INDIE BAND OF THE WEEK: 21st CENTURY GOLIATH

 

21CG is: Tony Leone (Vox), Scott Roby (Guitar),Kip Wilson (Guitar), Adam Ellis (Drums) and Kenny Keeler (Bass)

By: Johnny Price, Lead Senior Journalist

One could easily argue that true passion is what’s missing in music today; not ALL music, but in a good portion of it. Radio is constantly cramming pre-packaged, depth lacking music down the consumer’s throats. So many acts are here today – gone today – and have no staying power whatsoever.

Then, along comes a band like 21st Century Goliath that makes you believe again. This five man rock band from Charlotte, North Carolina personifies heart, tenacity and definitely the passion needed for longevity in the turbulent music industry of today.

These guys have been hit with numerous obstacles since their formation, which would make some bigger bands consider calling it a day. Yet, they have continued to plug in their amps, crank them to eleven and rock forward as they chase their dreams.

21st Century Goliath recently released their sophomore album appropriately titled Back With A Vengeance, which finds the band upping their game and growing artistically by leaps and bounds. Back With A Vengeance scame out kicking and punching and promptly landed #8 on Billboard’s Heatseekers Chart, where it has remained.  

Adding more fuel to 21st Century Goliath fire are the delicious libations from new sponsor, Coldcock Whiskey which flows like water as the boys of 21CG spread their music on a massive southeastern tour and ready to tear it up!

It is for all the reasons already named above in addition to the great things we know is yet  to come from this band, that we are proud to name 21st Century Goliath as our coveted INDIE BAND OF THE WEEK! 

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I recently had a chance to sit down with lead guitarist Scott Roby to catch up to speed on all things 21CG…

Scott, I’m glad that we’re finally getting the chance to do this. Let’s start off with one for all of us music nerds. Is there a story behind your band’s name?

Scott Roby: When we were first getting songs together, we were going back and forth on what we were going to call this thing. Nothing we were coming up could quite sum up the power in the music. We were closing in on our first gig and the clock was ticking. I was watching this documentary late one night, and in it one of the guys is talking about his company, and he says something like, “we were David versus Goliath, but somewhere along the way we decided that we wanted to be Goliath.” That statement stuck with me, that this guy was the underdog, but he wanted to become the top dog. It fit what we were doing because we knew our brand of classic-styled, guitar driven rock and roll was going to be fighting an up-hill battle against modern so-called “mainstream” acts, and we aimed to take them head-on. I spoke up at rehearsal and pitched a modern day, contemporary Goliath-type idea. I wanted this thing to be bigger than everyone else. Tony(Leone) thought on it for a minute and then blurted out, “How about 21^st Century Goliath?” I hated it instantly. I was like, “anything but that! It’s way too long!” but it definitely fit the idea to a tee; I couldn’t deny that. What’s more, the drummer at the time loved it. He absolutely would not accept another name, and in the end I was outvoted. The compromise was that we had to call it 21CG (spoken like: Twenty-one•Cee•Gee) for short, that way I wouldn’t have to spell out this long-ass name every time someone asked what band I was in!

Every superhero or villain has an origin. What’s the origin of this band?

It started out as a vision of mine, but has really progressed into a group identity that has far surpassed my original vision. I started out in cover bands (like most artists), but I quickly became burned out playing other people’s music, even that of my favorite bands. I decided I wanted to play my own music, and so I began working toward that. I scoured the State for years trying to put together an original project and eventually managed to put together an original band with legs. This was the project that preceded 21CG. We had some moderate local success and we gigged for about two years. It was a great project with good talent, but it just wasn’t what I was looking for. It was close, and it definitely had the straight hard rock elements I wanted at times, but it was also a bit more experimental, which was always really a compromise on my part because I like things simple and tough; I can’t help it, it’s who I am. When it finally reached the end, I decided that I didn’t want to settle for “almost;” just being close wasn’t good enough, and I wasn’t going to compromise. I dove headfirst into starting the project I really wanted, which was a straight-up, no frills hard rock band; that idea became 21CG. It took a few years to put together a gigging lineup and amass enough material to play out, but once we got started, it’s been full steam ahead ever since. My gut always told me a band like ours was what was missing. In all my gigging years, I hadn’t seen a straight-up original rock and roll band quite like this one. I knew if I built it, we would catch on; it looks like I was correct.

