CAGE9 ONE ON ONE CHAT WITH THE AMAZING EVAN RODANICHE |
| So being on a hiatus of the music scene has its ups and downs, the up I got to challenge myself in other areas of my passion but the Cons is sometimes not learning or hearing about new bands out in the rock world. Being back into the scene I am really kicking myself because for some years now the band CAGE9 have been making music that is just amazing and I was missing it all!!. Now knowing about them I am Listening to the bands older albums and watching videos and it made me really want to pursue writing again and learning about the background on bands like CAGE9. They made me fall back in love with music all over again. The band is hard hitting heavy but they aren’t your average rock band they have a twist of mystery, hard rock and melodic tones that will blow you away. I am proud to be back in the scene just before the guys are releasing a new disc on a new record label EMP LABEL GROUP. The album ILLUMINATOR is going to make you lose your shit. They have songs that are dreamy and elegant, they have twisted hard driving tracks but what got me is the songwriting, the lyrics and the swirl of adventure that lurks out in track after track. Every song has a new flair and sound to it, it’s an adventurous album and I am swooning over it, like hardcore The vocals are pure beauty in songs like GHOST and DEATH OF A DRAGON (probably my favorite track). Then you have a track like GALLOWS that is dark with a punch of melodicism. TAKE BACK TOMORROW is just edgy, harder, upbeat brilliance. STARRY EYES starts out with an odd vibe and jams into a rocking ecstatic vibe with vocals that take command from the very start. I love love love OSCURO its beautiful and breathtaking. The band’s first single EVERYTHING YOU LOVE WILL SOMEDAY DIE wraps up everything that CAGE9 is about it’s a great testament of what kind of hard hitting, talented and remarkable musicians are making music in this band. From start to finish this album is a pure 10. If you like real rock music with real storylines, then CAGE9 is a band you HAVE TO HEAR. While you are youtubing or Ituning the band read on for my one on one chat with the man the myth and the master Evan Rodaniche!!! | |
CAGE9 HAS HAD A REVOLVING DOOR OF BAND MEMBERS. CAN YOU INTRODUCE THE CURRENT MEMBER STATUS AND DO YOU FEEL LIKE THIS LINEUP COULD BE A PERMANENT BOND GOING FORWARD?
EVAN--Evan Rodaniche (guitars and vocals), Leslie Wyatt (bass, backing vocals), Matt Borowski (guitar) and Brian Sumwalt (drums). The future is a hard thing to predict! Of course I’d love for the band to never change line-ups and stay as it is… like the U2s, 311s, Slipknots and The Rolling Stones of the world. But at the level that we operate we’re doing it for the love of rock and roll alone. We’re not counting on any kind of reliable cash influx to feed our touring, living and survival. And for that sole fact, people are always going to hit a point where they can’t pay their rent or get by a certain way, or they’ll have a kid - and being in a band will get in the way of all that normal life stuff…so people have to move on. It’s a fact of life for smaller bands.
YOU WERE IN POWERMAN 5000 FOR SOMETIME, WAS CAGE9 A BAND THEN AND IF SO HOW HAS THE QUALITY OF THE BAND AND MUSIC IMPROVED SINCE NOW YOU CAN JUST FOCUS ON THIS BAND?
EVAN--I was in Cage9 first….pretty much since high school in fact! I was asked to fill in on guitar for Terry Corso of Alien Ant Farm who at the time, was in Powerman but couldn’t do a tour. Cage9 also opened that tour every night so I got to play TWICE every show which was a lot of fun. After that, Terry quit and I was asked to stay on. I spent about 5 years touring with them and also co-wrote, produced and mixed two albums for Spider and Powerman 5000. Eventually I decided I wanted to just focus on my real passion, Cage9, and left as well. Having multiple bands sounds like a good idea on paper - putting your eggs in multiple baskets. But in the end, if you want one to succeed, you’re going to have to focus solely on one project if it’s going to have any future. But I definitely learned a lot of awesome things being Spider’s right hand guitarist for all that time that I’m sure have carried over to the CAGE9 of today.
A LOT OF YOUR OLDER ALBUMS WERE RELEASED ON A JAPANESE LABEL. NOW YOU ARE ON THE EMP LABEL ROSTER HOW HAS THAT SIGNING HELPED IN GETTING THE WORD OUT ABOUT THE BAND IN THE STATES?
EVAN—In the states, we’ve been a 100% independent band for most of our history. Most everything we’ve accomplished has been with NO outside help at all. The Japanese label has been AMAZING for what they’ve done for us in Japan where we return every few years to play for large crowds of fans that know all our music! But here, we’re very excited to see what EMP might do to help us grow.
