Tag: "Vans Warped Tour"

We’re saying farewell to our co-op Greg, who was a lifesaver for us here at OurStage, as he picked up tasks ranging from Community to Account Management, to Editorial. If you’re a frequent reader of Plugged In, you’ve no doubt read his work. We asked Greg to list some of his music picks for 2013:

Last week, we recapped our favorite releases from the past year. Now, as we bid 2012 adieu, we welcome 2013 and all of the awesomeness it has in store. While there are so many great releases to look forward to, coming up with this list couldn’t have been easier for me. Most of these records are still in the early stages of post-production, but I say it’s never too early to get excited. So here are my top 5 most anticipated albums of 2013 (in no particular order):

City and Colour – (Title TBA)
2011′s Little Hell really put Canadian rock star Dallas Green on the mainstream map. His 3rd full-length solo album was his most powerful yet. Now, after leaving Alexisonfire, his band of 10 years, to focus full time on City and Colour, we can only imagine that the sky is the limit for this talented singer-songwriter. Green wrapped up recording for the fourth album this past November and expects to release it sometime early-mid 2013.

The Dillinger Escape Plan – (Title TBA)
Dillinger are one of those legendary bands who go years without releasing a new album, but then when they do, you realize the wait was worth it. 2010′s Option Paralysis was possibly the most eclectic and eccentric installment by the brutal math-core wizards. With recording for their fifth full-length in the bag, fans are primed for the release this Spring.

Bad Rabbits – (Titles TBA)
In 2009, these Boston locals burst onto the scene with their groundbreaking debut EP Stick Up Kids, 7 songs of non-stop head banging funk soul party pop. On that release alone, they’ve had outstanding momentum, including their run on the 2011 Vans Warped Tour. However, as infectious as those songs are, three years is too long to go without giving fans more. Luckily, Bad Rabbits have a whole arsenal of finished recordings just waiting to be released via shotgun blast in 2013. Get ready for two more EPs, along with videos, limited edition merch, new live dates, and more.

Queens Of The Stone Age – (Title TBA)
The most anticipated rock album of 2013 may be the new Queens Of The Stone Age record. Not only has it been over five years since Josh Homme‘s last release with the project, but now, among all of the rotating members that have played in the band, Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl has returned on drums along with Nick Oliveri on bass. As two of the quintessential members of QOTSA’s breakthrough album Songs For The Deaf, they helped define the band as many fans know it today. Now that they’re back on board and finished recording, we can only imagine the sheer magnitude of this next album, due out early this year.

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OurStage’s End Of The World Playlist; Songs For The Apocalypse

Earlier this year, singer-songwriter Brian Marquis, former guitarist and vocalist for Therefore I Am, came up with a plan for an acoustic stage at the 2012 Vans Warped Tour. With the approval of the tour’s founder and manager Kevin Lyman, Marquis went on to produce, manage, and perform on the stage all summer. He called it the Acoustic Basement, and despite being thrown into a loud boisterous punk rock festival, the stage was a huge success, attracting more and more fans and artists every day.

Now, before returning to next year’s Warped Tour, the Acoustic Basement will be taking flight on it’s own tour in February 2013. Artists performing on the tour will include Brian Marquis, Koji, A Loss For Words, Geoff Rickly (Thursday), and Vinnie Caruana (I Am The Avalanche).
More info and dates soon to follow.

In the meantime,click here to learn more about the Acoustic Basement and what it takes to run a stage on the toughest tour in America.

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Watch The Full Premiere Of “Warped Roadies”
Therefore I Am To Play End Of The World Reunion Show

The Vans Warped Tour is the one of the longest running tours in America, not to mention probably the most challenging. For about 80 days straight, 1,000+ crew members wake up at the crack of dawn every morning and work in non-stop grueling conditions late into the evening. It takes a hell of a lot of manpower and endurance to keep the well oiled Warped machine running, but many people do not realize this. That’s why Fuse decided to document this past summer’s 2012 Warped Tour for their new show Warped Roadies, in which they follow the crew—NOT the rockstars—who work their asses off every day behind the scenes to make it all happen. They are the backbone of the whole machine, without whom none of it could be possible. Click here to watch the full series premiere before it airs this Friday, December 7 at 11/10c.