What year was your first album Radio Destroyer released? A lot has happened since that album’s release? How do you compare/contrast Back with a Vengeance to it?

Radio Destroyer was released in 2012, but it was all recorded a year-and-a-half earlier during our first few months together as a band. For all of us, it was our first real go at a quality recording. Even though many of the band members, including myself, had done the studio thing before, none of us had done anything with that level of production. We recorded a large part of those songs before we had played any live gigs together, which resulted in a very raw sound that in hindsight feels maybe a bit linear overall. Nevertheless, there are great songs on the album, and it has gained us many fans who appreciate that raw feel, especially overseas. Something about it really resonated with the European rocker crowd. By contrast, Back with a Vengeance was written over a long period of several months and the songs are much more developed. In the studio, we took time and great care to select our tones. We utilized analog recording, which results in some imperfections (some popping and cracking and maybe some tape squeal in some spots), but to us that gives the album a more real and classic feel. We wanted this one to be bigger and more developed because of what it represented. Whereas Radio Destroyer was important in that it was our first time doing a recording the way the big bands do, the second album was a milestone for a whole different set of reasons.

Speaking of a lot happening, I don’t want to misrepresent what happened concerning your incarceration. I’ve read a few things and I want to make sure that I have the facts straight. Can you explain what happened? I normally would steer clear of something like this, but I think it contributed in part to making such a kick-ass album.

Absolutely, in the fall of 2007, some friends and I were out on the town. As we were leaving the pub, there was a group of people gathered outside of the door. An argument between one of my friends and the group took place regarding something that happened inside earlier in the night. Things escalated, and after some threats, one of the guys in their party threatened to get a weapon out of his vehicle. I had already walked away from the chaos, and thus was nearest to the parking lot where this dude’s car was. As I tried to get in between him and his vehicle, one of his friends saw an opportunity to try and blindside me. Out of instinct, I dodged him and swung back one time, knocking him out and a melee ensued. As the chaos unfolded, no one paid any attention to the guy that attacked me (who was still out cold). We didn’t bother him; nobody kicked him while he was down or anything like that. We all just assumed he was simply knocked out, and he’d wake up in a few minutes – no worse for the wear and hopefully having learned a valuable lesson about putting his hands on strangers. Eventually, we got everyone involved in the fray (which was most of the bar by that point) and then it all broke up and we got out of there, but the guy didn’t wake up. He sustained two skull fractures from the hit, and he was in a coma for seventeen days. The State charged me with the highest felony assault charge they could, never arguing that I only hit him once or that he put his hands on me first. I did not take the charges seriously by any stretch. I had a clean criminal background, and I knew the facts. I knew that what had happened was self-defense and felt confident I could prove it. It took the State five years to even attempt to prosecute me, which told me even they knew they didn’t have a case. I chose to have a court-appointed attorney represent me; being a musician in real life means there weren’t a great deal of financial resources at my disposal at the time. I didn’t want to ask for help from friends and family for legal representation, and I was defiant. I was confident that even a mediocre attorney could argue this case, and that turned out to be a tragic miscalculation on my part. In the end, I was severely under-represented and wound up a sitting duck. Labeled as a long-haired miscreant, the state found me guilty and the judge sentenced me near the maximum sentence for my crime. Despite the fact there was only one hit, despite the fact he grabbed me first, despite my clean criminal background and despite my status as a father with a young family, and even despite my military service in the United States Air Force, these mitigating factors in the case were ignored and I was sentenced to twenty months in State prison. I went to prison in mid 2012, a few months before the band released Radio Destroyer (which was released mainly to help the band stay afloat in my absence), and was I was released at the end of 2013.

Did you learn anything about yourself from this experience that you weren’t aware of going into it?