WHAT MADE YOU SIGN WITH EMP AND HOW HAVE THEY TREATED THE UPCOMING RELEASE OF THE NEW ALBUM ILLUMINATOR?
EVAN--I was very honored to hear that David Ellefson, a founding father of metal so to speak, really liked our song “Everything You Love Will Someday Die” back in December. He really got the mix of old school thrash blended with modern rock sensibilities that the song offered, so we felt like he was on our wave length.
HOW HAS ILLUMINATOR (THE ALBUM) PROGRESSED IN SOUND FROM PRIOR ALBUMS AND WHAT CAN FANS AND NEW COMERS OF THE BAND LOOK FORWARD TOO?
EVAN--“Illuminator” is definitely a major evolution from our last album “How to Shoot Lasers from Your Eyes” in many ways. The last album I went out of my way to edit the songs down quite a bit - a lot more pop-verse-chorus structures etc. On Illuminator, I dug really deep lyrically and musically and kind of let things flow a little more. It probably has more in common with our previous album “Survival Plan” than “Lasers” in that respect…but it borrows from both to form something new. Life has been a lot different this time around too. My father passed away a few months ago after a 2 year battle with cancer that was really hard to witness. The sadness, hope, darkness and search for “illumination” definitely guided the creation every aspect of this album, which I dedicated to him and his enormous influence on my life.
THE BAND HAS ALWAYS BEEN A GUITAR ORIENTED BAND PLAYING WITH DIVERSITY IN GUITAR SOUND. HOW DOES THAT WORKOUT WITH HAVING TWO GUITARISTS IN THE BAND?
EVAN--It’s pretty crucial. We’ve been a trio for quite a bit of our history, and as much as I like the simplicity of that, it’s just impossible to recreate what we do on record without two guitars - and even then it’s a challenge! But that’s what makes it fun.
YOU DO A LOT OF THE BAND STUFF IN A DIY FASHION. WAS THAT THE SAME IN THE STUDIO TIME OF RECORDING THIS NEW ALBUM AND WHAT ARE THE PROS AND CONS ABOUT WORKING IN THAT FASHION?
EVAN--Yeah I guess I can’t help it. I involve the band in as much of everything as possible. Everyone opinionates on all the major song decisions and help guide the direction of our sound. But I’m always the eye-in-the-sky figure, doing the recording, producing, mixing and song writing for the most part. I’ve always wanted to work with a big producer and all that but it’s just never materialized…so we’ve kind of had no choice it seems. The PRO is that I’ve gotten really good at producing and mixing, the CON is that it’s harder for me to stand back and view the artistic side of everything without seeing the rough edges and being tempted to smooth them out…when a lot of the time…they should stay rough.
WHAT SONG OFF THE NEW DISC WAS THE EASIEST FROM START TO FINISH TO LAY DOWN IN THE STUDIO AND THE HARDEST ONE AND WHY WERE BOTH EASY AND HARD?
EVAN--“Everything You Love Will Someday Die,” one of the longest and most diverse songs on the album was actually the easiest. The idea, lyrics, structure came together almost overnight…it was just really natural to me and is one of my favorites. Take Back Tomorrow went through like 1,000 different versions before we chose the way it is on the album. Inspiration cannot be predicted - so you try to work on music and sometimes you’ll be on fire, cranking out stuff you’re really excited about. A day later you can’t get excited about anything. You just have to ‘strike while the iron’s hot’ as they say and hope for the best!
WAS ANY SONGS COMPLETELY CHANGED ONCE YOU GOT INTO TRACKING THE ALBUM?
EVAN--Open the Sky might be one of the oldest riffs on the album - probably from a rehearsal for the “Lasers” album. But it was in a completely different key, completely different lyrics. Very happy the direction we ended up taking it.
THE SONG ALEATORICISM CAUGHT MY EYE BECAUSE THE MEANING OF THE SONG IS AWESOME. WHAT WAS THE CONCEPT OF THE LYRICS ON THAT ONE ABOUT FOR YOU?
EVAN--Sometimes in our rehearsal room, we’ll put up a few microphones and just hit record for a few hours. We’ll do a bunch of just random stuff, seg-waying from one riff to the next to be sorted through later on the computer. On the night we made that song, we jammed probably 10 other ideas that we decided this was the best of. I’d been wanting to write something around the title and concept of “Aleatrocisim” which is literally “randomly created art.” So here was my chance!
