RISE TO REMAIN
Interview with Ben Tovey (Guitarist)
By Brittney Dillon
With City of Vultures (COV) being released this year, having a very successful touring year with some of the most cutting edge musicians in the metal and hardcore industry, and as a band that is progressively becoming tighter knit, how does the band perceive all this development?
We are all keen players to say the least and making the live performance better, tighter and more entertaining with every show is something that’s really important to us. We see our development each tour by watching our YouTube videos and being fair and sometimes harsh critics of ourselves. We are young and passionate about continuing this development as we still have lots to learn from the road, instrumental practice and older bands. You never stop growing but it’s great to see how far we’ve come on from where we began.
With hits off of COV like “The Serpent,” “Power through Fear,” and “This Day is Mine,” how has the underlying conceptual analogy or happening been able to smoothly tie the whole record together?
COV ties together by describing all the “characters” and people that ever surrounded the band. Austin lyrically talks about his experiences of vultures in London, vultures in the industry that all have ill qualities or flaws to their person.
Being familiar with the process of recording has there been a hierarchy established while making this record, or even when songwriting? How long is this process for Rise to Remain?
The band has no writing hierarchy. We each have our areas of expertise and subsequently members have developed their songwriting, composition, production, improvisation and performance skills in different ways and at different rates. We choose as a band the best selection of music, lyrics and melodies offered by its members and produce material as a unit, solo, pair or threesome with the record producer and co- producer (when we have one). Then select members will perform the parts on record based on who plays them best. This means that some members are involved in this process more intensely and have a greater input but we make these decisions as a democracy to exercise fairness and allow everyone to have the full potential to develop their skills and use them in RTR.
Listening to COV and even previous EPs there’s a strong influence of music around you, what has been a pivotal role in this album and furthermost of your career?
There are a few things that made COV what it was. The decision to not become obsessed with finding a totally original style but to use writing styles of rock and metal to craft songs that make the music’s extremities more accessible to the masses. The influence of rock music allowed us to focus on clean vocals and more intricate guitar styles. In terms of career the pivotal moment for us was signing to EMI records (*the band’s UK label), now we can see how things will develop from here with a label that have so much history and presence in the industry.
RTR allowed fans to listen to the album a week before it was officially released. How do you feel about selling music online, and the ongoing illegal music downloading issue across the world?
In 2011 we are a society that downloads music. Those of us who support the recording of music download or buy legitimately, those who don’t, download or copy illegally. We are a band in an evolving industry, who knows what the future brings! But social networking is clearly a new technology that plays an important part in the evolution of the business. We get involved with this by engaging and interacting as much as we can, giving our fans a chance to hear the music first, become involved in a competition or take part in a Q&A. You can only work has hard as you can with what you have. The world has got some big problems on the horizon and who knows maybe music might become localized because petroleum or diesel becomes to scarce or expensive, you just don’t know so let’s wait and see what happens!
What can we see from Rise to Remain in 2012?
We are super busy and mega excited about all our touring plans for next year. All the RTR fans can expect to see an improved live show and new songs off the album to be played like “Roads,” “We Will Last Forever” and “Talking in Whispers.” Thanks for all your continued support, we have had a great time this year and a chance to meet a lot of you. Stay posted on our Facebook and we’ll keep you up to date with all our crazy antics!!