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Two years after their departure, Boston post-hardcore band Therefore I Am have decided to reunite for the last night on Earth. On December 21st, the five former members will perform an extra long set of old material at a brand new Boston venue called The Sinclair in Harvard Square. Opening for them are their good friends and family members Actor|Observer, alt-rock band Foreign Tongues, and long time friends Fairweather, for whom this will also be a reunion. Tickets and further details are to be announced through Therefore I Am’s former label, Equal Vision Records.

Since their break up in 2010, all of the members have moved on to other projects. Guitarist Brian Marquis is pursuing a solo career and is the manager of the Vans Warped Tour Acoustic Basement. Singer Alex Correia plays in a folk-rock band called The Tower And The Fool. Guitarist Travis Alexander and drummer Chris Fernandes started a post-hardcore band called Ghost Thrower, and bassist Jim Creighton plays in an alt-rock band called Born Without Bones. So don’t miss out on this show, TIA fans, because it doesn’t look like these guys will be getting back together any time soon… plus, it’s the end of the world…

If you like Therefore I Am, you might also like OurStage’s own Follow Your Hero.

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Boston pop-punk band Transit have been getting really into acoustic performances this year, having performed on the Acoustic Basement stage almost every day at the Vans Warped Tour this past summer. The unplugged renditions of their own songs were incredibly well-received by fans and newcomers,  as were the few covers that they played.

Today the band released a video of themselves covering one of their “personal favorite” songs, “Motorcycle Drive By” by Third Eye Blind. Filmed and recorded at Maximum Sound Studios near Boston, MA, this is a heartfelt rendition that fits well with the band’s sound, showing where some of their inspiration comes from. Check out the video below:

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“It’s time to get out of this town. It’s haunting, this presence.” If the verse lyrics from post-hardcore band Vanna’s “Safe To Say” ever referred to their hometown of Boston, Mass., we’d never guess it now. After kicking off 2012 with tours through Europe and the U.S. from February to April, then almost immediately turning around and jumping on the Warped Tour, Vanna front man Davey Muise and guitarist Joel Pastuszak told us about how great it was to be home at the Warped Tour stop in Mansfield, Mass. Apart from touring, in the last six months Vanna have picked up new members Pastuszak and Erik Gross, and have begun working on a fourth LP after releasing their third full-length album, And They Came Baring Bones in 2011. Muise and Pastuszak talked to us about friends, family, and tour craziness over the last few months.

OS: You guys are playing back in your hometown, that’s got to be great. What’s it like to be back?

DM: It’s awesome to be back, all of our families are here and you know, we’re just looking forward to our New England date to prove to the rest of the tour that we are a ‘worth it’ band [laughs].

OS: You haven’t played with Four Year Strong in a long time, how does it feel to be touring with some hometown friends again?

DM: It’s cool, it’s cool ‘cause like Four Year [Strong], Transit, A Loss For Words, Man Overboard, Make Do, and Mend (even though they’re kind of from Jersey), it’s a lot of New England bands on this tour and it just feels really really good to tour with bands from New England; slash I apologize to everyone who’s not from New England on this tour because we can get pretty rowdy and obnoxious. It’s cool; it’s definitely cool to have everybody out. Four Year’s killing it, A Loss For Words is killing it, all the New England bands are doing so well, I’m just proud of my friends.

JP: We pretty much just took over the whole tour.

Continue reading ‘Exclusive Q and A: Vanna Talks Family, Friends, and Monsoons’

Take a look back at the original Warped Tour lineup from 1995 and you’ll see bands like No Doubt, Sublime, and Supernova. With the festival’s rapid expansion and desire to include more diverse artists, today’s lineup is a far cry from the original punk-centric focus of the tour. Luckily, Ballyhoo! frontman Howi Spangler has a plan to bring back the nostalgic sounds of ’90s ska punk with the band’s new material. The Aberdeen, Md. four-piece just recently completed the entire run of the Vans Warped Tour and are already back on tour until the end of September.

