Fit For Rivals - Renee Phoenix

Check out an interview with Renee Phoenix and look for new music and tour dates from Fit For Rivals coming soon.

How did you start this band?

Renee Phoenix: Gosh, I used to be in a punk band called The Explicits and I was looking for a new guitar player and Thomas - who's sort of my partner in crime for all this - he had heard my band once before and so I had created a Craigslist ad and he contacted me and we hit it off. What we were creating was pretty different from The Explicits, like, I'd matured a lot and we were just going in a different direction and so we decided to make a whole new project from that. So that's how we started.

Were there any bands or artists who helped to shape your sound?

Yeah, definitely. I have influences going from Joan Jett and, growing up, one of my favorite bands to listen to was Garbage. I really like pop music - I'm a big fan of that - but then I'll listen to Nine Inch Nails too. The sort of people that I admire, that I think have a more direct influence in what I do, I think probably Joan Jett would be number one out of all of them. Of course, she's the queen of rock and roll.

What was the inspiration behind the new single "Freak Machine"?

"Freak Machine", I mean, it can be put into a few different kinds of context. It could be more of a sexual tone that comes across more obvious, if you just take the lyrics for face value, or it could be something that could apply to you, that you yourself are a freak machine, as in you are different from others around you. So, I think it really depends on, when you listen to it, what you personally take from that; I love writing songs like that, where a listener can take it and apply it to how they think is best fitting for their life.

Can we expect to hear the same sort of sound on the next album that we heard on your debut one?

It's definitely a different sound. I mean, at the core of it, we're still Fit For Rivals and you'll be able to tell that this is a Fit For Rivals record, but it definitely has a lot more dynamic to it. I feel like everyone has their own voice this time around, where like the bass just doesn't follow what the guitar's doing and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So everyone kind of really shines on this album and I think it's a lot more fun. There's some electronic aspects in it that I'm personally really excited about; I love bands that put that in without it being a crutch, like Metric - I love Metric, I love what they do - so, you know, there's like little things like that that we just kind of add. Just things like that that I think add more of a refined sound, as opposed to our first album. I'm really proud of it. I think everyone will be dancing to it, awkwardly, along with me.

How would you describe your sound as a whole?

I would say we sound like - I mean, I don't want to be too cool - but, I think we really do sound like kind of modern day Joan Jett, maybe mixed with some of Metric, that band as well, but it's just fun. Especially, hearing our shows and everything, we all just want the audience and everyone that listens to us to have some fun, you know, and I think that's how I'd describe it: straightforward rock, some pop influence in there but, you know, it's definitely us.

You've got a real raw power in your voice that's different from other female singers; any idea where that comes from?

You can probably tell from my talking voice that my voice doesn't sound like that at all. I mean, I don't smoke or any of that kind of stuff but it just kind of comes out of - I have no idea - [laughs] I have no idea but over the years I've learned to control it and really play with the dynamics of it and I think that's another thing in this new record, is you'll hear me go from super soft, almost a whisper kind of vocal technique, to screaming, you know, within the same song, so I just think the biggest word is that everything is dynamic. Dynamic, dynamic, dynamic.

Any new albums you've been listening to?

Oh my gosh, I don't know. I don't think so.. I haven't explored what's out right now. I keep hearing really good things about that Taylor Swift album everyone's all up in arms about, so maybe I'll check that out but, I don't know. I haven't listened to a new record in a while, I think.

What do you want listeners to get out of your music?

First and foremost, have fun. Second, I have noticed just, like, online, a lot of our fans, they end up having a really kind of deep connection to our music and it helps them through things that they're going through so, hopefully, some of these songs people can really kind of dig their claws into and relate and it'll help them through things. It just, it makes it worth it when I get a message from a kid saying, like, 'hey, your music saved my life because this and this. I related to it and it helped me through that time' so, hopefully, we can continue to do that for these kids, that would be awesome.

Anything you want to say to your fans?