I learned a lot about myself, sure; I also learned about the people in my life. The public outcry and support I received from my family, friends and the 21CG fan base was unprecedented. Within a few weeks there was a petition to the Judge to overturn my sentence with nearly 1,000 names on it. I saw how many people out there cared about me, and also about this band. I knew I wasn’t the person the prosecutor argued that I was. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had so many people coming to bat for me from so many different walks of life. I appreciated the support, and it helped me to get through. In the end, the petition didn’t do any good. I served my full sentence minus time off for good behavior which worked out to nearly a year-and-a-half behind bars.

Let’s talk a little bit about the band’s songwriting process. Is there a method to the madness when it comes to it? Do you lock yourselves in a room until something is written or does it just happen when it happens? Does it start with a riff or a hook or a lyric?

A lot of times, for us, I’d say the music just kind of falls out of the sky, honestly; writing is something that comes easy to us. It usually starts around a riff, either something I’ve cooked up or something that is inspired by a drum beat or a bass line or melody, and we kind of jam on that for a bit until we can get around on it musically. We add in parts as necessary and refine them so everything has the right feel. If the song doesn’t originate from Tony, as happens occasionally, then we get him in on it to see what he’s feeling. Usually the band will keep developing independent of him while he gathers his ideas, which serves several purposes. We meet in the middle and begin the task of honing it into a song. We find that if Tony is able to operate autonomously outside of the music-writing process, a lot of times it keeps the song from being too linear and helps it feel more organic; it keeps it spicy, I’d say. He can come in with new ideas once we’ve got a basic foundation and structure and we change it up respectively . Ultimately, he’s going to have the final say on arrangement because when you’re writing rock music, you’re writing it for the vocals, and that’s just the truth of it; anybody who says otherwise is mistaken. So we figure out how many bars he needs or where the parts don’t quite fit the vocal and we augment accordingly, fleshing out any new ideas along the way. The music is a platform for a lyrical message that will resonate with our fans, and it’s kind of my job so to speak to make sure the music maintains our feel and integrity, but also fits what Tony wants to do. We each have our roles in that, but we keep it loose. Anyone can be responsible for a hook or a riff, and all ideas are welcome and experimented with. We really have created a pretty awesome writing environment. I think the new members that have come in have all been kind of shocked at how it happens sometimes. It’s really a testament to our trust level in each other I think.

First singles from a new album can be a tough choice to make. Why did you guys go with “Cold Hearted Woman?”

Normally, I think you want to put your most marketable song forward in terms of a single, and although I’m not sure “Cold Hearted Woman” does that for us on the large scale. However, I think relative to our initial success of the album we felt that that song was our best shot to capitalize on our local following. We’ve been playing that song for a while live. It was one of a handful of songs that were written before my stint in the big house with the others being “Children of Fire” and “You Crossed the Line.” But “Cold Hearted Woman”was one of those songs that always had a great response live and we’d heard many people requesting to hear that it on a recording. We figured if we wanted to sell albums, we needed to start in our backyard. We felt that “Cold Hearted Woman” gave us the best chance to motivate our current fan base to buy the album. As for how the world at large responds to the song, the jury is still out, but those local sales were critical to a successful launch of the album, and based on the numbers I’d say the plan worked like gangbusters.

“Cold Hearted Woman” (Official Lyric Video):

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I know this is like asking a parent to pick their favorite child, but is there any one song that might hit you harder on this album than others?

Without a doubt, I’m partial to the title track “Back with a Vengeance.” Aside from being just a really cool riff in my mind, the kind that has plenty of air and a good tough feel, the song really represents Tony’s account of our endeavor to overcome this great ordeal that we’ve been through. He uses some of the imagery he gathered from his visits to see me in prison and he uses some of the ideas he gleaned from our weekly phone conversations during that time and puts them together to paint a perfect picture of victory that I think has resonance outside of just our particular experience. The result is a song that applies to many situations. It really is a great victory song in my mind. Some might find the slow pace a tad boring at first, but if you’ve got the patience to really just sit and enjoy the song; you know, to just give it a chance for what it is and to feel the power of it knowing the back-story, I think you’ll find that it really is a great song. Personally, I’m very proud of it.

