Field Dispatch
Rivia | Matt Connarton Unleashed
Speaker 1: There it is. I love it. That is such a
Speaker 1: great track, piece of view. The band is Rivia And
Speaker 1: let's see. I know we've got members of the band
Speaker 1: on the line. Let's see who we've got. Welcome everybody,
Speaker 1: can you hear me? Oh, it's always such a relief
Speaker 1: when this works. You know, these international calls don't always
Speaker 1: go as planned. Welcome to the show, Welcome back, I
Speaker 1: should say. I know you've been on before, but it's
Speaker 1: been a while since we've talked. Uh, who do we have?
Speaker 1: Who do we have with us from the band?
Speaker 2: Full house, all of us?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Nice, nice, wonderful. So how are things, Uh, how are
Speaker 1: things going over there? Says what did we talk last?
Speaker 1: It's been a few months, right, I think we talked
Speaker 1: after the release of Fallen. Was the last time we
Speaker 1: had you on? Correct?
Speaker 2: Yeah? That was a July definitely in the year, wasn't it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, loads of gigs spinning the studio, festivals, stock.
Speaker 1: Too, wonderful, wonderful, So you had to you had a
Speaker 1: busy summer.
Speaker 5: It sounds like, hell, yeah, it's been it's been great.
Speaker 1: Outstanding, outstanding. Tell me about tell me about festivals. What
Speaker 1: what festivals have you done? Because I always say festivals
Speaker 1: are such a fantastic opportunity for for bands, especially younger
Speaker 1: new bands like you, new were bands like you, because
Speaker 1: not only does it get you in front of audiences,
Speaker 1: large audiences that might not otherwise come across you, but
Speaker 1: it's also such a fantastic networking opportunity too. You know,
Speaker 1: you get in front of new fans, but you also
Speaker 1: get in front of of people in the industry and
Speaker 1: and other artists that you might work with in the
Speaker 1: future or have worked with in the past. Even But
Speaker 1: what what are some of the festivals that y'all did
Speaker 1: this past summer.
Speaker 2: We've done a couple.
Speaker 6: I mean, the most most memorable for us is because
Speaker 6: we made a weekend out at Isle of Wight Festival.
Speaker 6: So we'll drive down hop on the ferry and then
Speaker 6: head into Islow eight and that was a full weekend,
Speaker 6: well just all of it, but the all weekend. Yeah,
Speaker 6: we brought some posters down with us and just meeting
Speaker 6: a loads of people and chatting about the band and
Speaker 6: just made it really personal to no seeing them come
Speaker 6: down to the show and never even there of us,
Speaker 6: and then they just meet us with a post say
Speaker 6: come to our show, please come We got some.
Speaker 3: Nice messages after that as well, people, and we've had
Speaker 3: a few comments on things on YouTube and stuff saying,
Speaker 3: you know, like this was a really nice thank you
Speaker 3: for coming and saying all those us was so glad
Speaker 3: we caught your set and stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it goes to show that that human interactions still
Speaker 4: goes a long way, like oh, definitely.
Speaker 1: That's a yeah. And that's a good reminder too, because
Speaker 1: as Ai continues to uh to take hold of you know, especially,
Speaker 1: I mean, it affects everything, but it certainly is effecting
Speaker 1: the music industry. So uh, that's a good thing to
Speaker 1: remind people about the importance of human interaction, especially when
Speaker 1: it comes to music or any kind of art that
Speaker 1: you're making. How does a piece of you must go
Speaker 1: over really well live? I would imagine the song's got
Speaker 1: such a great energy about it. I just love it
Speaker 1: so much. How does that go over? How does that
Speaker 1: go over live? Because I would imagine, I mean, do
Speaker 1: you do you open or close your set with it?
Speaker 1: Or where do you put it in the set?
Speaker 5: It's usually second, doesn't it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Seconds?
Speaker 6: And then it's it's a little bit heavier than some
Speaker 6: of the other stuff that we've done. So we before
Speaker 6: we were unsure on how it will go down, but
Speaker 6: the reaction to it's been really good so far.
Speaker 2: It's made mistake. Should we just go a bit heavy? Right? Right?
Speaker 5: Gets the people.
Speaker 1: Going like it is a little more aggressive than the
Speaker 1: other songs. But I love it. I love it. There's
Speaker 1: almost this is you know what I hear? What I
Speaker 1: hear in that song. There's almost like a sort of
Speaker 1: a desperation to it and and earnestness maybe that's a
Speaker 1: better word. Who wrote that? Who in the bed did
Speaker 1: you all write that together? Or who wrote the song?
