BCE Blogs: BC Rocks

Interview with a survivor

Below are my notes from my interview with "Pistol Pete" Midtgard, frontman/bassist of Detroit's The Twistin' Tarantulas. They are unedited. The story runs Thursday in WOW.

Twistin’ Tarantulas at Bell’s — info@twistintarantulas.com

BAND MEMBERS:

Pistol Pete

Gtr., original player (gone for 10 years), Gorgeous George Friend, backup vocals, vocals

Drummer: Randy Gacki, “John Wayne” Gacki

YOU’RE A SURVIVOR. WHAT DRIVES YOU?

Same band member, he only all the way through

“I physically survived it, I didn’t financially survive it.” — bladder cancer, diagnosed September 2002, two months after dad died, in middle of cutting vocals for third record, went to bathroom, had internal bleeding, went through surgery and chemical treatments and grew back, surgery and more chemical treatments, grew back again, over two years, “It took me, a pretty good battle. It’s not a real serious dangerous, away from death’s door, but there was a period there when I didn’t know.” — Wasn’t sure if it spread, if insured, send to pathology lab that gives results quickly, “Since I wasn’t insured, going to hospital in downtown Detroit and sending to pathology lab connected to clinic down there, backed up a month. That’s the nature of being uninsured. What they don’t tell you, not enough stories out there, the real problem I had with being uninsured was not hte money, it was how I got treated. You’re third-world to them. I had money, but they don’t know that. All you are to them is an uninsured patient, probably not gonna pay them.” Charge you more than they get back from Blue Cross.

Pay up front $3,400, didn’t include surgeon, anethsesian, radiology, pathology. Payment plan $7,200, “Those are the kinda stories weren’t told enough, I think.”

In remission by 2004, record came out 2003, wasn’t able to tour on it, “I was halfway through that album, found out was sick, it crippled my biz.”

“If I had a job that gave me insurance, still have time to play music, I’m sure. But I made the decision a long time ago, after, maybe 2 years in tarantulas, at that point, before tarantulas already earning okay living playing pikcup gigs with blues bands, haven’t had a day job since 92, once tarantulas got going by 95, I was earning a better living than anything else I’d ever done. I just made a decision at that point, this is my vocation, this is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life. I’m a bassist, I’m a singer, I’m a songwriter, along with all the stuff that comes with all the stuff that comes with being a band leader: driving the van, fucking band manager, booking agent.”

“Everybody has an ego that does get wounded sometimes, so just being the bandleader means tiptoing around people’s feelings.”

“It also means them having to tiptoe around mine, which is a lot of tip-toing. Its probably subsided, probably a pe-riod of time when I had a pretty big head. But I never thought I was going to amount to anything in my 20s, when I was 32, I had amounted to something.”

“Kept gaining all this momentum and ganing attention, but we weren’t doing anything new, at least we thought so. But turns out because of where we were from, oddball thing of influences, came up with a hybrid of things. Didn’t sound like other rockabilly bands. Didn’t sound like other blues bands. Didn’t sound odd, it was just unique. Had our own brand, our own way of doing it. That’s what gets attention, being able to own what you do.”

WHAT DREW YOU TO YOUR STYLE OF MUSIC?

“I’d always listened to it ... Honestly, I think my first exposure to rockabilly, except for old Elvis and AM radio play-ing Summertime Blues once in a while, I went to see Roxy Music in, I think the summer of 77, Manifesto album tour and the opening act was Robert Gordon. Robert Gordon was a rockabillly singer, had a band before that called Tough Darts ... Here’s this Robert Gordon guy got upright bass, Lynn Grey playing gtr ... singing Johnny Burnette covers and stuff, I’m thinking this is cool and they got booed cuz it was a Roxy music show, even though Roxy was a classier act that most arena bands ... Sucked he got boed, he cut his set short, so I bought his record ...

“I dug up Eddie Cochrane, gene Vincent, Johnny Burnete, old Sun sessions of Elvis, listened to that stuff. Kind of into it before Stray Cats hit and they’re the ones that really created this movement that still exists. It’s a double-edged sword for me: One one end, created this scene that’s still other, but on other hand, they put eye makeup on rockabilly and they sorta stigmatized it, mad eit into that 50s sha-na-na thing, so ppl have this pre-conceived notion. Talk to agent on phone, they say, oh, like the stray cats, and then you have to start backpeddling. We have a much stronger blues, and jump blues and punk edge. How do you explain that to a club owner? You start losing them cuz those are con-flicting things, but then you see the band and tehy say, oh ... the punk edge is just in the delivery, just in the intensity, especially wtih George back cuz he and I are sort of the architects of this unique blend. And it came from tension between he and I when we were starting to play together.”