FIRST SINGLE AND VIDEO FOR EVERYTHING YOU LOVE WILL SOMEDAY DIE. LETS TALK VIDEO FIRST YOU HAD A LOT OF FANS AND FAMILY PLUS FRIENDS COME IN TO HELP WITH THE CONCEPT OF THE VIDEO, WHAT WAS THE OVERALL THEME AND CONCEPT OF DOING A VIDEO LIKE THAT AND WOULD YOU CONTINUE PRODUCING VIDEOS ON YOUR OWN?
EVAN--This video was our second attempt at making a music video on our own. The first was “Illuminator” for which we drove up into the mountains one morning, found a closed camp site that we snuck into and with nothing but a few props and a very basic idea for a video, shot most of it in one day with the help of a few girlfriends and a rented generator from Home Depot. The song was only half finished at the time and the video actually helped me finish the song…an interesting way to go about things!
It inspired us to try again after being very happy with the result. So going into “Everything You Love…”, we thought the easiest route would be to have friends and people just sing the song for us in close up and also high light the very simple theme of “no matter who we are, we’re all going to die” haha. It took a while to edit but I’m very happy with the outcome and I think it really does the song and theme justice. It’d be nice to have a few thousand dollars to pay someone else to make the next video…but we don’t. So yeah, we’ll be making the next video ourselves too. It’s work but it’s a lot of fun and it’s also GREAT to have so much control over how your message is portrayed on the screen.
WHEN WILL YOU BE HITTING THE ROAD AND DO YOU HAVE A BAND YOU WOULD LOVE TO TOUR WITH AND WHY?
EVAN--I was fortunate enough to produce, mix and play on Lacey Sturm, formerly of Flyleaf’s new solo album. There’s talk of the two of us touring together this year so we’re keeping our fingers crossed that it works out. We’d love to tour with one our favorite bands Nothing More. Our old drummer plays in Stitched Up Heart who’s doing great right now. Lots of big plans and we love being out on the road, meeting our fans, sleeping on their sofas (lol), and doing the NUMBER ONE thing we’ve dedicated our lives to do - PLAY!
ANY HUGE PLANS FOR A RECORD RELEASE PARTY FOR THE ALBUM AND WHAT IS THE RELEASE DATE FOR THE ALBUM?
EVAN--June 3rd is the official release date!!! We’re opening for Asking Alexandria, Ill Nino, Bobaflex and more on June 18th at the annual Sieram Festival in Idaho - gonna’ be a hell of a party!
IS PANAMA A THOUGHT FOR TOUR PLANS TO GIVE YOUR HOME AREA A LIVE VIEW OF THE BAND AND HOW LONG SINCE YOU PLAYED IN PANAMA?
EVAN--We return to Panama to play every few years and it’s always the highlight of our lives! We also go down to open for bigger bands once in awhile. On our last visit we opened for Bad Religion in a huge outdoor venue next to the ocean and Ozzy Osbourne before that. Hopefully we’ll be back before the end of the year!
LAST COMENTS?
EVAN--Thanks to everyone who’s supported Cage9 this far in the journey! We’re proud to give you this new album that we’ve worked so hard on finally. Be sure to check out all our links and sign up to our email newsletter at cage9.com! Also,
we’ve recorded Spanish versions of three of the new songs so we’ll be releasing them to Latin America shortly as well as a few acoustic renditions of the songs on Illuminator. THANK YOU!
EVAN--Evan Rodaniche (guitars and vocals), Leslie Wyatt (bass, backing vocals), Matt Borowski (guitar) and Brian Sumwalt (drums). The future is a hard thing to predict! Of course I’d love for the band to never change line-ups and stay as it is… like the U2s, 311s, Slipknots and The Rolling Stones of the world. But at the level that we operate we’re doing it for the love of rock and roll alone. We’re not counting on any kind of reliable cash influx to feed our touring, living and survival. And for that sole fact, people are always going to hit a point where they can’t pay their rent or get by a certain way, or they’ll have a kid - and being in a band will get in the way of all that normal life stuff…so people have to move on. It’s a fact of life for smaller bands.
YOU WERE IN POWERMAN 5000 FOR SOMETIME, WAS CAGE9 A BAND THEN AND IF SO HOW HAS THE QUALITY OF THE BAND AND MUSIC IMPROVED SINCE NOW YOU CAN JUST FOCUS ON THIS BAND?
