The Rift | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: I love that that is recapture Code. The band is the Rift, and let's see. I think we've got Ris from the band here on the line with us.

0:08 Speaker 2: Hello, Hey, guys's going good?

0:11 Speaker 3: Good? Welcome to the show. Am I saying your name correctly? Ris? Aris?

0:15 Speaker 2: Yeah?

0:16 Speaker 3: Oh? Aris? Okay, you probably run into that a lot, not an Amy here every day?

0:20 Speaker 2: Is it just.

0:23 Speaker 3: Is it just you are? Okay? Good?

0:28 Speaker 1: Is it just you are the other guys with you?

0:32 Speaker 2: No, I do have our drummer here as well, so h Garrett, go ahead and say hello, hey guys.

0:39 Speaker 1: Hey Garrett, Well that's an easy name, so uh yeah, welcome to the show, guys, and thank you for being flexible about uh, you know, we're supposed to use WhatsApp and all the guests that I have on the show today shows what'sapp, and of course today WhatsApp is not working for me, so uh so I appreciate you being flexible. But I love that track, Recapture Code. It's you know, it's heavy, it's it's but it's also it's got a groove to it, and it's got some interesting time changes in there too, really really good.

1:06 Speaker 1: Can you talk about the song and about what the what the meaning of it is. I mean, it kind of gives you an idea, you know that you know, they want us to be robots and whatnot. But I really want to explore that. What is the song about?

1:19 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, I mean thank you, like really kind words, thank you guys for having us on. Of course, Yeah, there's all sorts of weird, crazy changes in the song, but yeah, I mean in terms of like the meaning of the song, where you know, we're just like really, you know, against a lot of this AI music stuff that you're seeing out there, and you know, just the idea that you know, some of these giant corporate CEOs are gonna, you know, try to run the music industry and basically admitted as much that they stole you know, all the music illegally from artists and now they're just like, yeah, we're gonna make all that money, you know.

2:03 Speaker 2: You know, I don't I don't know where we came to where we thought, you know, that was a good idea society, But yeah, it's sort of our our uh you know, revenge statement against those guys.

2:16 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a subject that comes up a lot on the show too, as we are and and really I think we're just in the very early stages of the AI what I call the AI era, and how it's already impacting the music industry and uh, and how we navigate through it.

2:31 Speaker 3: And I'm not sure.

2:32 Speaker 1: I mean, obviously you can't shove that tooth based back in the tube, but you know, but it's it's very interesting times that we live in your your music. I mean, do you approach and I did listen to We're gonna play another track of course of yours at the end of our conversation today. But does everything that you guys do do you try to have a do you try to address an issue with it? Does it all or or a specific theme? Does it all have a meaning? Uh?

3:00 Speaker 3: In terms of how you approach the lyrics, I.

3:03 Speaker 2: Mean it depends on the song. Sometimes, you know, we just uh, yeah, we write, you know, I tend to We tend to write, you know, kind of rebellious rock anthemic tracks, and that's just something that kind of comes out naturally. So I think we always try to just do whatever comes out naturally, and that just happens to be something that we do do a bit of. But uh, you know, we do have just tracks that are like you know, kind of all over the place too. You know, we have tracks about you know, dancing with girls and stuff, so we are very much all over the place.

3:43 Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's not all, you know, super serious message heavy.

3:47 Speaker 3: No.

3:47 Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that makes sense. That makes sense now is the uh so the track recapture code? Is that part of or is it going to be part of an album or an EP or are you just releasing singles at this point?

4:00 Speaker 3: What's your approach to that?

4:03 Speaker 2: Yeah, no, we we do have an album. I mean it's a part of an album called Metamorphosis that we've been kind of just releasing singles every so often with it, and you know, we have a few more to release before the full things out. Okay, but yeah, just it seems like the way to go nowadays is just to get more releases and so everything's a single until it's you know, on the album, right because you get more kind of juice out of it that way. So that's what the strategy has been behind that.