George uptown edge and Pete rock, “Okay, we’re gonna play tis jazzy stuff and we’re gonna play it harder.”

“The compromise in the middle becomes the meat.”

“It’s much clearer to me now than ever was before what we were and what was interesting to people.”

“I went probably eight years, 10 years having the band and never gave it that much credit. Thought put a good show on in a genre still popular ... I chalked it up to that, but when we continude to draw and do realy when after that whole thing burned and fizzled out, I’ve gone another 8 years since then ... I realized we’ve got something that goes beyond what this rockabilly crowd likes.”

“I got my hair slicked back, that’s about it. There’s no leopard print, no dice, creepers, no cherries.”

WHAT KIND OF IMPACT DO YOU HOPE TO HAVE ON YOUR LISTENERS?

“Oh, jeeze, I don’t know. There’s an answer to that question, just not coming to me right now. I’ve always gotten a lot of attention as being a pretty agressive and unique upright player. Most of the attention focused on my bass play-ing, something ppl don’t see all the time, so get up on stage, gets a lot of attention. I’ve always wanted the attention to be more on teh songwriting. I want someone to listen to my record and think, wow, this guy really writes good song. Combined with hybrid of styles we’ve come up with, the songwriting, and not just writing but composition ... (George) ... That’s what still holds up. The rockabilly thing, especially now, been done to death, kinda fizzled out most places. We’re still able to get booked and able to get out there and turn a crowd on pretty good and I chalk it up to the fact that the songs still hold up. Over the eyars, it’s been the key to our survival.”

Also allows them to stand out, “All the other bands end up sounding the same, but we get up there, we don’t have cuter outfits than the other bands, and we get up there and get more respect because of the songs.”

Lyrics atypical. Love song opener: “You sure don’t make a pretty picture, I’ve never seen you look so bad.”

“How do you write a love song like that? But I’m proud of that song.”

Married now a couple a years, “I got a good’n.”

WHAT BEST SUMS UP YOUR BAND?

“The overall aesthetic of us ... In the end, it really is, not a lot of bands can say this, it is a thing that has existed and sub-existed based on some central theme, I know what it is but hard to define. I’m the one that keeps that receipe together, the sound, the look or lack thereof, the sense of humor when we’re performing ... I think there is a healthy sarcasm. It’s healthy sarcasm. It’s not over-the-top, not snarky, not condescending, and that’s where the punk edge is. There’s a healthy sarcasm to it. Unhealthy is when it’s not funny anymore, when they say they’re kidding but not kid-ding anymore, they’re just being mean. Some cynisim, but to me, jsut the right amount of cynicism.

“I like to deal with character in songs.” Plays different characters in different songs ... “Even though I write almost exclusively in first person, I’m not that person.”

Barroom Confidential is from take of guy striking out at bar

The Who Dat?

I think there's some sort of rule in this macro age of technology that says 5 minutes after an event, it's OLD NEWS. So it's crazy for me, a young buck champion of techno-journalism, to be writing 2 DAYS after the Super Bowl about the New Orleans Saints and The Who.

Oh, well. I've never been a fan of rules, anyway.

The only time I've visited New Orleans was when I was 14, the year my brother and I hopped a train there — by way of Houston — to Charlotte, N.C. to see our father. We were there only for one evening, but that traipse down Bourbon Street left a lasting impression on me, and at least a small corner of my heart has always been held for that city.

There was music everywhere on that sweaty July night, thick old blues and some rock popping out of the open doorways to every bar, through which went many party-hunters with plastic cups full of beer and Kentucky whiskey. And suggestive silhouettes in the windows ...

That's why I wept hard for the city during Katrina and still pray for them, and that is why I laughed hardily and slapped my table at the Ball Joint when Tracy Porter caught that interception and sped back 74 yards for the touchdown that demoralized those uppity Colts for the remainder of the game. Who Dat would win the Super Bowl and the entire city of New Orleans reveled.

The weight of that game for New Orleans put extra emphasis on the spectacle for the entire country, I think. That's why it was the most-watched TV program of all time. America was behind this underdog and everyone wanted to see the little guy bounce back by trouncing who many call the best quarterback in the league.

