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New To Q RIOT! IN THE BOULEVARD There’s a wave coming over to the UK in May, on the bill alongside the worlds newest rock giants Fathers Of Fury is a relatively unknown band, that band is called Riot! In The Boulevard and they’ve been igniting radio waves in the US with their number 2 single, Sweet Little Fantasy’s but now for the first time in their relatively short career, the band has headed overseas to join a band which they idolise in so many ways on their UK tour. They’re a very promising band with a good future ahead of them. This is our insiders guide to the band that we here at Q headquarters believe will be the future of rock music.
Let’s start with the bands beginnings. As with many iconic bands, Riot! was formed in high school by the highly recognisable figure of Amy Meyer, a self confessed theatre geek with an obsession for all things obscure and rare, she’s also a bit of an obsessive kind of person, “I’ve been told that I’m a total nightmare to live with.” she chuckles and continues, “I’ve been living with the guys (band mates Justin, Jason and Nathan) for about six months now and they hate it so much, they’ll put a glass of water down on a table and as soon as I notice it, I’m there putting a coaster underneath it.” and that’s just the beginning of it, “Yeah the list goes on and on, I have to have cans and bottles all lined-up perfectly with the label facing the front of the fridge.” and Justin chimes in, “it’s really frustrating, it’s not like it’s gonna effect Amy’s working day but she has to have things organised perfectly and that’s always been the topic of most of our arguments.” the whole band laugh and Amy responds, “But we make things work.”
Having been in the company of the band for about 15 minutes now, I quickly come to realise that Amy and Justin are the talkative members of the band, with Nathan and Jason clearly more sombre and peaceful people and it’s no surprise to realise that they’re actually brothers, they do chime in occasionally with quips and the odd sarcastic comment but it’s clear that they prefer Amy and Jason to do the majority of the entertainment. As we continue to talk about the bands living arrangements together some of their secrets manage to surface.
“Amy doesn’t really play up to this rock chick image, she’s into some pretty heavy stuff but she’s also got this obsession with pop melody’s and arrangements, she’s forever flicking through music TV stations and hitting the mute button on the remote to explain how she would make this pop song so much better, but then once in a while, she’ll redeem herself with a surprising rendition of say Black Sabbath or Sonic Youth, she’s good at surprising us and then she’ll ruin it by doing a cover of Bad Romance or something.” Jason explains before looking at Amy and laughing.
“Yeah but those guys wouldn’t have it any other way.” Amy quickly snaps back.
The dynamic of the band is very interesting and it’s quite fascinating to see how such a young girl handles herself in a predominantly male influenced band and genre, “Well that’s just something I get on with, I guess I was always one of the guys when I was a little kid and I guess that continued in high school, so it’s nothing different or new to me to be in this environment and I get along with the guys just as though they were my brothers.” and is it weird for the guys.
“Not so much really, I guess because we’ve been pretty close since we were like 11 years old it’s kinda just the norm really. Amy is just one of the guys, we all have a lot of fun in each others company but sometimes she isolates herself and does … I dunno … girly stuff I guess. But she can handle herself pretty well.” as Justin explains. “Yeah, I’m more than just a pretty face.” Amy replies then laughs.
The band released their debut E.P last month Sin City Serenade along with their debut single, Sweet Little Fantasy’s both of which were pretty well received, “We’re happy with how it went. E.P’s aren’t really seen as a big deal but I think our E.P went on to sell like 80,000 copies which is pretty good for a debut. But the single is where it got a bit weird. It did pretty well on the charts and stuff, I think it peaked at 36 in the USA and we were all pretty happy with that and then we were told that it went to number 2 on the Airplay charts and well, I was pretty blown away by that. I think it’s sold something like 240,000 copies in the US alone which is good. I mean we’re aware that chart success doesn’t necessarily make a bands career, a lot of our favourite bands have had little to almost no chart success of any note so really for us, although it was great and we’d love more of it, it’s not the be all and end all of what we’re trying to do here.” Amy explains.
And what about contemporary’s and the current state of music right now, Jason is the first to chip in with a comment, “I constantly find myself looking back rather than forward in terms of music to listen to, I dunno if it’s like that for other people but that’s what I find myself doing. I’m not gonna deny that there’s some great stuff out there, I’m a fan of Suburban Sunrise, Fathers Of Fury and Stacey Walton, I think they head that list of straight up rock music made the way it used to be made and that’s something I tend to look for.”
Amy quickly jumps in to give her opinions, “I guess I’m less picky than this guy (laughs) I too like Suburban Sunrise, Fathers Of Fury and Stacey Walton. But for me, Infinite is where it’s at right now, There stuff is genius in my opinion and they’ve got that iconic frontman that a lot of bands don’t have anymore, all the greatest have iconic frontmen, Zeppelin, The Stones, Queen, The Doors and as much as it pains me to say it but U2 also. I’m also pretty obsessed with Jason Smith and Dead Roses at the moment. Then there’s some people that you just can’t avoid, they’ll just force your way into your ipod, people like Miss Vanity, Britt Knox and Steph Fierce. I’m also hugely into Ryan Ross Hernandez latest album, I think it’s genius, he’s sort of like the De Niro of music, he’s got this aura of coolness and everything he does he somehow manages to distance it from whatever he previously did, he just re-invents himself every single time, I’m pretty sure he’ll go down as one of the greats.” Amy says with an enthusiastic smile.
As I look over to Justin and Nathan, they seem pretty happy with Jason and Amy’s answers, “I think they pretty much covered everyone right there.” Justin laughs.
And now onto the reason why they’re in the UK, the tour with Fathers Of Fury will give this band a chance to play in some of the biggest venue’s in music, do they feel worthy, “Well, we’re supporting. We know that pretty much all of the audience will be at the show to see Fathers Of Fury but the trick is to take as many of their fans as possible.” Jason laughs but Amy quickly responds, “I think what he’s trying to say is that, as a relatively unknown support act, we’ll be trying to put on the best show of our life’s in an attempt to get us some new fans and if a quarter of the audience’s come away thinking, “maybe I should check this band out.” then we’ve done our job. That’s essentially it really, it’s a great way to get some fans and of course to be asked to tour in support of a band that we admire hugely like Fathers Of Fury is a great honour and hopefully we’ll learn quite a lot along the way.”
When will they begin work on a debut album I hear you ask, “As soon as we possibly can, believe me, we’re itching to lock ourselves into a record studio and just go nuts. We’ve got quite a bit of material to work on but we plan on coming up with some new stuff too and it’s all just about making the most kick ass record we possibly can, we know that there’ll be some people that won’t go for it because it’s a bit of a marmite genre but I think we can be a bit of a genre bending band and hopefully that can stand us in good stead for the future.” Jason explains with a certain air of enthusiasm.
And Amy’s star seems to have risen quite a bit, announcing her own stage show, “It’s like my baby that thing is. I wrote Nightbirds when I was 15 years old and in my final year of high school I managed to convince our headmaster into taking it on as the end of year show, it went down a storm. I was amazed and that kinda just fuelled my interest in enhancing it further and since then, I’ve edited it a little bit and perfected it a little bit more and low and behold it’s getting turned into a professional theatrical show in June and to make things better it’s opening in Vegas, that’s the dream for me, I’m pretty ecstatic over it.” Amy says with a childlike grin.
And with that final question, you now know more about rocks next big thing than most of your friends will know. We’re sure to hear more from them in the future but for now you can catch them on tour on April 30 at Wembley Stadium. |