4:35 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's something we talk about a lot on the show too. How it's kind of a lot of artists now do the inverse of what you know, the model used to be, you have an album, you've got the first single that goes to radio six eight weeks before the album. Then the album comes out, and then if everything goes well, you have a second single or even a third single. But now a lot of artists seem to be doing the inverse where they're releasing a series of singles that eventually coalesce into an EP or an album.

5:00 Speaker 1: And I think that that that seems to be working for for a lot of people, seems to be working well for you guys, And so that's great.

5:08 Speaker 3: And you guys, are you're from Los Angeles? Correct?

5:12 Speaker 2: Originally? Yeah? And then my Garrett is based down in San Diego. Okay, he actually managed his school of rock down there. Nice, but you want to where your originally, But yeah, I'm from Denver, Man.

5:28 Speaker 3: Oh wow, Okay, Okay.

5:31 Speaker 4: So rocking out in the kind of like Stone or Doom kind of style rock Denver rock out there for the last fifteen years.

5:40 Speaker 3: Yeah.

5:42 Speaker 4: Yeah. And then Aris and I met a couple of years ago via Craigslist, which is the best place to find your band mates. Still yeah, and uh yeah, just been rocking out, you know. He just needed help out with a couple of gigs filling in and then it turned into something that was more serious and then and here we are doing a little tour this week.

6:04 Speaker 3: Excellent.

6:05 Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you had mentioned that in an email too, So tell me about the tour.

6:10 Speaker 3: Yeah.

6:10 Speaker 2: Actually, we we just got back into LA this morning. We've been up and down the West coast for the last like ten days. Oh wow, we drove through the night to be with you guys on the station.

6:22 Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you.

6:23 Speaker 2: We were just in San Francisco last night. Great, great show in the Bay Area, PACIFICA. It was. Yeah, it was unusually hot like up in Seattle and the Northwest, but good old Bay Area still still cold and rainy and us a good time.

6:45 Speaker 3: Excellent, outstanding.

6:48 Speaker 1: So I'm curious about because, you know, I've been in a lot of bands, but I've never been in a band that you know, has some progressive elements, you know, the time changes and things like that. How difficult is it to play these songs live? I mean, do they become like second nature or you know, something like recapsure code. You know we mentioned the time changes. I mean, are are these are these difficult to to kind of pull off live? Especially like for you, Garrett, I mean, you're you know, you're you're keeping time, right, So it's got to be it's got to be a challenge to learn them.

7:18 Speaker 4: It was super hard to learn these tunes, but like not not crazy hard, but we kind of did old school and we're putting it together live on stage, you know, running tunes that sometimes we haven't played together in a while. Yeah, just as it is. And you know, a couple of shows is worth a thousand nights in the rehearsal room, you know what I mean. So a lot of these songs are getting worked out, like like I said, kind of old school where it's like you know what that works on the record. Live you know, we can adjust things a little bit too.

7:55 Speaker 4: But it is an absolute marathon of drumming. Like it's like thirty minute set. But thanks Theris for righty, it is. It's a marathon is drumming because you know, it's got lots of changes, lots of slow kind of or maybe halftime intros that end with like a double time you know, our quadruple kind of four on a snare kind of end up feel which is like you know, starting flow and ending fast and like a marathon. You're like, okay, we've gotta do this six more times, right, Right, it's awesome.

8:34 Speaker 2: It's so much fun.

8:35 Speaker 3: Yeah.

8:35 Speaker 2: Yeah, they can be challenging for.

8:37 Speaker 3: Sure, Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.

8:40 Speaker 1: I'm also impressed that because you guys are a three piece, right, there's there's only three of you in the round, but you've got a huge sound.

8:48 Speaker 2: We don't we don't use any tracks live, so everything you hear is us playing like you know, like Rush or something. We just we just go out there and we do it. Unlike Rush. We're not that great, but no, but uh, that's that's like our our goal to get to that point.