That's why The Who's Super Bowl performance was disappointing, to me.

Super Bowl concerts are important to music heads and rock history. For folks like me who are music junkies first and football fans second, the choice for the Super Bowl Halftime Show is usually more interesting than the teams that show up for the game.

The Who was a strong choice. A music legend for what promised to be a legendary game, in terms of Americana history. And paralleling the band "The Who" with the "Who Dat?" nickname given to Super Bowl first-timers the Saints was poetic. I'm a sucker for poetic. Also the band's rendition of its hit, "Who are you?" was quite fitting.

And the concert was good. Pete and Roger were at the tops of their games, still active and flashy even in getting old. The stage setup was amazing, especially the part near the end where the lights on that gizmo surrounding the platform where the band played suddenly showed a silhouetted guitarist seeming to mimic Townshend's signature windmill guitar strokes.

In any other setting, the concert would have been king-hell, but something very important was missing, I believe.

In most halftime shows, the stadium seats empty and the crowd rushes the field for a very intimate experience with the band. I'll never forget the Boss climbing all over people during his Super Bowl XLIII performance.

With The Who's massive stage getup, there was no room for people on the field. The Who were distant aliens who stepped out of their space ship for a quick chat via music. There was no connection to the audeince, and that left a big chunk in my heart. Because America is always connected for the Super Bowl, and with this year's underdog being the patron saints of our wounded city, we were even more together for this one. And music, the great uniter, should have been there to pull us together for a little flesh-on-flesh contact, and it wasn't.

Ah, well.

A terminal lack of a sense of humor

"Insanity is a terminal lack of a sense of humor."

I said that. Write it down.

When you can no longer laugh at yourself, you're in trouble. When things become so serious that they start to take over your every thought pattern, it's time to consider a quick injection of Lithium to even out the brain patterns and get yourself thinking clearly.

Very little in this world is worth falling to pieces over. Fret over things, sure, but just enough to understand the consequences and get things back in order, and then let it slide. Laugh about it as you take the next step toward regaining whatever foothold you lost ...

For example, look at the Tea Party fiascos. That's hilarious. A "party" founded as a raised middle finger to over-reaching, organized governing starting to implode because it lacks any organization. If the tea partiers could laugh at themselves instead of throwing stones at each other, they could ease the strain on their craniums long enough to get back to simply doing what they do instead of arguing about what they do. That thing is a marvelous counter-attack to Obama's trophy grassroots campaign but it's in danger of self-destruction because NOBODY'S LAUGHING.

The same is true in music. Look at those who have lasting power: The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, even U2 ... They're still around because they are able to walk the fine line rock 'n' roll struck between havoc and humor. These are the bands which tackle the most troubling social issues in our time but they remember that they are rock bands, the escape from all that mess, and they laugh in the face of trouble. The most impressive thing about rock 'n' roll is that it says, "The world sucks, but we're gonna have fun while we're going down."

For the most part, they don't shrug off responsibility — in fact, ol' Bono seems to take responsibility for every social injustice he can get his hands on — but they remember to celebrate even their successes and even in the face of failure, they celebrate being alive.

They never stop laughing, so they never stop going.

And woe to the bands (or politicians or anyone) who take themselves to seriously, place themselves on too high a pedestal and fall the farthest ...

Happy Birthday, King

If he were alive today, Elvis Aaron Presley would have turned 75. For music fans, this is a holy day.

Elvis didn't invent rock 'n' roll. Hell, Elvis didn't even perfect rock 'n' roll. True music heads know these accolades are for Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry and Bill Haley.

What Elvis did, friends, was popularize rock 'n' roll and add that final, potent ingredient that made it worldwide: sex appeal.

Berry's backwards-hop-while-playing-blazing-solo was hot, sure, but it had nothing on Elvis' hips and curled lips. With those sunken dark eyes, Elvis took rock 'n' roll from the bluesy basements of the poor and the greaser click and shoved it into popular culture. The term teeny bopper was invented because of people like Elvis. He more or less created youth-marketed media.

He got far too much credit as the "King of Rock 'n' Roll," but he was certainly the forefather of pop-rock as an industry.

Like every great thing, that's had its negative side effects — if it weren't for Elvis, we never would have had to deal with the likes of the Backstreet Boysa and N'Sync — but who knows how rock would have survived without the flush of dollars Elvis shoved into its belly.

