Band: Raptorkill!?
http://www.myspace.com/raptorkill
The Mic: What got this band together and started in
this business?
Rob and Mike had a previous band together and decided to do something that sucked less. We all want to do something in the "music business" "professionally" so being in a band is generally the first step.
The Mic:Who writes and produces all the material for
the band?
Rob, primarily. Essentially we come together with a few ideas and the songs just work themselves out. Regardless of how little we practice we get (we've had ONE PRACTICE since our tour in August of '07), we seem to be pretty in tune with each other musically.
The Mic:The band played in front of or with any acts
our readers would
know from the Mainstream?
As far as bands that are on labels with a lot of notoriety that don't suck: The Acacia Strain, The Handshake Murders, Gaza, The Gentleman Homicide, Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, See You Next Tuesday, On The Last Day, Horse the Band, The Jonbenet, At All Cost, You In Series, Thriller, Don the Reader, Kylesa, Paria, Diskreet, Lye By Mistake, Landmine Marathon, Hoods, Dance Club Massacre... Ones that suck consist of: Flee the Seen, War of Ages, Desolé, Becoming the Archetype, Demiricus, A Heartwell Ending... Ones that kind of suck: Genghis Tron, A Day to Remember, Destroyer Destroyer, Alive in Wild Paint.
I'm opinionated. Bands were thrown into those categories based on music and how good of dudes they are/were.
The Mic:Where can people access your music on the web?
On our Myspace, primarily. We encourage people that have our music to spread it, though. Rapidshare it, Megaupload it, torrent it, upload it and download it wherever you can. I think I never updated our PureVolume with new songs once they came out. We also have an HXCMP3 if anyone remembers that site. There's probably a lot of other sites out there that it's on, but you make a bunch of sites when you start the band and forget about them all.
The Mic:Any embarrassing moments on stage?
One time at El Torreon, I (Rob) fell completely off the stage. According to the sound guy, I "didn't miss a single God damn note after falling off of a 4 foot stage." I got up and had to switch effects via a vertical power stance. Looked like a total dickhead.
The Mic:Any good stories you want to tell us?
We are manly as **** and showered in a waterfall in Colorado on tour. Babes were scoping us out while we were doing it. And by doing it I mean dropping the soap.
The Mic:Who is the bands musical influence?
We have a ton. I heard a garage door slam once and liked the rhythm that it made so I wrote a riff based on that once. As far as bands... The typical tech and indie metal/hardcore bands: Converge, Dillinger Escape Plan, Botch, Into the Moat... As well as stuff like Envy, Intronaut, Pelican, Russian Circles, Explosions in the Sky, God is an Astronaut, etc.
The Mic:How did the band get together?
Mike and I (Rob) had a past band together, we also had our ex-guitarist, Steve, from the old band... Sort of... And his friend, ex-singer, Jacob, as the original line-up. Neither Jacob nor Steve could tour which eventually led to them being replaced. Brenden, our current singer, literally dropped everything in a weeks notice to do our first tour with us. Mike and I liked his sound/style and him as a dude so we replaced Jacob. Steve fell off the face of the earth so for a long time we were a 3 piece. We finally got not lazy and "tried out" Jake, our bassist, which consisted of him coming to a practice and proving that he didn't suck like most other bassists in the area and had good gear so we told him to learn the songs. He did and jumped right in. Jake and Brenden are in Nuns of Carroll so that's the connection with Raptorkill!?
The Mic:What is your musical background like?
Rob: Blues guitarist, might have tourettes.
Jake: Jazz bassist, beat up a hobo once.
Mike: Plays most anything by ear. Elastic, fleshy elbows.
Brenden: Well... He has a beard... (He also drums... But... Beard...)
The Mic:Any other members in your family that are
musicians?
Mike's dad is a guitarist and so is Jake's brother.
The Mic:What is the TOP reason why you want to play
music?
Because we can and don't have to play silly ****ing breakdowns to raise our friend count.
what's your stance on file swapping?
we're an independent artist and don't expect to make money anyway. it's free promotion. it's publicity. if you like it, go to our shows, buy a t-shirt, talk to us, be our friend. if you don't like it, tell your friends how ****ty we are and delete it.
what is the process of making a cd?
having music and having money. anyone can make a cd nowadays.
how do you get the word out about your music?
we try to speak through our presence as a group or a live entity more than anything. we also try to be nice to anyone that supports us. we don't spam. word of mouth is enough to get true support... not all this silly e-notoriety.
how is your local responce to your music?
other than we're entirely too loud, pretty decent.
what is the farthers you have traveled for a gig?
hah, about 16 hours/1,000 miles.
What tune on the cd are you most proud of?
i'm not going to lie, we don't go by titles listed on our cds so I really couldn't tell you in a way that'd make sense to anyone reading unless they overhear us talking about which one to play live.
Now let's break away from the tradtional band questions you get asked all the time...Let's have some fun...
1. Why do HOT chicks date ugly dudes? i didn't know you had a girlfriend?
2. Why are all guys in porn movies Douche bags? the obvious answer is that they'd theoretically clean up after themselves based on your terminology used to represent them.
3. When Rappers do interviews on TV, why do they always have a wall of Kung Fu movies behind them? to make their dicks look bigger. why else?
4. If a billionaire would come to your band and say you could play with any band..living, dead,broke up,etc.
*Who do you play with 3 bands one has to be your band...
and
*Who opens and who closes?
Us, Converge, Dillinger. In that order.
