RUBICON CROSS – The Green Diaries

Interview with Chris Green

1. What are the artistic and commercial goals behind the formation of this band?

I guess artistically it’s just for us to always remain in control of what we write, i don’t think we’d have it any other way though. As sons as you start playing music you think people ‘want’ to hear and deviate from what you like/want to play, you’re on a slippery slope towards the ‘Gravy train’ crew.

Commercially, we’re being realistic. We want the 1st phase of our campaign to hit hard, for the Best Buy sales to hit a high point that demands repressing, this in turn will create demand for shows in the high selling areas. Then we get our butts out there and tour hard bringing our music to the people. We’re very sociable creatures and you’ll often see us hanging with the fans after shows even when we should be packing our gear. hahaha

2. Please introduce us to the band and let us know about the music past of each member.

Lead Vocals – CJ Snare – Singer in Multi Platinum selling AMA award winning band FiREHOUSE

Lead Guitar – Chris Green – previous bands include FURYON, TYKETTO, PRIDE

Bass – Simon Farmery – FURYON, PRIDE

Drums – Robert Behnke – Seventh Omen

Guitars – Jeff Lerman – Well established session player in Chicago

3. How did you think to baptise the band as Rubicon Cross?

We had a common phrase in the band that was ‘Crossing the Rubicon’. It’s a very old saying deriving from Julius Caesar and his commitment to battle by crossing the Rubicon River in North Italy. The saying became an analogy for ‘the point of no return’, that fitted very well with the band as we felt we’d committed ourselves to the uphill battle of a rock band trying to carve a career in the music industry like a band of brothers. The single ‘Bleed with Me’ is a great representation of that and how we feel about it.

4. You have a new album coming out, please give us all the details.

Our debut ‘Self Titled’ album will be released worldwide on Monday 19th May 2014. It’ll be available on all the regular digital stores like iTunes etc. We also have a Deluxe version with a cool poster and 2 acoustic bonus tracks exclusively at Best Buy stores so go grab a copy while they last. Here’s a link (sorry, shameless plugging)

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/rubicon-cross-deluxe-only–best-buy-with-bonus-tracks-poster-cd/6017091.p?id=3220147&skuId=6017091&st=rubicon+cross&lp=3&cp=1

If you’re in Europe or other parts of the world then go to our website and purchase them from there.

http://www.rubiconcross.net

5. Do you consider your new album a new brick in the wall of the music industry? How strong is this wall these days?

hmmm. I mean, the music industry in general is a brick wall. Very few know where the holes are, and even fewer have a ladder to get over. We’ve been chiseling away at the wall for a while, made some friends along the way, and tried to grow this very organically by building fans, getting it on radio, doing interviews, and hoping that’s enough to create a demand. Then we go out live and connect those tunes with our fans. Who knows, maybe if we turn up loud enough we can tear the fu**ing wall down..hahahaha

6. What type of expectations do you have regarding the potential sales of your album?

It’s really hard for us to speculate but any band coming out with a debut album has an ‘initial pressing’ done. If we can sell this copies, i think we’d all be happy. Really be just wanna make a small living, we don’t ask much, if we could live on the road paying our bills and playing every night. There’s not much more we could ask for. Well, a helicopter would be cool i suppose 🙂

7. Comparing with your older music as separate members in deparate bands, what are the elements that you consider “new” in this band?

Ok this is easy, we basically fused all the best points of every musician in the band. CJ had amazingly melodic soaring vocals (i even nicknamed him ‘captain hook’ because he could write a hit on a tambourine). For me i brought the heaviness and the shred, Simon on the bass brought the aggression, Behnke on drums brings the thunder and animalistic quality, and Jeff holds it all together like mortar in a wall (there’s that wall again), wherever there are gaps sonically he isolates them and makes sure the sound stays full and true.

8. What type of contract did you decide to sign for your new release and how does it affect your artistic freedom?

I don’t talk about our contracts in public even if i could but let’s just say we have all the artistic freedom in the world, we just have a bit of extra work to do. INgrooves & Universal have been a HUGE help with this release.

9. Is the American dream still a reality for the foreign bands that want to tour the States?

If you’re playing the right music yes, it’s harder for rock music but the whole thing is driven by radio. If you get to number 1 in an chart, you’re given an opportunity to then go on to show the country what you’re made of. 1 of 2 things will happen, you quickly fizzle out because you didn’t have enough hits, or you stand the test of time and create a career for yourself. There’d be a LOT more bands out there doing this if Radio stations weren’t bound by corporate sponsors to play music they’re ‘told to’. Sure you can get played everywhere in the US if you have the money. In fact, i reckon if you had $200,000 you could get to number 1 easily, and stay there for a while. Sad, but that’s the way it is, probably the way it’s always been.

10. How the music reality shows are going to affect the music industry?

I mean it’s free advertising isn’t it. If RUBICON CROSS was to do a reality show we’d have half the people hating us and half wanting to be fans i’d imagine, but with that kind of exposure you can’t really lose. Why, you have an offer for us??? hahaha

11. When melodic rock entered the commercial failure of the 1990s, Firehouse remained very popular in Asia. How did it happen?

CJ would be the best person to answer on this, but there are countries that aren’t bound by fashion and fads (believe it or not). The music is allowed to speak for itself. I had the pleasure of playing as guitarist in FIREHOUSE for a tour of India in 2008. 1st show was 43,000 people, all singing every word. There was no class divide visually, nothing that would let me think “oh there’s the rockers, there’s the shoe gazers” it was just thousands of people there to celebrate money. I think the US and most westernized countries could learn from this. They’re all so tied up trying to work out what genre they’re in, MetalCore, Radio Rock, Death Metal, Norwegian Black Metal, it’s all just Rock music, they’re all using the same formula of Drums, bass, guitars, vocals, i have no idea why they try to create so much segregation. RUBICON CROSS, we’re a f**king Rock band, that’s what we are, that’s what we do.

12. Do you think that there is a new market in terms of Geography that may become the next “Asia” for Firehouse?

Definitely, Australia for most bands is hugely unchartered territory. Because it’s hard to get bands out there to tour due to ridiculous travel costs. But more and more promoters are going out their way to make these shows happen, and pretty soon, more and more acts will get to those places that haven’t had access to see their favorite bands live. Hopefully then there’ll be a domino effect and this will happen in more places. Eastern Europe id HUGE for Rock now.

13. How do you think that the current technology affects the landscape of the music industry?

S**t we could talk forever about this. By current technology it generally refers to downloading, and more specifically ‘illegal’ downloading. Lokk, it happens, and until there’s a way that it can be policed it’ll carry on stopping upcoming bands from getting out the gate. It doesn’t effect the bigger bands as much as the average kid that downloads the latest Avenged 7 Fold album for free will probably go pay to see them live. The same kid may download the Rubicon Cross album for free, and then want to see them live, and sit wondering “why don’t they play my town, or even within 100 miles”, and you’re saying “guess what kid, we didn’t make enough f**king sales to get a booking agent interested in us to tour your area”. It’s so closely connected, people jus DON’T GET IT. They’ll download 2 albums for free, justify it by saying music is too expensive, then go out and send $7 on a latte in Starbucks. Great logic…hahaha.

Anyway i don’t want to end on a bad note, we mostly have hugely loyal fans and they want physical product, and we are more than happy to oblige and provide them with awesome rock shows in return. So May 19th the real game begins, get out there and support the bad people, check out what we’re up to by visiting http://www.rubiconcross.net

And thanks so much for the opportunity to let us talk here, you help us get our message out there.

Chris Green

Info: http://www.rubiconcross.net/