Interview: The Riven "Hopefully All Of These Nonsense Stops Soon!

The Riven

The world of music is growing and changing in ways that it never has before.

It's hard to explain to my daughter that there was a time when we didn't have music on our phones, or that our phones only were used to make phone calls without seeing our grandparents on the screens which of course they didn't even have.

I tried to explain my childhood to her one day, and she said, you mean you didn't even have records back then! That made it even harder, but it's kind of the point.

Unlike musicians in the pre-recorded era or musicians in earlier times, the vast majority of humans have access to basically all of the world's recorded music, one way or another. (Hopefully the way where you go buy it.)

So, bands that are no longer top of the pops can be major influences on people who weren't even born during their heydays.

With that, we have The Riven.

Glacially Musical: Thank you for taking some time to speak to us today. We appreciate it!

Riven: Thank you guys! It’s a pleasure for us and we’re really happy to be here!

GM: There has been a retro revival over the past ten to fifteen years. For me, it started largely with the stoner bands, but what do you think was the catalyst for this?

RV: Well, we think that retro revival has always been part of the music scene: in the 60’s and 70’s there was the blues the whole blues revival thing and in the 80’s there was the whole 50’s rockabilly-thing that came back.

It was only natural that during the 90’s there was a whole craze for the 70’s with bands like The Black Crowes as well as the Grunge band that "went back to the roots."

Music as well as clothing and all other trends are circular and things come back and go. But as you said the stoner and grunge bands played music with roots in the 70’s hard rock and we are of course heavily influenced by those bands as well as the original bands from the Golden Age Of Rock

GM: Tell me about your main influences and what you take from each of them.

RV: I guess that our main influences when we write together are bands like Deep Purple, Grand Funk Railroad and Rush.

We love how Deep Purple have a really strong sound throughout their songs with plenty of hooks and riffs. Rush is simply amazing in the way they keep the rocking although there’s some technical shit going on and their lyrics and melodies are great.

The dynamics in GFR, the blues the freedom making you headbang all the way through!

GM: When I listened to your EP, I heard a band that was straddling the holy trinity of Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin.

Because of that, wouldn't it make sense for The Riven to be like Red Riven?

RV: Hahaha! Yeah we love those bands and they’re all of course influencing us in so many ways, having listened to them growing up.

But coming up with a band name is super difficult for some reason and bands mostly seem to stumble upon their names.

We thought about colors in the name but couldn’t agree on one and went with that instead.

GM: Seriously though, those bands are the protometal brotherhood, but where does that put your music in the genre slider?

RV: Those bands are definitely some of our favourites and in some ways a sound we’re striving for but we also try to give it our spin, finding our own thing and keep it “The Riven”.

We just call it Heavy Rock, something you can always rock out to!

GM: How do you think Brexit and Trump's travel bans are going to affect international touring in the coming years?

RV: Hopefully all this nonsense stops soon!

If it doesn't though it’s gonna have a huge impact on international touring, specially for small bands like us.

GM: What do you think are the five most important albums of all time?

RV: Mmm that’s a tricky one! Will go with: Zeppelin II, Moving Pictures by Rush, Maiden’s Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, The Stones Sticky Fingers and the incredible “Sgt. Peppers” by The Fab Four.

GM: What happened to make Riven play this style of music?

RV: We just got into a room cranked up the amps and jam!

I guess if you check everyone's record collection it is not a surprise we play this music. It is great how easy it is to write tunes all together cause everyone is so into it!

We are all in the same page but we all have some different approaches which just makes it so much fun!

GM: Given the choice, would you prefer going out for Chinese food or Japanese food and why?

RV: Japanese food! We love hot sauce and wasabi is pretty awesome, plus we like our food like our music, raw!

GM: Is there anything else we should know?

RV: We are releasing our second single on the 14th of February so if you don’t have a date we’ll be your valentine.

(ed Note: This review came out too late for our readers to use The Riven as their Valentines. For that we are sorry, but St. Patrick's Day is coming up too.)

If you do make sure you play our music to your date and it all will end up right ;) The full EP is coming on the 24th of April so make sure you mark that date in your calendar too!

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