Single: “Calling You” Out Now on iTunes

Taken from the album Coming Home which is out now!

As you’d expect from a band who share their moniker with a Bruce Springsteen album, The Rising play impassioned guitar-charged rock, shot through with a smart pop sensibility and everyman lyrical sentiments wholeheartedly expressed. The kind of thing, in fact, that has made The Boss such an endearing global figure. Then there’s the Nashville influence – listen hard and you can hear the polished country nuances of Keith Urban, Lady Antebellum and the multi-million unit shifting Taylor Swift.

Just as their native Belfast reinvented itself after more than three decades of being a bad news story, so The Rising have emerged from the ashes of another band, EXIT. Then a four-piece, they released a brace of well-received EPs and were championed by Kerrang magazine, who applauded their “enormous, stadium-seeking choruses” and a sound “as outsized as a monster truck at Kwik-Fit”. Classic Rock went further, exclaiming: “You can imagine watching this band on stage in a 20,000-seater arena with the crowd singing along to every word.” The quartet paid their dues on the live circuit, supporting the likes of Starsailor, Twin Atlantic, Journey South, Aslan, Sweet Savage and former Mama’s Boys frontman Pat McManus.

So why the name change? Simple – EXIT wanted to make music that was less rowdy and more refined, to replace the overt rock mannerisms with subtle pop stylings. With the line-up reduced to a leaner trio – singer Tristan Harris, guitarist Chris Logan and bassist Andy Morgan. Logan acknowledged the new roots-based direction, adding banjo and mandolin to his repertoire of instruments and so The Rising were born.

Their debut album is already in the can. Coming Home was recorded in Belfast, Nashville and Los Angeles, by several different producers, among them Grammy Award-winning engineer Hank Williams, renowned for his work with the aforementioned Urban and Swift, as well as Brad Paisley. It affirms that The Rising know their way around the sort of big and beautiful hooks that slay the masses, the sort of hooks that are both exhilarating and elevating – sustenance for the soul.

Maverick magazine have included a track from the album on a cover mount CD, lauding its “contemporary vibe, bubbling banjo undercurrents and guitar-driven arrangement reminiscent of one of Keith Urban’s many hits”. And it’s not just the critics that are taking notice of The Rising. American singer-songwriter Matthew Ryan – currently collaborating on a project with The Gaslight Anthem – was so impressed by their YouTube videos, he asked them to record a song of his for the channel. And BBC Radio2 dj Graham Norton has been spinning their music                  too!

You get the sense that this is only the beginning of a really exciting journey.

Website: http://www.therisingmusic.com   / Twitter: https://twitter.com/therisingmusic

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therisingofficial

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/therisingonline

ZERVAS & PEPPER

Single “WE ARE ONE” OUT 9.01.15

‘We Are One’ is the second single taken from the forthcoming Zervas & Pepper album. With its West-Coast Hippie/Dead-head anthemic chorus, the song drives home the message that loneliness is not an option and that together in the warmth of the sun we can all be something bigger than just one alone. ‘We Are One’ sees the band who are fresh from the UK festival circuit sounding like a Hi-Fidelity Fleetwood Mac / Jefferson Airplane hybrid.

Recorded in rural Mid-Wales at Giant Wafer studios with Llion Robertson on production duties, the band strive forward for what is to be their third album. Following on from the success of their 2013 album ‘Lifebringer’ the band continue to deliver their own brand of Cosmic Folk-Rock.

Their most recent single ‘These Blurred Lines’ spent 4 weeks on BBC Radio Wales and RTE 1 rotation playlists. BBC 6 Music’s DJ Don Letts gave his approval giving the band “Respect in every way”. BBC Scotland’s Ricky Ross comparing the band to West Coast sounds of Joni Mitchell’s LA Express.

‘We Are One’ is released on 9/1/2015 and it has already received playlisting on Radio Wales, spot plays on Radcliffe and Macconie, Donn Letts, Terry Wogan, Janice Long and a live session on BBC Radio 2 with Richard Madeley. Zervas & Pepper continue to record their third ‘as yet untitled’ album due for release April 2015. See www.zervasandpepper.com for more info on the band.

SUTTER ZACHMAN’S REPEAT OFFENDER EP OUT this week 9.1.15 FROM MODERN ROOTS

 

‘Repeat Offender’ is Sutter Zachman’s 4-track EP that Modern Roots Music Co. has proudly released. The EP includes “Back To Sleep,” a song that has enjoyed airtime across Ireland from Rte to BBC and Regional Radio along with parts of the UK over the summer of 2014. Repeat Offender was produced by Modern Roots’ founder Jimmy Sloan who has worked with a broad range of artists including The Blind Boys Of Alabama, Fishbone, Weezer and Dave Alvin as producer and/or recording engineer. Dave Jerden (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane’s Addiction, Talking Heads) mixed three of the EPs four songs, all of which were recorded last year at Seahorse Sound in downtown LA.

 Zachman, 26, a Southern California native, wrote all of the Repeat Offender material. A student of the songwriting of Nick Lowe, Van Morrison, Robbie Robertson and Ron Sexsmith, he signed his first major music publishing deal when he was barely out of his ’teens. One UK pundit said of Zachman that he is “blessed with a warm and woodsy voice that would have been right at home in 1970s Laurel Canyon…”

Sutter Zachman has developed his own sound while working at odd jobs in small towns across the country from Lawrence, KS to California’s Coachella Valley. Now that he’s based back in Los Angeles, he has reconnected with his roots and has been working with a group of top players who collaborated on the recordings including these Repeat Offender “co-conspirators”: Janson Mandell (bass, vocals), Cameron Meshell (drums, vocals, bass), Angela Russell (violin/vocals), Wallflowers/Foo Fighters’ Rami Jaffe (keyboards) Fishbone’s John Norwood Fisher (bass) and Gap Band veteran Victor Orlando (percussion). See www.sutterzachman.com for more info on this act.