob/MSE: We are very extremely fortunate because we got our first pick, which doesn’t happen very often.
Your video for “We Are Stars” really seemed to blow up on-line. Was that released to help promote the EP when it was released?
Rob/MSE: When we did the EP, the song that everybody really seemed to be getting into was “We Are Stars”, so everything that we did was really built around that. Our great friend David Paul, who is a phenomenal video director, has done four videos for us with that being one of them. He had this great idea for a lyric video, we needed a lyric video, we put it together and our homies from Papa Roach showed us some love in the killer and it was killer.
You just released another lyric video for the song “Burn It Down” from the upcoming album. I’m so used to when I hear the term “lyric video” that I think of the music being played and the words rolling across the screen. I think you guys have taken the lyric video to a whole new level with this new one. That’s a really powerful video that you put together.
Rob/MSE: Again, that was all David’s doing. We got a small budget for a new video and David did a lot of stuff for us at a great loss to himself, as far as the cost goes. They threw us a little cash and I said let’s call our boy. I called David and he asked us what we wanted and we told him just to be as creative as he could. He came up with two options with one being the storyline that it ended up being and another where he had some graphics that we could use. The graphics, god bless him, came back looking like a really terrible version of a 1990s Terminator video game (laughs). They were really awful and we weren’t feeling it, and he said that he just wasn’t going to end up doing a regular lyric video. Skyler’s parents loaned their land to the project and David went out and filmed all of the acting sequences. We met the brilliant little Allison Downs on the second day and she was just a monster. She’s just thirteen years old and her focus is just insane. It was great, but I’ve got to give all the credit to Dave.
Watch “Burn It Down”
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Right after Rock on the Range, you guys jumped on a tour with Buckcherry and Heaven’s Basement. That’s kind of crazy to play a small club right after playing in front of thousands at this place.
Skyler/MSE: I think the club shows are a lot more convenient to us because we get a nice days rest and then we have a few hours drive to the next show. Whereas last year on Uproar Festival, we would leave at one in the morning and we would have to be at the next venue seven hours away at nine in the morning. This is a fun little run for us because we love the festival scene and because the crowds are always awesome.
Rob/MSE: When it comes to the component aspect of it, I think the biggest piece of advice that I could give to any band trying to get into a situation like ours is that you always play the same whether it’s five people there or 5,000. You give those five people the best show that you possibly can because at least one of them will walk out a fan. You don’t want them to walk out mad – you want them to walk out saying oh my god, there was nobody there and those guys threw it down. So, at every show, I think we have that same philosophy.
Who would you guys cite as some of your musical influences?
Rob/MSE: Well, we have a death metal guy in the band, a pop/punk guy, a punk guy, a hip-hop guy and a rock guy, so the influences are just all over the map. I love all kinds of kinds of music, but as far as main influences go, anything that Maynard (Keenan) touches. What about you, what do you have?
Skyler/MSE: Taylor Swift.
Rob/MSE: (laughs) I’ll throw out Garth Brooks, I don’t mind; Credence Clearwater Revival, the Beatles, the Eagles.
Skyler/MSE: I think each instrument has its own influences, like when Brent and I get on guitars, it’s Dimebag (Darrell), and all we want to do is riff. Rob, he’s a hip hop guy.
Rob/MSE: Yeah, I’m a hip hop kid, I mean good hip hop, not standard radio spin hip hop. I need like dirty, serious lyricism hip hop. It has to have word play and content; I’m not into pussy popping on a handstand. I need real content like “Can I Live” by Jay Z.
With all of those influences, it sounds like the music scene must be jumping in Peoria!
Rob/MSE: It’s the dopest music scene, but when we first started, Mudvayne had just kicked out of Peoria and they were killing it. I think there were a lot of bands who shared the stage with them and grew up with them who were still into that type of music, but we were so not like them. I guess our whole thing was that we were going to do this our way, with our rules and we’re going to make our own music, and if we are accepted or not, whatever. To be honest, the scene is so killer that we came out at the time being pretty much the only rock band in the place. At the time, they let me spit verses on the songs. I used to get to rap in the songs, but now I’ve been cut off. I guess I’m not good enough anymore, but whatever (laughs). That’s ok, I can sing a song. I can sing a melody. So, we were very unique to our scene and we got together with some of the bands and we put them all in my backyard. I bought enough food for everybody and we grilled out burgers and I met and talked to everybody that we could find. I ended up finding a lot of camaraderie with these people and they supported us 100% and if that’s not more than 50% of why we are here, then I don’t know; we owe a lot to our fans and the bands in our scene.
I guess the Uproar tour last year may have been one of your first big exposures to these big festivals. Did you catch yourself going into fan mode with some of the awesome bands that you were performing alongside of?
Skyler/MSE: I think it never really wears off, but you learn not to be like ‘holy shit’, but more like ‘yo dude, did you see who that was’ when they walk by you (laughs).
Rob/MSE: For me, watching In This Moment and P.O.D. was the highlight of the entire tour. I would find myself side stage watching their performance every single night. I remember this one time I was selling CDs and they were getting ready to start up and this lady was being wishy washy and giving me like 150 questions. I knew she wasn’t going to buy the CD, so I was just like ‘are you going to buy it or not because you’re making me miss church’ (laughs). Winning the Battle of the Bands and earning that whole Uproar experience was just amazing for us. We were the victors, we got to go out on the tour and we got to record out in LA with Jay Baumgardner, the genius. It like you said earlier, we got all three, the baby brother, the baby sister, and the pony (laughs).
Connect with Mindset Evolution Online on any of the links below:
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