I often wonder what kind of music Elvis would be making if he were still around today. I have a feeling he would have tried, in the 1990s and probably once more in the 2000s, to do more upbeat remixes of his old-style of music, the way Paul Oakenfold mixed his tracks for "Rubberneckin'" in 2003. He may have had an ill-advised reach for popdom in the 80s, the way Robert Plant did ...

But mostly, I have a feeling he would have stayed relatively true the unbelievable super-hits he recorded in the 70s, before his 1977 death. He'd play a few shows here and there nowadays, but always to over-crowded major arenas where tickets in the nosebleeds cost $90. There'd be more guitar, a little more drum and bass to thicken that old a-la "Suspicious Minds" sound, but his classics and a classic style would be revered, the way Sinatra was before his death, the way Van Morrison still is today.

And that wouldn't be bad.

Unburying local treasures

In today's WOW, you'll find this column on Dani Jamerson, an Athens 16-year-old who went from a second-place 2008 Tri-County Idol contestant and now has a four-track demo being shopped around labels in Nashville.

I won't rewrite that piece here, but I want to expound a bit on my closing argument.

It was joy to write that ending, knowing that it would show my readers a small success coming from our backyard. A chance to show folks a hard-copy example of a local treasure.

When you find a treasure, if you're smart, you'll cherish it, protect it and nurture it, look at it as an investment and try to make it more valuable.

Dani's not the only one around here who's had some success: A couple weeks ago I wrote a piece about a Coldwater man who recorded an album with LaVerne Tripp in Nashville. The bands Sex & Patriotism and Gods Of Kansas come to mind as local acts who've found themselves on big festival stages alongside big names. And there are dozens more local acts who play better-than-par music but haven't yet caught their break.

Like any piece of gold or diamond, it takes care to keep these local treasures in a condition where they can appreciate in value. We have to support these acts by going to their shows, standing in front them while they're on stage, cheering them on. The bigger crowds they perform in front of here, the bigger crowds they're likely to find elsewhere, hopefully with some big label's money behind them.

Dani was just one example. There are others who will take stages around the area this weekend. Go see them and up their value ...

NOTE: Click here to listen to tracks on "Loud & Local," the Enquirer's online streaming local music player, to listen to other local treasures.

The local get loud

Click here to hear four new tracks on "Loud & Local": "Catch Me," by Dani Jamerson; "This Big Dog Can Run," by Clifford Babcock; "Squeez Tha Trigga," by Trigga Man; and "Without Love," by Electric Jug Band.

For those who aren't familiar with "Loud & Local," it's the Enquirer's streaming local music player. Twenty tracks from Battle Creek- and Kalamazoo-area artists are featured in streaming mp3 format. You can catch it 24-7 on the WOW music page.

For those who are unfamiliar with me, I do what I can to be an advocate for local music. Songs penned in our community are songs about our community, representing the loves, hates, frustrations and angst of our community. Years from now, if well preserved, local music will be the history of our community. Our culture. Battle Creek culture.

There won't be many textbooks printed about the Cereal City, especially about the hearts and minds of the people who live and work here, outside of city government. But the songs, if we play them 50 or 500 years from now, will show how we felt today.

I've featured local musicians in the pages of WOW, profiled them, pointed you to their work. And now I'm doing what I can to bring their work to you.

Good news for a new year

Click that photo above to see the Enquirer's "B.Z. Buzz" photo gallery of New Year's Eve celebrations at Planet Rock, my home away from home.

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Now, on to other good news.

Got a call today from Gary Fields, former owner of the now-shuttered legendary Gary Fields Comedy Club, who told me the blues jam he hosted Tuesday nights at the club are back on in a new location. They're now being held from 7 to 11 p.m. Tuesdays at the Ball Joint on Beckley Road. Click here for the story.

A while back, I wrote a column about the painful disappointments of the ups and downs of the music biz in our little burg. Gary's closure meant no more blues for Battle Creek, essentially, because there was no other venue here hosting blues music on a regular basis, the way Gary did.

And Gary's blues were special: they were jams, the ways the blues were intended to be played. Any musician with enough guts and even a little talent was welcomed on stage with the Gary Fields Comedy Club Band to jam to any number of covers or originals or tunes created right there, on the spot.

And Battle Creek's music scene was built on the blues. As the genre was being born in Detroit and Chicago after the turn of the last century, Battle Creek found itself an almost exact midway point for artists traveling between the two cities. And they stopped in the Cereal City for a rest between gigs and to throw little shows to make a few extra bucks. That's how people like Del Shannon got connected with record executives.