Thank you to the fans who continue to stick by us. It took us awhile to get from our first release to this release because, gosh, just like a slew of things, from finding our sound in this new record to working out things with record labels, trying to decide who we're going with, there's just, like, so many aspects to it. I just appreciate everyone sticking by us and continuing to believe in what we do so, I guess, just a thank you to everybody.

We are trying to make plans right now for tour and hopefully we will be out in February, tentatively, but we'll see. Either way, we are going to be on the road to support this album so we're working on it. We just got off tour with Icon For Hire - we were out for about a month - but we're going to try to get over to the West coast and all the other areas we didn't get to hit this last run.

Fit For Rivals             Facebook             Twitter             Instagram             YouTube

Wartime Recitals - Jonathan Krueger

Catch up with lead singer of Wartime Recitals, Jonathan Krueger, look for a music video from the band to come soon, and get the Wartime Recitals EP from iTunes now. 

How would you describe the EP's sound?

Jonathon Krueger: Definitely indie pop. We have a big baroque sound. The main sound is based around piano and there's bell tones and glockenspiel, acoustic guitar, electric guitar are all kind of complimenting the songs that are written on piano.

Where do you guys draw inspiration from while writing new songs?

We're all sorts of artists. There's five of us in the group from when we started writing this EP and we all came from different backgrounds. I know our piano player likes Ben Folds and he was a huge inspiration for one of his arrangements and even just doing the sounds for guitar we'll pull a lot of influence from post-rock bands that we like, like Explosions in the Sky. Some of my favorite narrative based song-writers that inspired these lyrics and songs are like Alex Smith.

How did you all meet?

Our piano player, Hugo, started the band several years ago and he just threw out this ad on Craigslist and I was looking at the time - I had never been in a band before but I was writing music - and I just was looking for a band to join and he put something in the ad like 'looking for any sort of musicians to join' and so I met him at rehearsal and there were a bunch of different people there at the time and it was really just kind of he and I and another musician that stuck around. We just started writing music together and about a year later we got the rest of our band together, like our drummer, Thomas, and bass player, Mike, and we started laying down the tracks for our first single, "Hold Your Velocity". So that came out a couple years ago and we just stuck around since then and started playing shows and trying to become known while playing shows this year.

Any bands or musicians who have influenced your sound, personally?

Personally, yeah, a big influence for myself is John Darnielle from Mountain Goats; I really love his music: it's just narrative based and the writing in there is really, really cool. I like Bill Callahan and then, if you just listen to the sounds, like we're going for things that sounds big, like Arcade Fire. Mix of all that together.

How would you describe your sound, as a whole?

Big baroque, indie pop, indie folk music with up and front center piano.

Do you guys have any sort of tradition or pre-show ritual you go through?

Yeah, well, recently we've been playing a residency at The Echo in LA and right before the show we've all been getting pizza right down the street at Two Boots and right before sound check we'll get together and share a few slices of pizza there. Aside from shows, we also like to do a sort of band retreat- kind of like corporate retreats - where we get away from LA for the weekend; jam in a house in the woods or mountains.

What's the best part about performing?

Definitely just getting a thrill once you play that first chord of whatever song we're playing and getting the jitters out and just getting that reaction from the audience is a blast. It's kind of been a new thing for us, playing live, so it's great to hear a good response to the music.

Did you do a lot of shows before releasing this EP?

This year we played - before releasing the EP - we probably played about five shows throughout the summer. Most notably, we played some local shows in Santa Monica and Echo Park region and there was Echo Park Rising Festival and then we did more shows after the EP release.

If you could pick any, which artist or band would you choose to work with?

I think we're all big fans of Local Natives and have all seen their rise here in LA. I'm a big fan of theirs so that's definitely one artist and Andrew Bird would be awesome to play with.

Any current releases you've got on heavy rotation?

I've been listening to Spoon's latest album a lot, that one's really good; I just caught them live a couple months ago at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. This one artist, Valerie June, she has this album, Pushin' Against A Stone; I just saw her live at this festival and have just been listening to that CD nonstop. I'm a big fan of this artist Emperor X; he just released this EP called The Orlando Sentinel - that one's pretty cool.