We had the chance to chat with Howi about life on Warped Tour, sharing the stage with reggae legends, and what the band hopes to accomplish with their next record.

OS: You’ve had a busy summer already! Tell us about the performances you’ve done so far.

HS: It has been busy! We started the [Warped ]Tour in Salt Lake City, and we’re doing the whole thing. Every day’s been awesome, the kids have been really great. We’re getting a lot of new listeners that come up every day, so that’s awesome. We have a guy in a sombrero that’s out there selling CDs in the morning to the line, turning new heads. We hooked up this thing called the “Ghetto Blaster,” it’s basically our handtruck and we have a speaker, a generator and a mixer, and our set time on it, and it just blasts our songs. So he takes that out in the morning and it just puts it right in their face, like, “This is Ballyhoo! Listen up!”

OS: What has been your favorite stop/state on Warped so far?

HS: Chicago was awesome, Chicago was really good. That’s the first one that comes to mind. We had a really great crowd. San Francisco was amazing as well, we had a really good time there. We had five or six hundred people out there. Boston was really great today, too!

OS: What other bands have you most enjoyed seeing at Warped Tour?

HS: Motionless in White, those guys are sick. Just heavy screaming, heavy guitars, they paint themselves black and white…the crowd was nuts, it was really cool to see that. New Found Glory’s killing it, Yellowcard’s killing it every day. Tonight Alive, We Are The In Crowd, A Loss For Words…there’s just so many good bands.

Continue reading ‘Exclusive Q and A: Ballyhoo! Plan To Bring Back ’90s Ska Punk’

Releasing three albums in just 18 months sounds like an exhausting endeavor, but you wouldn’t know it from the looks of Yellowcard at their recent Vans Warped Tour dates. The band is as full of energy as they were back during the early 2000s, and are gearing up for the release of their newest studio album Southern Air. We sat down with guitarist Ryan Mendez at their Mansfield, Mass. Warped Tour stop to talk about his early days on the tour, the writing process for the new record, and the album’s one big guest appearance that didn’t make the final cut.

OS: It’s the band’s 5th time on Warped Tour.  What’s different this time around?

RM: Well, I did the tour in ’02 and ’04 with my old band when we were traveling in a van, and it was just the most bottom-of-the-barrel experience of paying your dues on Warped Tour. Now, with us being at the level that we’re at, and me being a part of Yellowcard, it couldn’t be any more different for me. We did about half of the tour in ’07, and that was awesome too, but we were in kind of a tough time as a band then, and we were having issues with our bass player, who ended up leaving the band later in the year. It was just not the right mental page for us to be on, but now everybody’s doing great, we’ve got a new record coming out, and the tour has been awesome. Warped just treats us so well, and we’ve been having a great time.

OS: Yeah, the reception at your show today was awesome

RM: I think it was probably the best show of the tour for us. Before that, I think Chicago was the best show, but this might have taken it’s place!

Continue reading ‘Exclusive Q and A: Yellowcard Open Up About ‘Southern Air’ And Being Warped Tour Veterans’

After building up a sizable fanbase through several years of steadily touring and releasing numerous albums, Boston-based Transit finally scored a spot on the Vans Warped Tour this summer. It’s rare for first-time bands to play at every stop on the tour, but Transit are no strangers to the road. After Warped is over, they’ll be heading off to Australia, and then casually jaunting over to the U.K. for a string of October dates. We caught up with guitarist Tim Landers at their Mansfield, Mass. Warped Tour stop to chat about the band’s New England roots, influences, and what it was like to grow up as a pop-punk kid in a metalcore world.

OS: It’s the first time on Warped Tour for you guys. How has it been? Have there been particular stops that have stood out so far?