So it was a sad thing to see the blues leave, and it's a great thing to see them back. It's important to hold on to our heritage. I've always believed that if we lose sight of where we began, we'll lose sight of where we can go.

Plus, Gary's bringing his signature wings to the blues nights at the Ball Joint. And if that's wrong, I don't want to be right.

Laziness and looking back

I was living in Houston when the year 2000 rolled around.

That was the first year I'd been invited to a New Year's Eve party, but my mother was terrified of Y2K and the promised Armageddon, so I stayed home. I spent the countdown standing on the balcony to our apartment, wearing shorts and a tank top, drinking champagne with my parents and watching the fireworks go off over the city to the northwest of us ...

All the critics are weighing in on the meaning of music in the past decade, so I figured it was time for me to dust off the blasphemous laziness that's kept me from writing here and share my own wisdom, for what it's worth.

My favorite of the many opines on the meaning of music from 2000 through 2009 is this one from USA Today's Edna Gundersen. She called the last 10 years not the "oh-oh's," for the final digits of the new millennium, but the "uh-oh's," for the devastating blows the music industry suffered since the turn of the century. RollingStone.com has a nice photo gallery.

The past 10 years saw the rise of the iPod and mp3s and the resulting fall of the music industry. When it became easier to download pirated tracks than buy a new CD, people did it, and record stores everywhere shuttered their doors, music industry profits dropped steeply from their 1999 record-breaking numbers and some very big names in rock started promoting their music independently. Labels made moot.

I think that because of that, we saw the first era of modern rock 'n' roll which couldn't be neatly packaged, as Gundersen said, into a neat little decade. This wasn't the British 60s or American revival 70s or nu-wave/hair band 80s or grunge 90s ...

No, the music of the past decade split into innumerable genres, sub-genres and mini-trends that last as little as a few months ... There was emo, screamo, alt-Indie revival, the return of garage, pop re-hit, smart pop, a review of blazing guitar solos a la 80s hair metal ... Sometimes all of these mini revolutions were happening all at once, for, while the music industry was shrinking, the great many beasts of the music consumer was growing (thank you, "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band") ...

Some of the best minds in music are saying this culture cluster bomb has devalued the impact of the song, that an artist's ability to reach a heart is dampered by the fact consumers now are more interested in the digital gadgetry than the songs themselves.

It's hard to pin down an impact, when trying to follow all the many sects of song the past 10 years and give this decade a name, as music critics like to do.

But if you take a step back, a big step back, and look at the whole picture, you see that this decade was one of literally dozens of mini revolutions. The literally unstoppable access to music each music fan had at their mouse-clicks made music personal again, as it hadn't been in at least 30 years.

Before downloads and this wide dizzy array of genres and sub-genres, music fans were mostly subject to whatever genre music execs, TV execs and radio execs decide was cool. When you could only get what they marketed, you took what you could get.

Now, you can get whatever you want, from anywhere, and you can follow, as I often do, local and regional music that big-name labels have never even heard of. I never could have found Medicated Kisses if I relied solely on the record store or MTV.

Music, the great communicator to the soul, is best handled personally. And for that reason, I call the past decade one of the most revolutionary of all modern rock. There. I said it.

This decade has meant a lot to me. It was in 2000 that I decided I wanted to learn guitar and began writing lyrics I would later to put to songs. It was 2001 and it was 2002 I finally figured out how it worked. It was 2003 when I started my own band, 2004 when we put out our first demo, 2005 when we did our first real show, 2006 when I started writing songs I was finally really proud of, 2007 when I ...

And I did most of that inspired by music I found on the Internet.

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OK, just because I can't get out of it, and I am a critic, here are what I would call the two best albums of the past decade. It's gotta be a tie:

• "Relationship of Command," by At the Drive-In — If were to say there were any true genre-creating revolutions of the last decade, I would say it was the emo-screamo-alt-punk-rock At the Drive-In helped forge. I felt more energy coming from these tracks than anything else created in the last 10 years.

• "Stadium Arcadium," by The Red Hot Chili Peppers — Because John Frusciante's guitar playing makes me weep and I feel closer to him because of his notes than I ever felt to my family through years and years of talking.

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What I'm listening to right now:

• "Stockholm Syndrome," by Derek Webb. Best track: "Freddie, Please."

