Freerider

The Long and Winding Road... FREERIDER Second chances? You don’t get a lot of those in the music business. Especially after your first attempt fizzles and you more or less put your rock dreams behind you, embarking upon other things like raising families and pursuing alternate careers. But here is Freerider, a hard rock trio originally from Boston, back at you, with songs from a CD called “No Ride Denied.” It was recorded in 1995 and first released in 2000. What’s that about? First, let’s introduce Freerider. Ask lead singer-lyricist-bassist Todd Erickson, and he’ll begin with what they’re not: “Were not a drunken, sloppy punk band. And we’re not middle America/John Cougar-meets-Bon Jovi band. We’re somewhere in this abyss of guys who can really play their instruments, but who love the attitude of punk and indie. We ended up with his well-produced, well orchestrated, intellectual rock, which for a long time, had no home. When the CD came out in 2000, we put it out knowing we were going nowhere. We did it to satisfy ourselves. But it deserves a place on somebody’s shelf. And it’s cool to be a shredder again, to have chops.” Put most simply, Erickson defines Freerider – which includes guitarist Steve Coyne and drummer Jeremy Waybright - as “a power trio with thick, melodic guitars with introspective and honest lyrics. There’s a universal element to it, going back several decades from classic rock to grunge and post-grunge and for people who love classic hard rock and as well as the Soundgardens and Pearl Jams of the world, that potpourri of metal/rock that’s out there.” “Our lyrics don't suck, either,” he adds. “We would love to find the people who still give a shit about what the singer is saying. We have songs about real places and events. We get involved in the spiritual, mental and emotional battles of life and living it. We try to end up in an optimistic place and avoid preaching.” OK: So, why are the songs from “No Ride Denied” available now? Why does Freerider exist again? Second question first. “We’re too stupid to quit,” is how Erickson puts it. But that’s really not true. For one, they’re not stupid and for another they actually did quit – or at least they put Freerider on the shelf for years. They were all in different parts of the country, pursuing other projects – green building, studio work, teaching - during the past decade. They reconnected through MySpace last year and reunion discussions began. “We really do respect each other,” says Erickson. “There’s a lot of camaraderie and intelligence at the table. This thing won’t go away. We’re like a cockroach. Spray us with bug juice and we wake up the next morning and crawl across the kitchen floor.” If you talk to Erickson for any length of time, he’ll regale you with how his rock experience has numerous Spinal Tap parallels. He even insists Waybright spontaneously combusted at one point. “This band would not exist without a sense a humor,” he says. But the Spinal Tap trajectory may be about to change. And that leads us back to the first question, about the renewed availability of Freeerider’s material. Why take indie music that didn’t exactly bust the charts ten years ago and rev it up again? “We’ve gotten a hold of something pretty life changing,” says Erickson, who readily acknowledges there’s a big heap of Band-From-Nowhere-Gets-an-Unexpected-Break aspect to this leg of Freerider’s journey. And the break is … Linking up with Harmonix – the Rock Band and Guitar Hero company based in Cambridge, Mass. Harmonix, which is now partnered with MTV. It is not just a game company anymore. It has a digital music distribution system, Rock Band Network, and Freerider is among the first group of indie bands to be part of it, with a self-publishing initiative. Their songs go up for sale the day the store goes live to the universe near the end of November. It positions Freerider on the cutting edge of technology, gaming and self-publishing. This means what? “Many gamers already purchase and play downloadable content from the Rock Band Store,” says Erickson. Rock Band has up to five million subscribers, a lot of those folks joining when they purchased the Beatles Rock Band. There are more than 800 downloadable songs available for gamers. In the two years since the store has opened, it’s sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 million downloads. Up to now, these downloads have come from an array of already popular bands. Before launching this new indie band approach, Harmonix did sample marketing of unknown artists within the games and the store. The preliminary results, Erickson says, suggested that folks shopping at the Rock Band Store – folks who are considered gamers first and music fans second - had a hunger to discover new music. Here’s how it’ll work: The Rock Band network gives indie bands the tools, approval pipeline and store to sell their songs as game files for Rock Band 2. Gamers will be able to demo any song from these bands, check the ratings from other gamers and purchase the songs to play in the game in the same way the downloadable content is purchased now. A song will be sold for $1 or 160 Xbox points. Freerider was chosen for Rock Band Network by Erickson’s old pal Jeff Marshall, who is the Network’s executive producer. He knew Erickson from when he managed the ‘80s Boston rock club Spit and later ran the Monolyth record label. Erickson, who’d worked as a bar-back at Spit, had played in the post-punk band Shake the Faith. After they broke up, he formed Mere Mortals in 1991. Mere Mortals evolved into Freerider when the band members discovered there were already other Mere Mortals out there in the rock world. Their new moniker was inspired by the character in their anthemic pop-metal song “No Ride Denied.” Marshall and Erickson had reconnected through Facebook. Erickson wanted to talk about the changed technology and how the two related to his desire to get Freerider back on track as a project. Marshall was looking for indie bands to bring into RBN testing – the “beta” group – to see what the market for this music might be, “Jeff thought we’d be perfect for this,” says Erickson, “with my tenacity and history with the Boston.” He says Marshall’s analogy was this. “‘It’s like you’ve been a mechanic all your life working with a really crappy set of tools and you’ve done OK, but somebody hands you brand new tricked-out Snap-On tool chest with everything you need to be successful in the new age of being a mechanic. That mechanic still has to decide to get up and go to work everyday.’ So, he’s given us a bright, new tool box and I’m doing everything to take advantage.” “We’ve remixed each song that is being submitted to Rock Band Network,” says Erickson. That’s been the main duty for Waybright, who has a ProTools home studio in Hollis, NH. “I have been re-mixing the album we did in '95, making it bigger, louder, punchier and stronger,” he says. To introduce Freerider to their new digital/social media/YouTube audience, the band is performing live on a community access TV show called "On Stage with Mantis" on Thursday, October 15. The "Wayne's World"-esque show airs live from WCTV studios in Wareham, MA. Freerider will debut their live show by playing a free, "edu-tainment" event for Repower America and Clean Energy Coalition (Wash., DC) at Port City Music Hall in Portland, ME on Thursday, October 29th. “No Ride Denied” mixes rockers and ballads. If the rockers come from an aggressive place, they don’t come from an angry place. There’s a sense of hope. “I’m seeing nothing but my faith is getting bigger,” sings Erickson on the opening track, “Spirit of Change.” In “Brand New Revelation,” he sings “Hello world, it’s nice to meet you after all this time/Been my whole life playing Atlas/Today I’ve changed my mind. … I’ve got a brand new revelation/And I need it to survive.” Prescient words then … and now. And there’s plenty of new material in the pipeline – “20 years of songwriting stored up,” says Erickson. For Freerider, joining the Rock Band Network means they can connect directly with an audience they previously had no way of reaching. A generation who were young kids when the disc was first released. “With Xbox 360, you build a persona and play the songs,” he continues. “So indie bands participate in biggest interactive game on the planet.” “The modest hope,” says Erickson, is to “gain a loyal following of Rock Band gamers who spread the word about Freerider, buy our songs and steer fans to our music sites and shows. Our wildest dream would be a Freerider song becomes a runaway smash in the game and propels sales of our music in to the millions of units. Either scenario is entirely possible.” “My hope,” says Coyne, “is someone in this network of not-well-known bands will have a massive hit. Something will emerge because of it. We hope we can be the ones with the hit. That sound never really went away, which is another stroke of luck for us. We sound like the new batch of bands.” “What we think might happen it this,” he continues. “We’ll play small ball, bunt for a single and get on base. This is the positioning game. A technology is out there with a new distribution system, and we’re at the front of the system. This is what the iPhone apps store was 18 months ago.” Waybright adds, “If we can put our best foot forward with this project I’d be happy whatever the outcome.” “It’s a band that lived in obscurity, a phantom of our imagination,” says Erickson. “We stayed alive so we could write or play. Like it or hate it, it’s real and honest. We want to have an incredible amount of fun, and we want to take advantage of the new media in pipeline. We’ve life to something we’d pretty much flushed the toilet on.” Five Further Freerider Questions and Answers: 1. You’ll be a digital band. Will “No Ride Denied” be available in that old-school CD format? Likely. “Once the Rock Band Network is live and we have a feel for sales of our songs,” says Erickson, “we will determine what to do with the re-mixed material. For now, it will be fan-exclusive content we offer to fan club subscribers, concert-goers and promotional contest winners. If there is honest demand, we will remaster the CD for re-release.” 2. And you will exist as a real live band? “I love making music with Todd and Steve and would jump at any chance to do these shows again,” says Waybright. “We love to perform live and can't wait for shows to come together,” says Erickson. “ I actually prefer it to everything else except maybe the writing/recording/mixing process. We are hoping to roll the Rock Band exposure in to a niche audience that we can cater to for years to come. Only time will tell. As we keep saying, "Why not us?" 3. Coyne is the “new kid.” How did he become a Freerider? He’d been studying at Berklee College of Music, starting in 1989. “I met Todd around ’93 at a Dunkin’ Donuts in suburban Massachusetts,” says Coyne. “He was hanging flyers for a Mere Mortals gig. I thought he was crazy. I was working at a music store at the time. He came by there. I told him I was a guitar player. A few days later, I was at work and Todd had called. They were unhappy with their old guitar player. I came to Jeremy’s place and we just jammed. A week or two later I got the offer. We recorded the CD. We played all over Boston, still called Mere Mortals at the time. We were ready to melt everybody’s face, but it was a time of quirky, novelty songs. I think we weren’t in the right place for heavy music that was also thoughtful. We took a break in ‘96. I wanted to finish Berklee, and I graduated in ‘97. We released the CD in 2000. We reconnected and played a handful of gigs. Then, there was another break until last year.” 4. Outside Freerider, what’s life like? Erickson has a wife and three children. He attended Arizona State, studying Mechanical Engineering and music. He’s done green construction and energy-efficient home projects. He lived in South Portland, Maine from 1998-2006. At that point, with Maine’s economy on the skids, he moved to back to Phoenix for work and a change of pace. But, with Freerider back in the game and with his wife not excited about Arizona, he returned to the Portland area this year. Coyne and his wife live in Hamden, CT. He completed a Master's degree at Western Connecticut State University and he is an elementary school music teacher in Mt. Vernon, NY. Steve has been writing and recording instrumental rock and jazz fusion compositions in his home studio over the last several years. Waybright is married with one child. He completed Percussion and Recording Technology programs at Musicians Institute, Hollywood and has a recording studio in NH, with a ProTools studio set up for live recording and digital mixing/mastering. He is also a professional landscape photographer. 5. Where can you find Freerider music now? iTunes http://www.reverbnation.com/freerider http://cdbaby.com/freerider http://www.new.facebook.com/pages/FREERIDER/58191240910 http://www.myspace.com/freeriderusa Peace, love & wicked loud guitahs. Yes, that's an "h"... we're from New England. http://www.reverbnation.com/freerider