Some artists can pick a certain event such as watching the Beatles on Sullivan or listening to Electric Ladyland by Hendrix that made them want to be a musician. Was there an instance like that which made you want to pick up a guitar?

When I was very young, still in diapers in fact, my mother bought me a He-Man record player at a yard sale. With it came two 7” singles: one was Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” and the other was the Miami Vice theme song. I wore grooves in those two records. I can remember knowing how to operate this little record player, pulling the vinyl out of the sleeve and lining up the needle, even as a very small child who was maybe two years old. I remember getting goose bumps and shaking my little butt when the music hit. I’d say it started there.

Indie bands tend to hit many hurdles along their journey. I know the jail time was a huge one for you, but other than that one (which was bullshit that it went down that way from what I’ve read), what’s been another one?

Well, you know with all bands that have been at it for any length of time, we had some band member changes. It’s always tough when you part ways with a member, at least for me. It’s a lot like a divorce in many respects I should think, in that there’s often a lot of baggage and occasionally some harsh feelings associated. Relative to a band, you’ve got the logistical issues of changing passwords and augmenting websites, removing pictures, changing merch, pulling old videos if you feel the need. You know – just overhauling your image so that your latest lineup is represented, etc., and you’ve also got the issue of your fan base growing attached to certain members, so a lot of times they feel hurt or maybe even insulted if you should replace anyone, which is understandable. You’ve also got the fact that in many cases (and in our experience every case) when you lose a band member that you’re also essentially losing a friend. We have very tight bonds in this band and that is something we foster, and so when you lose a member then you’ve got to navigate that. In our case we try to maintain good relationships with the guys that were in the band previously, and I think that is important. We don’t want to bash them and we don’t want them bashing us, because that doesn’t do anybody any good. Luckily in our case, we’ve got lifelong friends in our former bandmates and we recognize and appreciate that we’d never be where we are if not for them.  I’d say for us though, each change that has occurred has put us in better position to get our product to the next level. We tend not to settle for whatever comes our way in terms of members, and we’re fortunate enough that we’ve had enough exposure at least around here that we’ve had some great talent throw their hat in the ring in regards to potential openings. We’ve not really had a period where we’ve been without the full lineup. It’s usually been a pretty clean transition thus far, but we’re hoping this latest lineup is the one that gets us the brass ring. I’m very confident that this group is the real deal.

What would you say has been the coolest thing that’s happened to you and/or the band along this journey so far?

We’ve been fortunate to play some pretty cool shows along the way. One of my last shows before going away was supporting Halestorm in the heart of Charlotte during The Coca-Cola 600 Festival in front of some 15,000 people. We won a Battle of the Bands through 106.5 The End (a local Charlotte, North Carolina FM station) to earn that one. It was definitely tough my first few weeks behind bars because when I went inside, that show was fresh enough on my mind that I could still hear that crowd. It was so close in proximity to my going away, that inmates at my first prison camp had heard of the band via the radio broadcasts; that was a trip! Shortly after my incarceration, the band got news that we were a local winner on the Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands, and so the boys got to play the Uproar Festival at Walnut Creek Pavilion in Raleigh, NC. Within a week of that we found out that we were also a finalist in the Guitar Center “On-Stage with Slash” contest, and that Guitar Center was flying the boys to Cincinnati, OH, to play a sold out set with Slash. I’ll tell you…I was sick in my stomach over that man, Slash is one of my guitar heroes; it hurt to miss out on that one. Of course, a huge part of me was happy for the band and I was certainly happy for the profile boost along with the affirmation in the quality of our product, but it was tough; it was bittersweet for the boys as well, I’m sure. I’d say though, above all of that, hands down the coolest thing that has happened to us was this recent news about Billboard. Waking up on that morning and seeing our name up there on the same chart as AC/DC (a band I’ve always admired) was just absolutely poetic.

I was going to mention that, but you beat me to it! You were #8 on Billboard Magazine’s Heatseekers chart. How did all of that happen? I’m not even sure how they come up with that.

