Heavy metal quartet quartet, Red Tide Rising is currently on tour in support of their successful new EP, Voices which is streaming for free on Revolver’s website. The EP was produced by Drowning Pool’s Mike Luce. Luce is just one of the many who have taken an interest in this talented group. From their debut in 2012, Red Tide Rising has been met with a claim from critics, fans and their peers. They are a group for both die hard Metal fans and for those just getting their feet wet. They have hard hitting Metal riffs with smooth vocals and some pretty clever lyrics. The rockers from Denver are as socially conscious as they are talented. They gave proceeds from their Inferno single to suicide prevention charities. Not only have they proven to be talented and astute musicians but down right decent people as well. I learned quite a bit about the music business and touring from my talk with Andrew Whiteman.
For anybody who doesn’t know you, can you just tell us a little bit about the band, how you guys met and started?
Yes. So this group of guys in Red Tide Rising have been around for about two years now, with this current line-up. We’ve had a couple of tours with In This Moment and Drowning Pool, released a full length record called The Rising and just released our new EP titled Voices.
What was it like, working with In This Moment?
It was pretty cool. We went out with them shortly before they released “Blood”, so we got to see them blow up. That record became really popular, which was pretty cool. Definitely a great group of people to work with, and we still have a couple friends that we keep in contact with them.
And their producer produced one of your albums. Is that correct?
Yes. Their front of house engineer Mike McAree, he co-produced on The Rising, which is our last full-length record. He did about half the songs here in Denver, and then we had Jeff Kanan, who is a local studio engineer here, produce the other half of the record.
Can you tell us a little bit about the Voices EP?
Oh, so Voices we’ve been working on for– it was about a year that we worked on it. We met up with the guys in Drowning Pool and toured with them, and their drummer Mike Luce produced the EP for us. So he came down to Denver a couple times, we did some pre-production, we recorded it at Jeff Kanan’s studio again, just focused on the five strongest songs that we had, and tried to make a kickass record, and I think we came through with that.
And now, you’re streaming it on Revolver. Do you think doing something like that could hurt or help the album sales when people could just go online and listen to it?
I’ve kind of accepted the fact that you’re not going to make much money from CD sales in this day and age, so streaming doesn’t bother me at all. If it gets people to the shows, check us out live, maybe pick up a shirt or two, that’s where I really care about just connecting with the fans. I don’t care if they stream it or download it by other means. As long as you know they’re a fan and coming out and supporting us, that’s all that matters to me.
So, album sales in 21st century pretty much are not what supports the band, it’s the live dates?
There’s no way that you could just live off of a record sale now. A couple of people maybe can, but it’s a realization that you came to pretty early on that they’re not what they used to be, so I’m not too concerned about it.
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Easier to be a fan, harder to be a musician these days?
Yes[chuckles]. Absolutely.
So who are some of your guys’s influences?
For me it’s probably Chevelle and definitely Drowning Pool. Drowning Pool has definitely influenced me. Definitely helps to have Mike working with us. Matthew vocally there’s a lot of Corey Taylor, a lot of Slipknot and Stone Sour wh0 recorded both fronts, as well as– I think there’s just a little here and there you can hear a little influence of Chad Gray of Mudvayne and Hellyeah. So I would say those are definitely our biggest influences there.
What’s it like touring with your brother?
We have a good dynamic. We’ve been playing in a band together for over half our lives now. So him and I get along really well. Definitely a little different when we’re writing, that’s when we kind of butt heads. But touring is awesome with him and Matt and Michael. We all seem to get along and mesh pretty well together. Nothing really stresses us out on the road where we’re going to run into a big fight or blow up on each other.
When was the first moment you guys realized that you could do it, you could be musicians for a living?
I think it’s definitely been since we released The Rising and went out with Drowning Pool. That was the first real big tour that we had. When we were out with In This Moment it was kind of off and on with them. With Drowning Pool that was the first time that it was six weeks in a row. So we found out just during that stretch of time that that’s when we figured out that we worked really well together, and we just needed a little bit more refinement to our sound which I think we definitely put in with the new EP Voices. I think that was about the time that we realized, “Hey this is a really good thing that we’ve got going on here,” and no longer just a serious hobby. Essentially, it’s a business thing and something that we should definitely focus on making a career out of.
Do you have any tips for new musicians?
Yeah definitely its a lot of hard to work to start a band up and get your name out there, definitely tough. Just don’t give up when it seems like the odds are against you. We could’ve walked away and called it good, and we chose not to, and I’m glad that we didn’t. That’s definitely the first thing. And also just find a group of people that you like to play music with because that’s really important not only that you sound good, but that you also get along. Because that helps with just not only your inner dynamic, but when you’re performing on stage. You play off each other better if you actually enjoy playing with the people that you’re next to.
And you’re on tour right now, can you tell us a little bit about that?
Yeah, so we’re doing a little headline run to support Voices, been good so far. We’ve been self-contained, meaning that we’ve brought in all of our own equipment, like our own mixer board and ear monitors. So, it’s been cool to just kind of be self-contained in that essence and not have to depend on venues, and have people– and that’s something that has gone over fairly smoothly so far, so that’s definitely added some confidence. But the shows are great. We are touring with a band called Anomic at the moment. They’re from Fargo, North Dakota. Very cool band to check out. They’re some good guys, got a great sound, kind of like a heavy Jack White, and just good people to hang out with. So, it’s been really nice so far.
Do you have any interesting stories from touring?
There’s a couple. I think a good time with In This Moment was we were out and we demoed cryo for the first time to them, which if you’re not familiar with what that is, that’s a liquid CO2 canon. It’s kind of like pyro, but it’s much safer, it’s kind of like a giant fire extinguisher. We set it up outside of our van and blasted it off, and not five seconds after we blasted it off all of them come of their bus. They’re like, “What was that? That was the coolest thing we’ve ever seen!” So we ended up doing cryo for them for the rest of their run when they could do it at the venue, which was pretty cool. That helped grow our relationship. And then I think a really cool moment was just when we were out with Drowning Pool and we had a show in Denver, which is our hometown. And it was just kind of cool to play in Denver, but be on the package officially. And we had a sold out show that night so just pretty cool to let that moment sink in and appreciate where we came from.
Be sure to check the Red Tide Rising website for tour dates. You can listen to their Voices EP on Revolver’s website or better yet, support a talented, hardworking band and buy it on iTunes or your local music shops.
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Interview by Ted Darden, RockRevolt Journalist