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And one last thing. Click here to vote for your favorite 2009 track from "Loud & Local," the Enquirer's online streaming local music player.

Kathy Mathis-Horry: 'I love me some Battle Creek'

Just got off the phone with Kathy Mathis-Horry, a Battle Creek Central High School graduate who has gone on to record several secular and gospel hits.

She'll perform in Mill Race Park at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, singing some singles from her upcoming Christmas CD, "The Gift." She'll also sign copies of her book, "From Grace to Glory," at Mildred's Boutique, 15 W. Michigan Ave.

Here's my brief conversation with her:

WHY A CHRISTMAS CD?

“Well, it was something on my heart for the last few years, an awesome time of year to bring joy and my way of bringing joy, in most cases, is through music, not the only way, but through music. It was soon to come, just waiting for the right opp to come forth. Just looking forward to a great CD, has about 13 songs people are just gonna love. I have some originals and traditional carols.”

WHAT KIND OF IMPACT HOPE TO HAVE?

“I always want to, I feel like I have music that touches the soul and so, you know, as we go into this season of sharing and people showing love, I just want to touch people’s hearts and make them joyful and bring laughter to their hearts, a smile to their hearts, just forget about any cares and just appreciate life, appreciate just good sounds, good songs and just make them very merry.”

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU TO BE COMING BACK TO BATTLE CREEK?

“Well, you know, the Wiz (Wizard of Oz) put it best, there’s no plaze like home. I mean that from the sincerity of my heart. I have many family members there, relatives. I don’t know if I’ll ever get back there, but my heart longs to get back there just to make an impression on our youth of tomorrow, just to impart knowledge in the next generation to come and I just have such a love for my hometown. I mean, I love me some Battle Creek.

“I’ve always just had that wherever I have lived — I left Battle Creek and went to Atlanta, I was there for 7 years and then I moved to Washington, D.C. and I was there for 12 ears and there I was able to obtain my degree from the University of Maryland — each place I went I longed for home, though I knew I was here for a reason, to get what I’m supposed to get and move on. Now I’m here in Missouri, but I still just have that longing to be home. It’s just gonna mean the world to me. I feel sincere love and sometimes you just gotta go home to feel the love and appreciation, so I am looking so forward to it.”

“Just to walk the grounds of my old alma mater is just going to be heaven.”

Remedy Drive coming to Richland

Here's a press release from my inbox:

Band of Brothers, Remedy Drive, Maintains Road Warriors Status in Midst of Fall Tour

LOCAL INFORMATION:
City/State:                  Richland, MI
Date/Time:                  Saturday, October 10 @ 6:00 PM
Location:                     Richland Bible Church
Ticket Price:                $12 General Admission Advance; $15 At the Door
Order Online:               http://www.rushconcerts.com/
Information #:            269-629-9622

Nashville, Tennessee (October 2, 2009)— Word Record’s popular four-piece rock outfit Remedy Drive is set to hit to road this fall after a successful run on the summer festival circuit. Ever the road warriors, Remedy Drive is on tour with fellow rockers Fireflight and Abandon during October and November for “The Hope Tour.” 
Shortly after wrapping up that tour, Remedy Drive will be featured on the Family Force Five Christmas Pageant Tour with House of Heroes. Sure to kick off the season right, the Christmas Pageant tour is set to stop in fourteen cities with more dates being added. Remedy Drive is on a mission to spread the holiday spirit and give to those in need by asking fans to bring canned goods to give as a donation to local foods banks.
Over the course of the summer the band played in front of more than 250,000 fans, with an audience of 65,000 at South Dakota’s Lifelight Festival. To wrap up the successful summer, Remedy Drive performed at Universal Studio’s annual Rock the Universe event alongside acts such as Switchfoot, Jeremy Camp, and David Crowder Band in mid-September.
            “We are so glad to be going out [on tour] with such great rock bands,” says lead singer David Zach. “We’ve been running into Fireflight and Abandon at festivals this summer and both of their sets are really entertaining. All of us in Remedy Drive are excited to see everyone on this tour!”
The band’s smash hit single “All Along” burned up the radio charts all the way to the number one slot for six consecutive weeks (CHR) before releasing their latest song to radio “Heartbeat”, which immediately began connecting with listeners nationwide. Hailing from the Midwest, the band is spreading their music all over the country and is one of the most buzzed about acts in Christian music.

For a full list of tour dates and more information on Remedy Drive, please visit www.remedydrive.com