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RUNNING
RIOT The end of 2010 seemed to produce more than its fair share of excellent modern hard rock albums. Seven Year Riot’s debut topped the lot. Expertly produced, superbly constructed with some brilliant songs, the band has literally come out of nowhere to impress anyone who has the pleasure of listening to them. Avid followers will know them under their former name ‘ Citizen Erased’ which they were forced into changing as a result of the internet searches which kept bringing up Muse’s song of the same name. 2011 already looks like being a great year for the band; already they’re flying high onto the Top 10 of the alternative addiction singles chart with the superb ballad ‘Autumn Rain’ and the album surely ought to get the band picked up by the big boys sooner rather later during this year. Mike Newdeck caught up with lead singer Justin Forsyth to find out a little more about the history and aspirations of the band. How has the name change been received? And why Seven Year Riot? The name change has been received well, although it’s still a struggle to recruit all the fans of Citizen Erased to the new fan pages, we’ve gotten nothing but support from old fans and new. The Name itself is a culmination of almost 300 name ideas we had. The idea to change the name was in our heads for a while, and finally after 3 months or so we sat down at a bar with a massive list, a few beers, and narrowed it down. Seven Year Riot was the eventual winner. The meaning behind the name is up for interpretation, we choose not to add a cement explanation to it, because we want our fans to apply their own perception to it. Four songs come from the Citizen Erased ep ‘Close Your Eyes’ were you tempted to ditch them and do an album of completely new material? The thought of ditching those songs never crossed our mind. We knew that the songs on that EP were strong and although we had/have a LOT of new material ready for the second album already, we knew these songs were a perfect fit for the full length. The new material is different, so we didn’t want to start mixing styles right off the bat. Have these songs been modified in anyway production-wise? Nothing huge was done to the songs as they transitioned to the full album, just little tweaks in mixing and mastering, and a few additional effects and fixes. I.e./ the guitar fill after the first chorus in “Inner Circle” is different than on the EP version, and the ending of “Close Your Eyes” on the album has been drastically shortened with a warp effect, whereas the full ending is still intact on the EP. Who produced and mixed the album? The album was produced and mixed by Martin Bak at SLR studios. He was also the engineer, and he also mastered the record. He’s a man who wears many hats full of talent. Why have we not heard of them before as it seems that the final product oozes a major label sound? I am not sure…SLR has done a LOT of fantastic work locally and beyond. His work has only gotten better with time. Marty is meticulous and organized, and only strives for the best. He spends a lot of time learning the ever changing industry standards, and is always experimenting and learning new techniques. He’s definitely someone to watch for, and I encourage all bands who want a professional and slick sound to go to SLR studios. How has the new album been received? We’re actually blown away by the response we’ve gotten. We knew the album would do well amongst the original CE fans, but our goal was to reach new markets and get a buzz for ourselves. That goal was reached, as we’ve sold digital records and singles in all sorts of countries across the world. So I guess we’re technically international artists now hah…we’ve sold our music in Egypt, Japan, Denmark, Ireland and more. Even if we only make 99 cents, it’s still absolutely humbling to know someone from across the world from us is digging us.