Speaker 4: So the the instruments are a team effort, like everyone
Speaker 4: puts the bits on it, and Matt and my hello.
Speaker 5: Wrote the lyrics for it.
Speaker 4: And for me, it's basically like sort of it's about
Speaker 4: about getting revenge basically, but but knowing and being aware
Speaker 4: enough to know that it's not the right thing to do. Yeah,
Speaker 4: So it's it's tackling trying to tackle the sort of
Speaker 4: thoughts and the feelings that you get when you've been
Speaker 4: wronged and you want to you want to get revenge
Speaker 4: on people who've done done you wrong, but you know
Speaker 4: better effectively and just trying to trying to grapple with
Speaker 4: that and trying to move forward with that. And like
Speaker 4: I've I've been on a bit of a journey personally
Speaker 4: of trying to look after myself a little bit more
Speaker 4: and trying to trying to live life a little bit
Speaker 4: healthier and things like that and be a bit more positive.
Speaker 4: So it's really sort of it's a it's a it's
Speaker 4: a time capsual for me lyrically, and in that respect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's I think it's really good and
Speaker 1: I think that you know, the theme that you just described,
Speaker 1: I think is universal. I think we've all had moments
Speaker 1: like that, situations where you know what you're thinking about,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to get revenge on somebody, and you know,
Speaker 1: as you get older, you learn you know, really the
Speaker 1: best revenge is living well and being successful. But but
Speaker 1: but we certainly have, we certainly have those situations occur,
Speaker 1: no doubt, no doubt. Now what what what is the
Speaker 1: what is the plan? I mean, you know, you've released
Speaker 1: some great singles and I think I think one of you,
Speaker 1: at the start of our conversation said something about being
Speaker 1: in the studio. Are you working on an album or
Speaker 1: do you have another single? You're working on or what's
Speaker 1: kind of the future plan.
Speaker 4: So we have we have another one sort of in
Speaker 4: the chamber, ready ready to fire, and then we're going
Speaker 4: we're going back in the studio on Monday actually to
Speaker 4: do another one to follow that up, and then if
Speaker 4: all goes well, next year, I think we'd really like
Speaker 4: to do an album. I feel like we're at that
Speaker 4: sort of point as a band where we kind of
Speaker 4: want to do that, but it's just a case of
Speaker 4: whether we can make it happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the time, the time tying, I love to oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no doubt. I you know, I'm old enough
Speaker 1: to remember when it was you know, you release an
Speaker 1: album and then first single goes to radio six eight
Speaker 1: weeks before the album comes out, and then if everything
Speaker 1: goes well, you know, you release the album, and then
Speaker 1: if everything goes well, you get a second single and
Speaker 1: and maybe a third single and so forth. But today
Speaker 1: there's so many different ways to release music, and yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of the guests that we have on the
Speaker 1: show in these times are are just doing a series
Speaker 1: of singles and just kind of seeing which does keep
Speaker 1: you well engaged, you know, in terms of the algorithms
Speaker 1: with social media and whatnot if you're you know, because
Speaker 1: you release, if you release an album, you know, you
Speaker 1: get that big bump from that, and then you don't
Speaker 1: necessarily depending on what happens after that, you don't necessarily
Speaker 1: get get a lot of traction on social media. But
Speaker 1: releasing a series of singles and maybe when you do,
Speaker 1: if the goal is to do an album, will the
Speaker 1: singles Maybe I haven't thought this far ahead, but I'll
Speaker 1: just ask you, will the singles that you've released so
Speaker 1: far be a part of that album or will the
Speaker 1: will the album be a completely separate thing? Do you think?
Speaker 3: And I think there might be one or two that
Speaker 3: have to be Yeah, Yeah, there something that we have
Speaker 3: talked about re recording and the like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's tunes that we've.
Speaker 3: Got in the set that we've had for years that
Speaker 3: we would like. We've always said that's going on the album.
Speaker 4: They've sort of as we've played them over the years,
Speaker 4: they've they've evolved into not new songs.
Speaker 5: But they're definitely.