What do you want listeners to take away from your music?

I'd say that, definitely, when you play it, you wanna feel happy. We kind of put out a lot of energy in our songs so it's thoughtful music for sure, we want people to kind of dig into the lyrics and kind of listen to the song's story and whatnot, but also, at the same time, you should be able to just blast it in the car wherever you're going and get excited about it.

Wartime Recitals             Facebook             Twitter             SoundCloud

Denyse Tontz

See what Denyse Tontz had to say about her music and watch the fun video for new single "Mr. Hipster". 

How did you become interested in music

Denyse Tontz: I've actually always been interested in music and acting was more the thing that kind of happened. I've been playing piano since I was really young, probably four or five, and I started writing music when I was around eleven and didn't really, you know, do much with it; just had a notebook of songs and just let it sit. When I was fourteen or fifteen I decided I wanted to do something with it and I met my producer Suren and he's been working with me ever since.

Are there any artists whose music has inspired you?

I listen to a lot of genres and I think that's really changed my taste over the years. Even - not that I've been doing the music thing that long, per say, with my self-release - but even, like, every year, there's something a little different because of my new influences for that year. For "Use It" I was really into Katy Perry and I actually listen to a lot of indie rock, alternative music so I try to incorporate some minor melodies and stuff like that. For inspiration, I always like to listen to Lily Allen or Marina and the Diamonds or, you know, fun people like that who have really clever, witty lyrics.

What's the response been like for the "Mr. Hipster" video?

It's been really great actually. I don't think any of us really knew what to expect because it's like each video will get a very, very different response from very different people. This one, I've noticed, there's sort of a different audience than what I'm used to because I do Dog With A Blog on Disney and then before that I did Big Time Rush on Nickelodeon so my audience is usually, you know, kids and stuff like that, but I think, this time around, we're getting different results from the other times so it's really interesting to see that kind of evolve into a newer, older audience.

How do you balance your acting career with your singing one?

I don't know if there's any right way to balance any kind of career, but I try to do my best. I just don't get a free second, which is fine, because I'm kind of a workaholic anyway, but I do enjoy acting. I don't want people to think that I don't, you know, that I just do it as a day job; I definitely do enjoy it and would love to, you know, in the future, hopefully pursue them both and be able to juggle them and kind of join them together but, as of right now, just, whenever I'm not working, I'll just be in the studio with my producer or writing or, a lot of times, I'll bring my guitar into my dressing room - because we have a lot of down time on set - so it's just a great time to jot down some ideas and play with the melody.

Have you got any plans to release an EP or full length?

We're definitely planning on releasing an EP, hopefully early 2015. We've already released a couple songs, but they were only singles and they were all spaced out and they all had videos, but I think, this time around, we're trying to focus on releasing the songs themselves. I mean, we have so many, just in the arsenal, so I think it's time to just let them all out; release an EP.

Will the sound on the EP be similar to the sound on "Mr. Hipster"?

"Mr. Hipster" is probably one of the more bubbly ones. It's definitely, probably, the most 'novelty' of them, but I do have kind of that recurring theme of sort of novelty, like a little bit funny; I really like to, if I can, make people chuckle a little bit when they're listening to music. But, yeah, we have a variety of things going on; we have love, we have - I'm not going to give everything away - but it's a classic story of my life, put into the kind of words that I would use, which are usually a little bit different, being in the lyrics. So, I guess, musically we're keeping in that scene of "Mr. Hipster", but we definitely have some stuff that's a little darker and moodier, so something to look forward to.

Do you have any memorable fan interactions?