Have the major labels come knocking on the door since its release? Not yet that I know of. We don’t expect this to be a fly by night venture. We know we’re going to need to work hard and really get our name out there before we get the attention we want. Most independent bands can release good quality material but have trouble with distribution. Has this been a problem and would a major label help with this? Good question. I personally feel that distribution is a huge factor in popularity, and we’re well distributed on the internet, (which is an amazing tool for up and coming musicians), but as far as getting ourselves into brick and mortar stores like HMV, I don’t know how soon we can expect this. I would assume a major label would definitely help with this. What is your view on major labels? Are they still relevant in 2011? And is it something that you’d like to be part of? I think major labels are still VERY relevant; however there are a lot of indie labels that can achieve the same heights. I think it all depends on the labels’ view on artist relations and morale. If the band is happy and well supported then I think all labels have the chance to reach “major” label status. What are the backgrounds of the band members and how did Seven Year Riot/Citizen Erased come to be? We’ve all been playing in local bands for several years, and all knew each other through gigs and acquaintances. Jim and I were in a band called Plusminus X, and Jarrod and Jeff were in a band called Visible Soul. Both bands split up around the same time. Jim and I were eager to start a new project and called Jeff to recruit him. He in turn called Jarrod and Citizen Erased was born. We wrote and rehearsed for a few months before debuting ourselves. It’s been a blast ever since. Have you been touring? If so who with? As of now, we have not been touring. We are waiting for the physical Copies of the album to be released, and plan on embarking on a hopeful Canadian tour after our release, as well as hopefully a break into the US market Who handles your management? As of now we sort of split the entire management thing amongst us, with Trev Mckendry from Digital Media Records holding the title of manager. All decisions are made as a band, and we all work together to get ourselves the best possible outcome for every situation. How many songs did you write for this album? And how did you whittle it down to the final ten? For this album I believe we had about 14 songs written…but it’s hard to really say. The album took so long to complete, and we were constantly writing so I suppose I could say we had almost 30 songs that COULD have been on this album. We took the original songs we wanted on this record and placed them, and then separated the songs with the “old sound” and the “new sound” and chose from there. Ultimately we narrowed it down based on the quality of the songs compared to each other. We knew we only wanted 10 tracks, so we had to cut 4 tracks. In the end we cut the songs “222”, “Prey for you”, “Moment of Truth”, and “Follow the Leader”, which was a very close competitor to “World on Fire”, but just didn’t cut it. Do you have many left over that would make the grade? I suppose I should have read this question before I ranted to the previous one. I don’t think the cut songs will make the grade on the next record, or any other for that matter. However we may revisit and rewrite them, and we may also release them as a “forgotten tracks” demo between albums. Who knows? The video for ‘Inner Circle’ is rather unusual-what with a dancing banana-tell me the story behind it? That’s not the official video. It was made by my brother and his friend who love to make ridiculous videos in their spare time. I asked them to do one up to help spread the word in a hopeful viral campaign. It’s a hilarious video full of completely random images and it’s just fun. If you want to post the link, feel free, I would love others to see this insane video. Tell me the story behind ‘Autumn Rain’, who came up with the lyrics and melody? Autumn Rain was a sleeper success in my opinion. I did NOT expect this song to be as popular as it is. The lyrics and Melody are written by me. I tend to take a lot of inspiration from nature and the atmosphere around me, and this song was no exception. Ha-ha I don’t want to scare away any of our fans by being a romantic here, but this song was written shortly after sharing a goodnight kiss with someone in the wee hours of an autumn night. It started to rain as we were kissing, which I think is romantic as hell. After saying goodnight, I ran to my notebook and scribbled down all the imagery I wanted to capture in the song; the wind, leaves and moon, etc. and then went from there. The melody came naturally with a song Jim had already written, and Autumn Rain was born. The girl I shared the kiss with is now my wonderful girlfriend. You avoid the scream/hardcore style vocals in favor of melody, were you ever tempted to go down this route? Sometimes I hear someone with a fantastic scream, or a song with great growling vocals and I wonder if I could pull that off, but in the long run, I know my voice is built the way it is. I favor melody and love being able to do things that people can sing to, not scream to. I AM able to scream, and do so in our live shows and on some background vocals, but I know my voice is built to sing. What is the song ‘Black Wedding Dress’ about? I love when people ask me this question. A common theme on this record is anger, since the majority of it was written at a time in my life where I was going through hard times. This particular song is probably the angriest on the record, and it stems from a breakup that occurred out of the blue. Did you ever have a relationship that you were so consumed with, that when it ended, you were literally devastated? This was that kind of relationship. She was a little older than me, and previously married. I was very into her, and when she ended things, it wasn’t just that it was over that hurt me, but it was HOW she did it, and WHAT she said when she did it. I was hurt, broken and pissed off so I wrote that song. It’s called black wedding dress as a burn to her failed marriage. What’s the plan for the band in 2011? Same plan as it is every year, to try to take over the world. When will you have a dedicated band website? Hopefully sooner rather than later. We just launched our official tumblr page as a more personal look at the band, and the website is next on the list. |
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