Speaker 4: And they're sort of different in their versions and and
Speaker 4: how we sort of play them. And Yeah, the standard
Speaker 4: that we're right now as a band, we'd love to
Speaker 4: sort of get back in the studio and redo them
Speaker 4: and do them to the standard that that we could
Speaker 4: do them to now would be really cool.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. And to be able to do them
Speaker 1: too with the current lineup, right, because Rush, you've been
Speaker 1: in the band for a while just you joined this
Speaker 1: year correct.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I joined like kind of towards the end of April,
Speaker 7: so what like sexally seven months, so it's fairly recent. Well,
Speaker 7: it feels like I've been here forever.
Speaker 1: That's good, that's good. Yeah.
Speaker 3: It was a funny moment where because we said we'll
Speaker 3: do like a little trial period Shaw we get on
Speaker 3: you know, for all Joe and that, and then we
Speaker 3: came to the end of that trial period and basically
Speaker 3: like Rush came in and went, so, are we gonna
Speaker 3: have a discussion about you know, like being being in
Speaker 3: the band and stuff, And we just went, oh, we thought.
Speaker 2: You were in.
Speaker 7: Plan And I was like, you know, it's the trials
Speaker 7: coming to and they're like, okay, break it up and
Speaker 7: be like, you know.
Speaker 4: What am I in?
Speaker 2: We're still in trial. Didn't realize.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's funny, But that's how you know it's a
Speaker 1: good fit, right when when some of you didn't even
Speaker 1: you know, give it another thought. It was just like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: this makes sense, and then but it's good.
Speaker 2: That was the big giveaway for us. Now we were like, yeah,
Speaker 2: definitely the one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh that's excellent. That's excellent going into I mean
Speaker 1: now that we're jeez, I can't believe it's already almost
Speaker 1: the end of October? Are you? Are you still playing
Speaker 1: a lot of shows? As I know in the United States,
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of bands, they kind of
Speaker 1: they don't go into hibernation. They're still working, but they
Speaker 1: kind of use, at least in this part of the
Speaker 1: country where it gets cold in the winter, they kind
Speaker 1: of use winter time to maybe focus more on recording
Speaker 1: because traveling isn't so great when it's snowing and icy out.
Speaker 1: But I mean, what, what's kind of your plan? Are
Speaker 1: you still playing a lot of shows now? Do you
Speaker 1: plan to play through the winter or I don't even
Speaker 1: know what the winter is like exactly where you are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's not it's not great. It's definitely wet.
Speaker 6: Ye've got a couple to see us out, But that's
Speaker 6: the plan for those as well, to be honest, do
Speaker 6: some bits behind the scenes and they out again next year.
Speaker 6: So we've got two Liverpool shows, you know, one on
Speaker 6: Halloween which will all go in this pilots.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we want we want everyone to everyone.
Speaker 6: Rib Crews taking a nice and we've got there on
Speaker 6: the sixth of December as well, which was really good,
Speaker 6: really good line up on that. So we're looking forward
Speaker 6: to that and you know, who knows something some might
Speaker 6: come our way.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 6: I was just squeeze in there, but at the moment
Speaker 6: definitely slowed down a little bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we want to focus only on writing
Speaker 3: for next year.
Speaker 1: Excellent, excellent. Oh by the way too, I wanted to
Speaker 1: circle back to a piece of you for a moment.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask about the video because I love
Speaker 1: the video. It's really really cool. I like that. I
Speaker 1: really dig the whole aesthetic of it, and and I
Speaker 1: was just curious if that was something that you all
Speaker 1: did on your own, or if you worked with with somebody,
Speaker 1: or how did the video come about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was quite funny.
Speaker 6: It was just kind of yeah, yeah, it was kind
Speaker 6: of it was just an idea that come to us
Speaker 6: and we went, what's the best and cheapest way we
Speaker 6: can do this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it ended up being Matt in the alley.
Speaker 6: We're holding the hose pipe over his head on the
Speaker 6: waterfall mode and one of.
Speaker 2: Us fell in with it and that was it and
Speaker 2: stick it in black and White's good to go.
Speaker 3: Well, you can't see behind the cameras me and was
Speaker 3: in suits because we just come from where Yeah he's
Speaker 3: old pipe molding the camera and.
Speaker 5: Post just laughing at me while I'm shivering. End right,
Speaker 5: it's a good idea for like shark time called dragons
Speaker 5: then no warm hose pipes.