Ooh, that's fun. I've had some random ones. Most of the time, it's just like at the mall or, you know, just random places. I think the two most memorable ones was, one time I was at the beach and I didn't look like myself at all - most of the time these happen when I look really ugly I've noticed - so, I was at the beach and these girls recognized me from Big Time Rush actually and, instead of coming up to me, they kind of just kept walking past me and they ended up writing 'Jennifer' in the sand in front of me and then writing a little arrow and a question mark and it was just fun, but they were really sweet about it.

The other one was when I was driving once and I stopped at a red light and there was like a car full of young girls and they recognized me from Dog With A Blog and they started yelling out "Nikki" and so I waved and I had the flu or something so I was trying to not see anybody that day and so I thought it was done and then we ended up, after the light turns green, we ended up getting stopped at the next light again.

Any song you can't stop playing on repeat right now?

You know, I gotta say, I'm really into Taylor's new album. I was really curious as to what to expect but I started to hear a lot of it on Pandora and I realized that each song that was coming out was just a banger and, like, it was great. So, I'm really impressed with her new album; probably my current obsession.

Is there anything you want to say to your fans?

I hope they enjoy the ride. I'm still kind of making up things as I go so I hope that they stick around and, you know, bear with me and like what I have to say and sing and maybe don't get tired of me on social media when I'm posting photos of myself brushing my teeth or whatever [laughs] no, I'm just kidding. I really hope that they like it and there's definitely going to be something new around every corner so I will make it my goal to constantly surprise.

Denyse Tontz             Facebook             Twitter             YouTube             Instagram

The Well Reds

Catch up with The Well Reds to see what they had to say about the release of their debut album, Volume, and head to Loudfund now to help them raise the money to share the new album. 

What's the best response you've heard since releasing Volume?

Torin: I think the general response that we've gotten has just been that people really appreciate where we've come, how far we've come. There were elements that definitely worked in the music that we put out before and I think people get that, but some of the songs on the record are kind of a massive revolution of what we've done before and some of them are completely left of center and so it's really cool to see that those songs that were a massive revolution of what we've done before and songs that were really left of center to be songs that are hitting people the right way. That's kind of nice too that we can stretch and people still dig it. People are really enjoying the diversity of the record

Jeremy: I agree with that. It's hard for me to pinpoint one thing; we've gotten a lot of really good feedback, even just yesterday somebody was raving about the record. It's hard to talk about hat without feeling like you're blowing up your own ego, but this guy just said he loved every track; I was doing this session for an engineer yesterday and he had gone and bought the album and was just raving about it so that was kind of cool. It's always fun to have people love your work. That's been the best thing about this is just that people love it, we haven't gotten the whole 'well you guys are pretty close, this is a good record, it's a good effort,' you know, it's more of a 'wow, this is amazing' kind of reaction so that's been pretty amazing.

Is there a track from the album you're just really satisfied with?

Jeremy: I'm pretty satisfied with all of them, to be completely honest. I'm excited about just about every track. The ones that we collaborated on are my favorites and there's a lot of collaboration. Torin is one of the main writers in our band but he's very generous in the way that we all approach it; he's able to kind of take himself out of the process and let us come in and make some big changes to the songs and one of the ones that we kind of did a lot of work on was "Carousels" and then, you know, he made a lot of changes to "BPM" and the evolution of "Do You Still Love Me" was a lot of fun, too. That was kind of a different sounding song when we walked in the studio but we were able to do some really fun stuff with it with the 8-bit kind of approach and the lo-fi drums and everything, literally using a Casio keyboard for drum sounds and stuff like that. It was a lot of fun.

Rex: "Do You Still Love Me" is probably one of my favorites on the album; just the energy of the song. It's pretty unique and not like a lot of other stuff out there right now.

How would you describe the sound on the album?

Jeremy: Our sound, as a band, we've described it as melodic, you know, it's obviously lyric focused, hook focused, and a lot of very pop-y and catchy melodies. The album, as a whole, is really - we've kind of talked about it in these words: it's a playlist, really. We don't cross genres but we don't really land in any..

