holley4734
Within the next day or so, I’m going to add RLND of San Francisco to the YouTube list. The YouTube recommendations at our house are about to be lit again.
My boyfriend is going to be so stoked. He is a big fan of progressive rock and progressive metal – instrumental or otherwise. At this point in the quarantine, I think he’ll just be glad it’s not “Puppet History” . . . again.
So I’m very excited to welcome RLND to the YouTube feed, as well as the blog. (Insert confetti and party noises here.)
Interview:
Where have you been staying in 2020?
Keith, Alex and Sam live in the Bay Area. Joe lives up in Portland.
What have you been doing during times of quarantine?
Mainly staying at home. Depending on who you are talking to, we have been playing a lot of music, or playing a lot of video games, or cooking a lot, or reading. The main thing for the band is that we are of course unable to play together, which has been a bummer, but at least we have this record to put out.
Have you found or re-found any hobbies?
Joe was baking bread for a while but then he stopped. Does learning to relish being a hermit due to necessity count as a hobby? I guess we have all been working on some music videos for the new release, also. That has been pretty enjoyable.
What have you been listening to lately?
Elder, that most recent Hum record, Shiner, Grand Nationxl, Depeche Mode. Powermetal. Drab Majesty. Keith listens to so much that I can’t even speculate what it might be on a given day.
Has your songwriting process changed this year?
Absolutely. It used to be fairly organic and collaborative, and while it’s still collaborative, it is not nearly as easy given that we can’t be in the room together. These days we are sending riffs back and forth and working off of one another’s stuff. It isn’t leading to any complete work, but there is good stuff coming out of it. It seems like that process might be encouraging us to be a bit more thoughtful with what we are doing. A significant portion of our newest album was written off the cuff in rehearsal, starting with some preconceived initial riffs, and then arranging around those thematically. The new stuff is basically patched together when exchanging riffs online, and we will probably do all the details and arrangement once we are finally able to get together again.
Is there any message that you would like to convey to fans or soon-to-be fans?
When the pandemic is controlled, we plan to leave the house and come see you and give you a reason to leave the house. That will be a great day for everyone.
What is something positive that has happened to you during 2020?
A lot of positives this year to go along with the many dumpster fire negatives – for the band, we made a connection with Andy from Sell the Heart Records, who was kind enough to put out our new record called Zealand. It actually isn’t brand new, but about a year old; we had been struggling with how we wanted to release it, and started putting together a summer tour when the pandemic hit. That long delay actually ended up being a kind of surprise positive, as we were able to take the time to make videos for (hopefully) every song on the record.
Connect with RLND:
I like it, and also love the photo of them you shared.
It is a really cool photo. 🙂 Glad you like the music. ❤