9:09 Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.

9:10 Speaker 1: Is that something that's that you guys had from the beginning, that ability to to put out such a big sound or is it something you had to work on? Because I'm always impressed when I when I when I see I hear a three piece band that can have a big You know, it's one thing if it's you know, a three chord punk band, but what when it's what you guys are doing and you've got that big sound. Was that a challenge at any point to replicate live? Or did that come naturally?

9:36 Speaker 3: No?

9:37 Speaker 2: I think I mean for me, I think it came really naturally. Just because of the way uh, you know we play. And again, it's like when we're recording and writing these songs, it's nothing that we ever did. I felt like was uh forced, you know, like we're trying to sound a certain way on the recording. Yeah, so that's just kind of like what comes out out and you know, I just kind of channel everything through my Mason boogie and then get that big old kind of classic guitar rock sound and credit. Yeah, our bass player fills it out too.

10:13 Speaker 2: He's incredible.

10:14 Speaker 4: Yeah, the bottom tends to drop out with a lot of times when you have a single guitar, you know, go to a solo, right, I mean, you have no rhythm underneath it. So it's a huge credit to him. He can totally work magic and and somehow be able to like fill that up, you know what I mean. Yeah, you know, I wish he was here now, but because I have no idea how does it? But it's it's awesome.

10:38 Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think a lot of that has to do with the bass. Like I think to me, you know, when you have like a counterpoint in the bassline during a song and then the guitar is kind of accenting that not necessarily copying it. That kind of makes it sound bigger too, I think.

10:57 Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely absolutely. I'm curious about that too. As a bass player myself, I assume he's not playing a four string?

11:05 Speaker 3: Does he? Does he have a five string or something?

11:08 Speaker 2: I figured, yeah, I think he's got the five string.

11:12 Speaker 3: Yeah, I figured.

11:13 Speaker 4: I think he did that so he didn't have to tune as much, right, But then it's like this crazy like transposing nightmare.

11:23 Speaker 2: So yeah, he's done for yeah, yeah, yeah.

11:31 Speaker 3: No doubt.

11:33 Speaker 1: Do you guys have any kind of when you play live, any kind of effects or anything that you guys use As far as visually, I'm curious about the visual presentation or maybe not, Maybe you just get on stage and play. I don't know, but it seems like your music would would lend itself to some sort of I don't know, even something as simple as a screen behind you or something like that, but anything like that live, Yeah, totally.

11:56 Speaker 2: You know, we really like when people come to see us. We want to kind of have a memorable experience. And even if they're like, God, that band really sucks, I hate that singer or whatever, we want them to be like that was, you know, cool, presentation. So we have some things that we do. We have these really cool like we call them light boxes where we kind of stomp on them and there's like a it's like a platform. We have kind of like an amp about the size of it, like a combo, but there's a flood light inside of them, okay, And so when we step on those, like you would a guitar pedal, and it shoots a flood light up at us, so it's kind of cool.

12:38 Speaker 2: And then I have I have this really over the top like show kind of guitar that's like custom piece. It's like acrylic and it lights up blue, and then I put some custom pickups in there, so it's like Seymour dunkins it would sound good to play, So that that thing always gets a lot of kind of in as of the plan. But yeah, we're always looking to kind of push the envelope because you know, at the end of the day, like you know, you're there to entertain people, and you know it's it's a it should be a visual kind of audio experience, you know, to some degree.

13:16 Speaker 3: I think right right now that makes sense.

13:18 Speaker 1: And like I said, I mean, your sound definitely, I think lends itself to that. Oh, by the way, so the obvious question I didn't ask, where does the name come from?

13:27 Speaker 3: The Rift?

13:30 Speaker 2: Yeah? That you know. Back in the day, I and I still am a big Disturbed fan, and they had a song off of ten Thousand Days. I think it was called the Abyss, but like one of the first lines, for whatever reason in that song, that Dreamian saying was like something about the Rift, and I was like, God, that's so cool. It's just stuck in my head. Yeah, there you go, a name, camera.