EVAN--I was in Cage9 first….pretty much since high school in fact! I was asked to fill in on guitar for Terry Corso of Alien Ant Farm who at the time, was in Powerman but couldn’t do a tour. Cage9 also opened that tour every night so I got to play TWICE every show which was a lot of fun. After that, Terry quit and I was asked to stay on. I spent about 5 years touring with them and also co-wrote, produced and mixed two albums for Spider and Powerman 5000. Eventually I decided I wanted to just focus on my real passion, Cage9, and left as well. Having multiple bands sounds like a good idea on paper - putting your eggs in multiple baskets. But in the end, if you want one to succeed, you’re going to have to focus solely on one project if it’s going to have any future. But I definitely learned a lot of awesome things being Spider’s right hand guitarist for all that time that I’m sure have carried over to the CAGE9 of today.
A LOT OF YOUR OLDER ALBUMS WERE RELEASED ON A JAPANESE LABEL. NOW YOU ARE ON THE EMP LABEL ROSTER HOW HAS THAT SIGNING HELPED IN GETTING THE WORD OUT ABOUT THE BAND IN THE STATES?
EVAN—In the states, we’ve been a 100% independent band for most of our history. Most everything we’ve accomplished has been with NO outside help at all. The Japanese label has been AMAZING for what they’ve done for us in Japan where we return every few years to play for large crowds of fans that know all our music! But here, we’re very excited to see what EMP might do to help us grow.
WHAT MADE YOU SIGN WITH EMP AND HOW HAVE THEY TREATED THE UPCOMING RELEASE OF THE NEW ALBUM ILLUMINATOR?
EVAN--I was very honored to hear that David Ellefson, a founding father of metal so to speak, really liked our song “Everything You Love Will Someday Die” back in December. He really got the mix of old school thrash blended with modern rock sensibilities that the song offered, so we felt like he was on our wave length.
HOW HAS ILLUMINATOR (THE ALBUM) PROGRESSED IN SOUND FROM PRIOR ALBUMS AND WHAT CAN FANS AND NEW COMERS OF THE BAND LOOK FORWARD TOO?
EVAN--“Illuminator” is definitely a major evolution from our last album “How to Shoot Lasers from Your Eyes” in many ways. The last album I went out of my way to edit the songs down quite a bit - a lot more pop-verse-chorus structures etc. On Illuminator, I dug really deep lyrically and musically and kind of let things flow a little more. It probably has more in common with our previous album “Survival Plan” than “Lasers” in that respect…but it borrows from both to form something new. Life has been a lot different this time around too. My father passed away a few months ago after a 2 year battle with cancer that was really hard to witness. The sadness, hope, darkness and search for “illumination” definitely guided the creation every aspect of this album, which I dedicated to him and his enormous influence on my life.
THE BAND HAS ALWAYS BEEN A GUITAR ORIENTED BAND PLAYING WITH DIVERSITY IN GUITAR SOUND. HOW DOES THAT WORKOUT WITH HAVING TWO GUITARISTS IN THE BAND?
EVAN--It’s pretty crucial. We’ve been a trio for quite a bit of our history, and as much as I like the simplicity of that, it’s just impossible to recreate what we do on record without two guitars - and even then it’s a challenge! But that’s what makes it fun.
YOU DO A LOT OF THE BAND STUFF IN A DIY FASHION. WAS THAT THE SAME IN THE STUDIO TIME OF RECORDING THIS NEW ALBUM AND WHAT ARE THE PROS AND CONS ABOUT WORKING IN THAT FASHION?
EVAN--Yeah I guess I can’t help it. I involve the band in as much of everything as possible. Everyone opinionates on all the major song decisions and help guide the direction of our sound. But I’m always the eye-in-the-sky figure, doing the recording, producing, mixing and song writing for the most part. I’ve always wanted to work with a big producer and all that but it’s just never materialized…so we’ve kind of had no choice it seems. The PRO is that I’ve gotten really good at producing and mixing, the CON is that it’s harder for me to stand back and view the artistic side of everything without seeing the rough edges and being tempted to smooth them out…when a lot of the time…they should stay rough.
WHAT SONG OFF THE NEW DISC WAS THE EASIEST FROM START TO FINISH TO LAY DOWN IN THE STUDIO AND THE HARDEST ONE AND WHY WERE BOTH EASY AND HARD?
EVAN--“Everything You Love Will Someday Die,” one of the longest and most diverse songs on the album was actually the easiest. The idea, lyrics, structure came together almost overnight…it was just really natural to me and is one of my favorites. Take Back Tomorrow went through like 1,000 different versions before we chose the way it is on the album. Inspiration cannot be predicted - so you try to work on music and sometimes you’ll be on fire, cranking out stuff you’re really excited about. A day later you can’t get excited about anything. You just have to ‘strike while the iron’s hot’ as they say and hope for the best!
