Matt Whiteman is the vocalist and frontman for Red Tide Rising, a Denver-based band that slammed onto the national music scene in 2012 when they hit the road with In This Moment on the band’s non-festival ‘Blood’ tour dates, which also included one date with Hatebreed.
The band then struck a deal with a small independent label, Spat! Records, for a digital release of two singles, “Finding Home” and “Inferno.” In early 2013, they recorded their first full length album released through DeathBox Records. In 2014, Red Tide Rising has continued their domination of concert stages across North America and are currently on tour with Drowning Pool.
Table of Contents
4:40 – If you had to describe yourself as a band, song or genre, what would it be?
7:12 – How did you get started in the music business?
9:20 – Looking back at your career, what stands out to you as your proudest moment?
13:42 – What’s been one of your biggest failures?
17:47 – Three things artists should be doing today to grow their fan-base and move their careers forward
If you had to describe yourself as a band, song or genre, what would it be?
Aggressive. I’m very hot headed. I take things seriously, not only music but life itself. Our writing process is very heated, because everyone has strong ideas. But it’s worked out for me to be aggressive, because I don’t think I would stuck with my vocal training all these years if I didn’t bring that aggression.
How did you get started in the music business?
My brother was 12 when he got his first guitar, and he started guitar lessons right away. It was sixth grade for him and I was in fourth grade and our school did a talent show. He wanted to go out with a bang. We formed a quick band with his guitar teachers sons and we found a drummer and we did AC/DC’s TNT for the talent show. That was our spark that got us into this crazy madness.
Looking back at your career, what stands out to you as your proudest moment?
My proudest moment was a couple weeks ago when the tour came back to our home town, and we were on the tour. Yeah, we’re going back to the hotel, but we’re not the local opener anymore. We’re on national tour, we’re on the bill, we’re loading in with the headliner. It felt great to be one step ahead.
What’s been one of your biggest failures?
It’s that mindset in the beginning: You’re gonna play shows, you’re gonna get signed, you’re gonna be huge. We had that mindset. It wasn’t a failure of music, it was failure of knowing how the music industry really works.
Now we set goals, and see what we can accomplish and take look at what we can do. We started with trying to get 1,000 Facebook fans, and we did that. Let’s put out a music video, and we did that. Let’s get to 2,500 Facebook fans, and we did that. Then we thought, let’s get on tour, and we did that. Then we started pushing record labels to get attention, and it’s been working well since we started following that mentality.
Three things artists should be doing today to grow their fan-base and move their careers forward:
- You definitely want to play your home-town market a lot. You want to build up a good reputation with club owners and venue owners. If you have a good reputation with them, they will keep putting you on shows, and those shows will only get better.
- When those national tours invite you to join, make it happen. It costs a lot of money, but the opportunity you get is ground-breaking. That is where you get your fan-base, by tapping into other bands’ fan-bases.
- Create other sources of media. Get a music video out. Get your fans hooked on SoundCloud. Put demos up. Fans need something new every week to get their attention. It’s all about playing, promoting, and getting out there.
The best ways to reach Matt and the guys from Red Tide Rising:
On the web:
http://www.redtiderising.com/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/RedTideRising
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/RedTideRising
Outro Music:
Finding Home
Inferno
Red Tide Rising
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