14:00 Speaker 3: There you go. Yeah, Disturbed is funny.

14:01 Speaker 1: I still remember the first time I heard Stupefy, So the first time I ever heard Disturbed, I was like.

14:05 Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, that's an awesome yeah, awesome record.

14:09 Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely.

14:12 Speaker 1: So you just got back from a tour, No, so what's next for you guys? Are you going back out on tour or what's.

14:17 Speaker 2: Well, Yeah, we got to two dates back in SoCal to finish up on a tour. So tonight we have a big it's like a big festival at this really famous punk rock venue in Anaheim, California called the dall Hut, Okay, and so it's like indoor outdoor stages. So we'll be going on I think in nine tonight okay, and there's some really great bands headlining tonight too, and then tomorrow at the Redwood Bar in La Downtown is the last show for us, and then, uh, we'll probably take a little breather after that.

14:55 Speaker 3: Yeah, you guys have been working hard.

14:57 Speaker 4: And then see our family and yeah, go back to work.

15:01 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no doubt, no doubt. In a moment, we're going to play because I want to play another song. At the end of our conversation, I was thinking about playing this track Lightning. What should we know about this? Anything we should know about this before I play it?

15:16 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's super cool track. You know, I've always been a huge fan of of Thunderstruck by a c DC, and I mean it's like one of the most iconic, you know, songs, right, So I really wanted to try to create something that was, you know, obviously inspired by that and like kind of a modern take on that. And then I had a We had a good buddy, Chas Leon who sings for Kings of Thrash with Dave Elson and ex megadesk guys that are out there crushing it. He did some guest vocals. I used to play with chazz and uh like a sound guarding tribute band really, and so that was kind of how we became good buds and stuff.

16:07 Speaker 2: But yeah, he does some guest vocals on the track and it's definitely I think live one of our our fun songs. People start singing the little chant thing along and it's a good time.

16:20 Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, no, I think I think the audience will enjoy this.

16:25 Speaker 1: And Okay, so before I let you guys go, so we are going to hit that track and and and again, thank you both Arison and Garrett for joining us today. Where's the best place to go online to keep up with the rift with everything you guys are doing.

16:39 Speaker 2: Yeah, if you just go on to their riftofficial dot com. We've got any social thing that you want to go on to, Instagram, the Double Underscore, Riff, Spotify, We're we're pretty much everywhere. But yeah, the ristofficial dot com is sort of our our hub and you can go on there and check out all of there and all all the tour dates and stuff. We're on there too. So yeah, and then yeah, like I said, any social platform you want to check us out on.

17:08 Speaker 1: Until we listed today excellent, excellent, Well again, thank you guys for joining us. We'll definitely have to do this again in the future as you have more music coming out. It sounds like you got a lot going on, so uh it will be uh, we'll be able to have you back on soon, I'm sure. And and I appreciate I know it's kind of early there. Uh you know you guys are what are you three hours behind us, so it's uh and and and you're you've been busy, so I appreciate busy touring. So I appreciate you joining us this morning.

17:33 Speaker 1: And and uh and thank you for being flexible about the WhatsApp thing.

17:36 Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much for having us on the show. You guys rock and uh yeah, keep keep sharing you know, awesome music and doing what you guys do.

17:46 Speaker 3: Man, we'll do, we'll do. Thank you.

17:48 Speaker 1: We're going to hit this track lightning, so we'll let you guys go, but again, thank you both so much, and we'll talk again soon.

17:54 Speaker 2: Thanks guys, you got it.

17:55 Speaker 3: Bye bye. All right.

17:57 Speaker 1: That is Airis and Garrett from the band The Rift, and let's give this a spin and then we'll come back. And right at the end of the show, I'm going to tag you with a couple of programming notes that I want you to be aware of. But here's another great track from the Rift. This is called Lightning