Speaker 1: Well, if you go down, I mean, if you can,
Speaker 1: if you can come up with something that that is cheap,
Speaker 1: you know, but but still looks cool, then you've got
Speaker 1: something right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: That's some really good some good feedback.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, videos cost us a few quids.
Speaker 5: Yeah that was maybe three pounds.
Speaker 1: There you go. Oh you've also got this is cool too,
Speaker 1: by the way, and I want our listeners to know
Speaker 1: about this on YouTube. The piece of you Rivia in
Speaker 1: Matchbox Studio is a live recording and this is really
Speaker 1: good too. This is really cool, Thank you, Sean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we love those guys.
Speaker 6: Batchbox are great over there, and you've got an amazing
Speaker 6: studio the recording as well as well as all the
Speaker 6: video stuff the package. Man, Yeah, the spot on make
Speaker 6: really nice lads.
Speaker 2: That was a good day.
Speaker 6: Every done Falling there as well. Yeah, so yeah, that's
Speaker 6: really good.
Speaker 1: Do you intend to continue to work with them?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely, Yeah, yeah I did the live The live
Speaker 3: videos are great with them and they do go down well.
Speaker 3: Falling Us now you can know, go and see that
Speaker 3: on the on YouTube as well.
Speaker 2: Ready to go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so if anybody listening, it's only on YouTube. You
Speaker 3: can see the full thing if you want to go see.
Speaker 2: It, but we'd recommend them. That's to anyone for videos
Speaker 2: or the fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah. Oh there's also two Falling. There's this
Speaker 1: this acoustic version live from Northwest Connection that's also very
Speaker 1: very cool. We're going to play actually at the end
Speaker 1: of our conversation today too, we're going to play Falling
Speaker 1: to close out Side because that's another that's another great,
Speaker 1: great track.
Speaker 2: But I forgot me to that was the boss.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks like it looks like there's only three
Speaker 1: of you there, but the the oh this was yeah
Speaker 1: live from Northwest Connect. What is Northwest Connection?
Speaker 2: So that those guys.
Speaker 5: With the same talents as that.
Speaker 6: Can't remember the exact location, but it's a really cool spot.
Speaker 2: A radio station, a podcast.
Speaker 8: Mm hmmm, so we were we were on the podcast
Speaker 8: where we had a good, good shot for a good
Speaker 8: forty five minutes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a couple of tubes, Yeah, good luck with them.
Speaker 1: Very nice, very nice.
Speaker 4: So what.
Speaker 1: I know I've asked you this question before the last
Speaker 1: time we talked, but for were listeners, are people who
Speaker 1: aren't familiar with you tell us about the name? I'm
Speaker 1: sure this is probably you probably hate this question because
Speaker 1: you probably get asked this question every single day of
Speaker 1: your lives. But what does that? What does Rivia mean?
Speaker 4: It's it's from It's from the Witcher if if you
Speaker 4: know what that is. It's a it was a series
Speaker 4: of books that got turned into video games that's now
Speaker 4: a crappy Netflix show. Yeah, and basically the main guy
Speaker 4: and it's called Garrels of Rivia.
Speaker 8: And when we were when we were making the band,
Speaker 8: I really I fell in love with this character. Basically,
Speaker 8: I just thought he was the coolest dude ever. And
Speaker 8: I was like, Riva is a really cool name. And
Speaker 8: then I was like, are there any other bands called Rivia?
Speaker 5: And look through the.
Speaker 8: Fire Instagram like every sort of music thing you can find,
Speaker 8: and there was no bands called Rivia, so we were like, well,
Speaker 8: that's that's a good start. The rarely condensed version of
Speaker 8: the story is he's in the sort of books. He's
Speaker 8: not actually from there. He sort of goes there and
Speaker 8: he saves them and they accept him.
Speaker 2: And I thought it was.
Speaker 8: Really cool, the idea of like, it doesn't matter where
Speaker 8: you come from, it's what you do that defines who
Speaker 8: you are.
Speaker 1: Yes, I like that. I like that very much. That
Speaker 1: is that's excellent. So what is now? What's kind of
Speaker 1: the short term? Do you do you have where's your
Speaker 1: Obviously we're in the United States, but we have listeners everywhere.
Speaker 1: When is when is your next show? When do you
Speaker 1: do you have anything this weekend that you're doing that
Speaker 1: you're playing?
Speaker 2: Is it next next Halloween? And we will be pirates? Yeah.