Well, when writing the album we found out some interesting information regarding what kind of album sales it takes to chart on Billboard, and in our eyes the number wasn’t obscene. We learned that all of our presale albums counted toward our first week sales in terms of charting, and we figured with a lengthy enough presale period combined with first week sales into one week, that the task (although lofty) didn’t seem impossible. We started to discuss whether or not we had a realistic chance. We looked at our fan base and our social media numbers and the amount and frequency of fan engagement, and we looked at what we were doing stream-wise on sites like Spotify and Pandora, and also what we were doing sales-wise on Amazon and iTunes with the old album and we ascertained that we had a genuine shot at making it with the new one.

We play a good bit here in the Carolinas, a lot of times in support of bigger national acts, and so we get in front of great crowds around here at many of the larger venues in the State, and we notoriously do well merch-wise; so basically, the locals are buying. Our exposure here really is very good and we surmised that if we could just tap into our local fan base and also tap into the crowds that we have been in front of here on a regular basis, hell just ONE of these major shows gets us in front of enough people to chart!

So, we began with our local listener base. We pressed everyone around here that had heard of us and had taken an interest in the band to purchase the album. We hit our email lists hard and found that we had more than enough numbers in that alone if we could just motivate them to buy a copy. We made the album affordable and worked to convince people that the time and effort we put in made the album valuable so that they’d feel they were getting a deal if they purchased it. We sold them on the quality of the product, and we were confident in it because we certainly did bust our ass on this thing and we did spend a ton of money on it. It is the real deal, and we believed in it. We pressed our family members our close friends to buy even if they didn’t want it! We asked our biggest fans, the most vocal of the bunch, to become salesman and to push their friends and family to buy. We basically wrote off anyone outside of our direct reach, meaning our fans from outside the borders of our State. We left them to their own devices; whatever they added to the numbers was gravy in our eyes. We set our sights on the people around here that we could talk to or message directly.

Let’s be honest, Facebook especially has made it all but impossible to reach your page fans via social media, so in terms of hitting the people who had liked the band page (some 13,000 people) we pretty much wrote off any chance of getting them on board simply because without a monster budget to advertise we just didn’t have access to them. So we didn’t even focus our efforts there. We have always been the type of band to welcome our fans as friends, and so most of our hard core fans and even many people who had seen us just once or twice (or who have maybe only heard of us even) were actually on our personal to-do lists, and so we shamelessly beat their doors down with messages to buy the album.  Basically anyone that we knew we could talk to directly was who we targeted and engaged, and what we found was that by and large, whether because of attention that we had garnered or because they enjoyed the first album, or as a result of sympathy for my prison sentence, or just because of genuine interest in our new music, whatever the case – that people were widely receptive to dropping a few bucks for this thing.

We had a plan, and we executed that plan. In the end, we didn’t sell nearly as many albums as we set out to sell, but it turns out it didn’t take nearly as many albums as we thought for us to end up on the charts. Such is the state of the music industry today I guess.

So what’s the magic number?

You mean how many albums does it take to chart? I’ll never tell! (Haha) It’s not a secret by any means, but you’ll have to find that info out the hard way just like us!

I guess we will wrap it up on that note. Do you have any closing words for your fans and our readers?

We’re not done selling this album by any stretch, so go see for yourself what all the fuss is about and buy the damned thing! (haha!) Oh, and as a personal favor to me: if you have shitty PC speakers, please wait until you can play it on some decent speakers! Hurts my heart to think of somebody listening to these songs on a $10 set of speakers!

I’d also like to thank our fans and supporters on behalf of the band for all of the love that they’ve shown us. We’ve got some really  good people in our corner that love some 21CG and I’m honored and humbled by that. We look at our fans as friends, and love playing with and for them. We can’t wait to get out on the road and see some familiar faces and meet some new ones. If you see us out, don’t be shy, come have a beer!

Connect with 21st Century Goliath! (click on the icons):

A very special thank you & Photography Credits:

Black & White photos (live) by:  IamZormak Photography

Color photo (live) by:  Michael Bradley / Rockhousephoto.com / FB: Rock House Photos

Promotional band picture and album art were provided by 21st Century Goliath