Torin: We touch on all these different places. It's a playlist for what you would hear on a modern pop station because there's nothing acoustic, this stuff is very electronic. There's this home base element, specifically harmonies between Jeremy's and Sean's voices, we have a lot of pretty aggressive rhythm section parts so there's usually little nuggets to try and tie everything together. On the song to song basis, specifically with the producer we were working with, we tried our best to really dial in the sound for that song. So, again, while there are elements that are very consistent throughout, there are specific sounds on specific songs that might only pop up once or twice.

Jeremy: Right, and it's interesting, going back to your first question, one of the things that's been talked about is that, even though there's a lot of diversity, the album is very much of the band. There's a consistency there and that's cool to hear: that when you touch up on a bunch of genres, you're still able to produce a whole work that sounds like the band.

Where do your ideas come from while writing?

Torin: So, Jeremy, Sean, and I write and I think that, in some ways, we probably all come from very different places. We've been really fortunate to get to travel a lot the past couple years to represent one of the top college booking agencies in the country so we've toured pretty extensively and I think, when you're on the road that much, you get to collect a lot of really cool life experiences. I think this record, in particular, kind of catalogs some of the really cool stuff that we got to experience on the road, and also some of the maybe not so good stuff that we got to experience, and I think, as a band, we try to be really, really honest with what we're experiencing because I think that allows the listener to take whatever they will from it, from a really pure place.

Jeremy: Yeah, I agree with you. I think that we do all kind of come from different places and we have this process of kind of bringing songs to the band, ideas to the band - sometimes they're completed songs or almost completed - and then the process from there is picking our favorite ideas. It takes a little while to kind of land in a place, at least on this last record, it took us a few minutes to get a track list that we were comfortable with, but I think that this kind of democratic process that we have may take a little longer, but it resulted in a really great record so, yeah, I think it's really good. I think it's interesting to have different perspectives in a band: different writers coming together with different ideas and they way they see things and then, once a song is brought to the table, we cut it up and we change things, and, unless the writer is pretty adamant that it stays the way it is, it's open to the scalpel.

Do you guys have any traditions or rituals you go through before performing?

Torin: With a lot of the college stuff, we have a pretty intensive set up with production, so by the time - hour and a half, two hours - of setting all that stuff up, usually we're just chilling out, taking a nap, trying to get some food.

Jeremy: I have some pretty interesting sounding vocal warm-ups I'm sure the guys are tired of hearing; there's some videos on Instagram. I think we just, kind of, do our own thing and then, when we take the stage, that's when we're kind of coming together.

Rex: Some reading. Trying to find food. Normal stuff.

Torin: Trying to find free food.

What's the best part about performing?

Torin: Getting out of the difficulties of the day. It's a very in the moment type process.

Jeremy: Yeah, I think, for me, it's crowd interaction. I love kind of the relationship between the performer and the crowd and just, I feel like, trying to get people to jump out of this place.. People generally are very self conscious in the audience and trying to bring them to a place where they're not self conscious, just get them moving and get them up and into the music; when a crowd is really responding to your efforts to bring them into your world, I think that's when amazing things can happen.

Rex: Similar to Jeremy's. I enjoy just, people being excited about what you're doing and it's energizing to be doing something that other people enjoy.

What type of tracks are you guys listening to right now?

Jeremy: I'm pretty stuck on St. Lucia; I'm loving their new record. I listen to a lot of James Blake, Tegan and Sara - I love their albums - and, yeah, I'm kind of in that world; in between the pop and more experimental.

Rex: Mostly, I've been listening to just the new Maroon 5 album.

What do you want people to take away from your music?

Torin: I think the general idea that we've always been open to is that we're trying to inspire people to think and we don't really want to tell them what to think about. The ideas that we have, we have collected a lot of these really cool experiences and we've pulled a lot of it and they mean a lot to us and we feel like there are pieces of that that will speak to people. So, it's a little like, this song's for this person and that song's for that person, but I think there's little pieces that will speak in a very personal way and that's exciting. 

The Well Reds             Facebook             Twitter             YouTube             Instagram             Loudfund