Speaker 6: So that's in Liverpool Cosmia stock Room, Saty First Report
Speaker 6: and the band called Holy Cove so a Welsh I believe.
Speaker 2: In the great bands.
Speaker 6: Looking forward to getting down seeing them there.
Speaker 1: Excellent, excellent, And then uh, where should people go online?
Speaker 1: Where's the best place for people to go to keep
Speaker 1: up with everything that Rivia is.
Speaker 6: Doing Instagram definitely, definitely Instagram at Rivia top and most
Speaker 6: of our stuff goes there, was putting up stories of
Speaker 6: what we're up to as well.
Speaker 3: So we've got all the other we've got like TikTok
Speaker 3: you too, You've got Twitter and stuff, all of them all,
Speaker 3: but our main sort of go to is his Instagram.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if you like nonsensical quotes and there is the
Speaker 4: place to go.
Speaker 3: Was Ho can full control of the Twitter and he
Speaker 3: does just put his thoughts out there.
Speaker 2: Yes, all welcome, you're go ahead.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say our TikTok's more like our behind
Speaker 3: the scenes stuff, isn't it Like he still having a
Speaker 3: bit of fun silly stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, that's excellent. Well, your social media game is
Speaker 1: strong and that's very very important of course, uh these days.
Speaker 1: So I commend you for that. And that's excellent And yeah.
Speaker 2: Thanks man. We've been working on that a lot this year,
Speaker 2: so appreciate that.
Speaker 5: I think we've got Rush to thank for a lot
Speaker 5: of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely saved us.
Speaker 1: Excellent hard work.
Speaker 2: For me.
Speaker 7: It is stock hard work, like you know, thinking and
Speaker 7: stuff and then just having the time to like film
Speaker 7: it and the then edit stuff.
Speaker 6: It's hard, is it?
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, well, it's just it's.
Speaker 7: So important today, Like it's just a massive part of
Speaker 7: the music industry and I so.
Speaker 1: Right right because you're you're doing it all yourselves too, right,
Speaker 1: You're or do you have a label that you work
Speaker 1: with or is this all the I y, that's all
Speaker 1: the warm one. Yeah, that's what.
Speaker 6: We've got managers of management engineering from. We believe that
Speaker 6: love those guys the bits. In terms of social media, yeah,
Speaker 6: that's unfortunately just.
Speaker 1: Well unfortunately in the sense that it's a lot of work, right,
Speaker 1: but fortunately in the sense that that gives you maximum control,
Speaker 1: total control really over what you're putting out there and
Speaker 1: in terms of your image and everything, and that that
Speaker 1: can be that can be a wonderful thing to have
Speaker 1: that kind of autonomy. So that's that's.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a bit more personal for social media now.
Speaker 3: That's kind of like we talk, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We used to really struggle with like what what should
Speaker 2: we put off?
Speaker 3: And then we've realized we put it everyone, so yeah,
Speaker 3: ourselves exactly.
Speaker 1: It's it's easy to overthink it, but once you once
Speaker 1: you realize you know your fans, they just want engagement.
Speaker 1: So whatever you can put out there, you know, and
Speaker 1: and uh and if they don't like it, whatever, they'll
Speaker 1: ignore it. But if they do like it, then uh great,
Speaker 1: you know, then you've you've created that engagement that is
Speaker 1: absolutely critical to being successful in the music industry today.
Speaker 1: So uh so, yeah, absolutely, I commend you on that. Well, listen,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we'll uh, we'll let you go. We're gonna
Speaker 1: get to this track. We're gonna play Fallen to close
Speaker 1: out the segment, another great song.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: But I do want to thank all of you, Matt, Warren, Rash, Chris,
Speaker 1: thank you all.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 1: It doesn't always work out where we get an entire
Speaker 1: band on all at once, so I appreciate that. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: We'll do it again and keep us posted on when
Speaker 1: the next single is ready to and and we'll uh
Speaker 1: we'll give it. We'll give it a spin here of
Speaker 1: course always and uh and we'll have you back on
Speaker 1: to talk about it and uh and I wish you
Speaker 1: continued to success. And thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 5: Thank you, so thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Touching about it.
Speaker 1: All right, Rivia, thank you. We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Take care, bye bye. All right, that is the members
Speaker 1: of the band Rivia, and we're going to close out
Speaker 1: our conversation, UH with this track. This is another great single.
Speaker 1: We were the first American radio station to play this.
Speaker 1: Of course, this is Fallen
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