WAS ANY SONGS COMPLETELY CHANGED ONCE YOU GOT INTO TRACKING THE ALBUM?
EVAN--Open the Sky might be one of the oldest riffs on the album - probably from a rehearsal for the “Lasers” album. But it was in a completely different key, completely different lyrics. Very happy the direction we ended up taking it.
THE SONG ALEATORICISM CAUGHT MY EYE BECAUSE THE MEANING OF THE SONG IS AWESOME. WHAT WAS THE CONCEPT OF THE LYRICS ON THAT ONE ABOUT FOR YOU?
EVAN--Sometimes in our rehearsal room, we’ll put up a few microphones and just hit record for a few hours. We’ll do a bunch of just random stuff, seg-waying from one riff to the next to be sorted through later on the computer. On the night we made that song, we jammed probably 10 other ideas that we decided this was the best of. I’d been wanting to write something around the title and concept of “Aleatrocisim” which is literally “randomly created art.” So here was my chance!
FIRST SINGLE AND VIDEO FOR EVERYTHING YOU LOVE WILL SOMEDAY DIE. LETS TALK VIDEO FIRST YOU HAD A LOT OF FANS AND FAMILY PLUS FRIENDS COME IN TO HELP WITH THE CONCEPT OF THE VIDEO, WHAT WAS THE OVERALL THEME AND CONCEPT OF DOING A VIDEO LIKE THAT AND WOULD YOU CONTINUE PRODUCING VIDEOS ON YOUR OWN?
EVAN--This video was our second attempt at making a music video on our own. The first was “Illuminator” for which we drove up into the mountains one morning, found a closed camp site that we snuck into and with nothing but a few props and a very basic idea for a video, shot most of it in one day with the help of a few girlfriends and a rented generator from Home Depot. The song was only half finished at the time and the video actually helped me finish the song…an interesting way to go about things!
It inspired us to try again after being very happy with the result. So going into “Everything You Love…”, we thought the easiest route would be to have friends and people just sing the song for us in close up and also high light the very simple theme of “no matter who we are, we’re all going to die” haha. It took a while to edit but I’m very happy with the outcome and I think it really does the song and theme justice. It’d be nice to have a few thousand dollars to pay someone else to make the next video…but we don’t. So yeah, we’ll be making the next video ourselves too. It’s work but it’s a lot of fun and it’s also GREAT to have so much control over how your message is portrayed on the screen.
WHEN WILL YOU BE HITTING THE ROAD AND DO YOU HAVE A BAND YOU WOULD LOVE TO TOUR WITH AND WHY?
EVAN--I was fortunate enough to produce, mix and play on Lacey Sturm, formerly of Flyleaf’s new solo album. There’s talk of the two of us touring together this year so we’re keeping our fingers crossed that it works out. We’d love to tour with one our favorite bands Nothing More. Our old drummer plays in Stitched Up Heart who’s doing great right now. Lots of big plans and we love being out on the road, meeting our fans, sleeping on their sofas (lol), and doing the NUMBER ONE thing we’ve dedicated our lives to do - PLAY!
ANY HUGE PLANS FOR A RECORD RELEASE PARTY FOR THE ALBUM AND WHAT IS THE RELEASE DATE FOR THE ALBUM?
EVAN--June 3rd is the official release date!!! We’re opening for Asking Alexandria, Ill Nino, Bobaflex and more on June 18th at the annual Sieram Festival in Idaho - gonna’ be a hell of a party!
IS PANAMA A THOUGHT FOR TOUR PLANS TO GIVE YOUR HOME AREA A LIVE VIEW OF THE BAND AND HOW LONG SINCE YOU PLAYED IN PANAMA?
EVAN--We return to Panama to play every few years and it’s always the highlight of our lives! We also go down to open for bigger bands once in awhile. On our last visit we opened for Bad Religion in a huge outdoor venue next to the ocean and Ozzy Osbourne before that. Hopefully we’ll be back before the end of the year!
LAST COMENTS?
EVAN--Thanks to everyone who’s supported Cage9 this far in the journey! We’re proud to give you this new album that we’ve worked so hard on finally. Be sure to check out all our links and sign up to our email newsletter at cage9.com! Also,
we’ve recorded Spanish versions of three of the new songs so we’ll be releasing them to Latin America shortly as well as a few acoustic renditions of the songs on Illuminator. THANK YOU!
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