Season to Risk

"Season to Risk is a genre-bending band from Kansas City. Spartan Records is releasing "In a Perfect World" remastered on Record Store day November 2025. The band is touring Nov-Dec 2025.

Signed to a major label "when punk broke" in the early 90s, their post-hardcore music is unusual, heavy and melodic. "1-800-MELTDOWN" was a limited-edition Record Store Day release on neon green vinyl in April 2025.

After meeting playing shows at the legendary club The Outhouse in Kansas, singer Steve Tulipana, guitarist Duane Trower and bass player Paul Malinowski (now of Shiner) combined post-punk, math, and noise rock. They scored some early hits with a few songs charting, a cameo in the film Strange Days, and were called "the next Soundgarden" by one reviewer focused on Tulipana's captivating stage presence and vocal range. The band toured constantly while experimenting with different sounds, adding drummer David Silver in 1994, Wade Williamson on 2nd guitar and synth in 2000, and welcome new bass player Ben Ruth in 2024."

BIO: Season to Risk are an American indie rock band from Kansas City, Missouri. Formed in 1989 by singer Steve Tulipana and guitarist Duane Trower, the band built an audience for their post-hardcore music by touring relentlessly across the USA. The band got lucky during the early 90s major-label feeding frenzy and signed to Red Decibel / Columbia Records. They recorded demos at Sony Studios in NYC, and then lived in Chicago, IL to record their 1992 self-titled first album at Soundworks Studio with engineer Jeff Moleski. The band toured constantly throughout North America, returning briefly to their hometown for a few days or weeks, sometimes on the road 8 - 10 months each year.

They lived at Bisi Studios, NYC for the Summer of 1994 recording their second album "In a Perfect World" with producer Martin Bisi. The music was a darker, more complex collection of songs, and the album was received with rave reviews from fans, and puzzled looks from the people at Colombia records. There was no place on the radio for genre-bending music like this yet, and record stores weren’t sure if it should go into Metal, Punk, or “Other” bins. By chance, someone at Sony was looking for a band to play during a scene in the film 'Strange Days' and suddenly the band was in Hollywood, playing the song 'Undone’ on the film set. Drummer David Silver joined the band in 1994, after predecessors Jason Gerken and Tim Dow moved on to other bands. For the following year, S2R was in a different city every night, which led to total exhaustion by the end of 1995 after tours with Corrosion of Conformity, Monster Magnet, ALL, the Toadies, Babes in Toyland, and Unsane, resulting in the cancellation of their upcoming European tour scheduled with CIV. A few events quickly put the brakes on the band; Columbia Records dropped the band from future releases, and founding bass player Paul Malinowski quit to join Shiner.

Season to Risk quickly added Josh Newton on bass and got busy writing music. Pooling their resources, they spent most of the next two years building Trainwreck Sound Studios in Kansas City, MO. As floors, walls and ceilings were built, new Season To Risk songs were written, members worked with their other bands, and recording started at Trainwreck, including work by Casket Lottery, The Farewell Bend, Iron Rite Mangle, Gunfighter and the Pornhuskers. They built their dream studio from the ground up: a 15 x 20 control room, equipped with a 1974 24-channel Auditronics console and a 2-inch tape machine, a 30 x 50 foot tracking room with reclaimed barn wood oak floors, and a huge apartment & rehearsal studio upstairs on the second floor. But in October 1998, shortly after the studio officially opened to the public, a sudden flash flood of the Missouri river totaled everything in the neighborhood in 15 minutes, destroying the building, their tour RV in the parking lot, their bank account, and almost everything else. They're lucky no one was killed. Luck never gives, it only lends. And the river takes. And then Josh Newton also left to join Shiner.

Fortunately, the self-produced third album was finished prior to the flood, and the band was able to wade through the five-foot deep, freezing, flood waters in total darkness out of the building to safety. Unfortunately, they discovered that the album "Men Are Monkeys, Robots Win" (Thick Records) was printed 'out-of-phase', making the songs sound hollowed-out. The label never re-released the printed CD, but the corrected mix is available online. Tours followed with 7 Year Bitch, Craw, Plexi, Today is the Day, Janis Figure and others. (The remaster was released on vinyl in 2020.)

Legendary punk rock drummer/producer Bill Stevenson (Black Flag, Decendents) has always been a friend and supporter of Season To Risk, and has brought the band on tour with ALL several times. In 2000, The Shattering album was recorded with Jason Livermore and Bill Stevenson at the Blasting Room in Ft. Collins, CO, and released on Owned & Operated records in 2001. Bass player Billy Smith and guitarist Wade Williamson joined the band in the studio and for subsequent tours. The Shattering album is more diverse than ever, fusing elements from all of the band's previous work and some new experimentation into twelve heavy, melodic songs. (Their genre-bending album "The Shattering" was reissued on 180-gram orange vinyl, remastered in 2019 by Jason Livermore at Blasting Room studio, where it was co-produced with Bill Stevenson.)

After 15 years on tour, in the early 2000s the band entered semi-HIBERNATION, drummer David Silver moved back home to Boston, and members focused on developing other careers. The band reduced activity a few events each year. Drummers Jason Gerken and Chris Metcalf sometimes filled in for shows and tours during this era.

Steve and Billy continued writing songs in a more melodic direction on several Roman Numerals albums and performing with Wade as Thee Water MoccaSins. Billy and Wade recorded and performed as Olympic Size, CoNoCo, and Vanish Mode. Steve and Josh released an album and toured as Sie Lieben Maschinen. Duane Trower played guitar with Overstep, Ex-Acrobat, Olivetti Letter and built a new recording studio, Weights and Measures Soundlab, where he has produced many albums including Radkey, Giants Chair, Muscle Worship, and others. Season to Risk remains active and continue getting together for interesting shows or tours a couple times a year when their lives align.

In 2025, Season to Risk are writing and recording new music with new bass player Ben Ruth and continuing a vinyl remaster series.