TL: It’s been awesome. Our reception has been better than we could have imagined or hoped for, especially given that we’re doing two sets a day. We get to play as many songs as we really want to. We can do some acoustic, some electric, and change it up. That’s been really cool. All of the shows have been great, but a lot of the California ones have stood out. We just didn’t expect the reactions here to be as good as they were. Playing California’s always a good time, but these were great.

OS: And is there any extra excitement about the Mansfield date, as it’s kind of a hometown show for you guys?

TL: It’s so good to be back. It’s funny, because we don’t even get to go back to our houses or anything, but just being in Massachusetts feels good and it’s great to see friends and family. Where you’re from is the best place to play, obviously. We haven’t played our main set yet today, but our acoustic set was the best of the tour, so I just can’t wait.

OS: Like you guys, OurStage is a Boston-based operation. Could you talk about your experience starting out as a band around here?

TL: I could go on for days. I mean, when I started going to shows it was all metalcore bands. They all sounded like Poison The Well, and stuff like that. There was just so much of it. I remember when I first started playing a decent amount of shows, it was me and our drummer Daniel. We played in a pop-punk band, but when we played a lot of shows around the area we’d always be playing with metalcore bands and hardcore bands, which was cool. It was just what we grew up on. And then I think we all just got really frustrated because every band and every show was exactly the same and they were all trying to do the same thing. The reason why we started Transit was to do something that was different. We all loved bands like Saves The Day and Braid, and we wanted to apply their style to the band that we started. But the music scene in Boston is always changing, and it’s never the same thing. It went through this very hardcore phase, and now there aren’t even many hardcore bands in Boston.  Continue reading ‘Exclusive Q and A: Transit Talk Boston Band Scene & Their First Warped Experience’

Being in an all-girl rock band requires three key things: tough skin, business savvy, and, most importantly, an insane amount of talent. The four young ladies who make up alt-rock group Cherri Bomb have got all three down to a science. For Nia and Rena Lovelis, Miranda Miller, and Julia Pierce, rock stardom is just over the horizon, making it even harder to believe that their average age is just fifteen. Guided by manager Sam Maloney (drummer for Hole, Mötley Crüe, and Eagles of Death Metal) this group of rock prodigies have already shared the stage with some of their idols, like My Chemical Romance and the Foo Fighters, and released a full-length album, This Is The End Of Control. We caught up with Cherri Bomb at the Mansfield, Mass. date of the Vans Warped Tour to learn more about their influences, fashion inspiration, and plans for the rest of the year. Boys, take note…this is how it’s done.

OS: You guys have made history this year. How does it feel to be the youngest all-girl band to play this tour?

JP: It feels really good because we’ve always wanted to play Warped Tour, but we didn’t know when that would ever happen. Not only because we’re young and we’re girls does that make it feel special, but also being with other bands that we look up to, that we can kind of make friends with…that’s also really cool.

OS: Are there any bands on this tour that you really love and grew up listening to?

JP: I like a lot of the bands on the line up. Sleeping With Sirens, Of Mice and Men, Falling In Reverse…

OS: Were you nervous at all to come out on this tour? It’s notorious for being a rough experience, but it can be especially scary being the only young girls on a huge tour filled with rock bands…

MM: We prepared really hard for this. We rehearsed constantly and we put the show together. We knew it was going to be hard and there’s a lot of challenges on Warped Tour, but we were so excited. There’s no room for nervousness.

OS: Tell us about working with your manager, Sam Maloney.

NL: She helps us a lot, she gives us a lot of advice. She leads us away from any potholes. She’s a great manager and she’s also a musician, so she knows a lot about both sides of the business, which is amazing.

OS: Who would you say are your biggest influences? Do all of the band members listen to the same music, or do you have a wide variety of tastes?

NL: Our musical taste is all over the place. I really like Marilyn Manson, A Perfect Circle… [Julia] likes a lot of hardcore bands. But we kind of all go everywhere, from Regina Spektor to Korn.

Continue reading ‘Exclusive Q and A: Cherri Bomb Separate The Girls From The Boys’