One year to the day since I last spoke with Candlelight Red founder and guitarist, Jeremy Edge, I got the opportunity to sit down with him and his cohort and vocalist Ryan Hoke. In late September 2011, the band was just releasing its debut album, "The Wreckage", and tearing up the road on the 2011 Rockstar Energy Uproar Festival. Fast forward one year, and the two, along with bassist Jamie Morral and new drummer Brian Dugan, are out the on the 2012 Uproar Festival aka Xfest, in support of their EP, "Demons".
This year I caught up with the guys in Boise, Idaho where they laid down a high energy and enthusiastic performance. The guys declared the tour a blast despite Hoke mangling his foot along the way.
“I rolled my ankle real bad,” Hoke revealed. “It’s better now. It’s still bruised real bad, but I went skydiving yesterday, so that helped. They say when you sprain your ankle you have to elevate it, so I elevated it to 10,000 feet. It was a blast. It was my first time. We hooked up with the guys from Skydive Idaho. They were super nice to us. They were closed and they opened up for us. A whole bunch of guys from the tour went. It made for a great day off.”
“Great memories all around,” added Edge.
Earlier this summer the band released a four song EP, "Demons", and the guys talked about why they went with an EP and working with Sevendust drummer Morgan Rose as their producer.
“We knew we were doing Uproar,” Hoke shared. “And we knew we wanted something fresh for this tour. We didn’t want to tour on the record. We wanted to offer some new music to all the fans, and all the potential new fans we might make. So we went in the studio with Morgan Rose for five days and banged out four songs, written and recorded right there. And we’re actually going back in the studio in November with Morgan and we’re going to record a full length [album] then.”
Edge offered that Rose was a fantastic producer:
“He’s easy going. Easy to get along with guy. So it made it really comfortable. And he’s got just crazy skills I think from doing so many Sevendust records, and working with so many producers, and I think he picked up something from each of them. It’s a great vibe there, and we had a great time doing it. We just wanted to get a little sample out to people.”
With the impending presidential election coming up, I broached the topic of politics and the state of America with the guys. Jeremy admitted that America is in a bad place at the moment:
“I think it’s sad. The country is in a really sad state right now. I don’t think we’ve come out of it the best we could. I think people are really angry on both sides of everything, and I think everybody just needs to relax and try to find ways to work together and actually find solutions to problems. We meet middle America everywhere we play and people are just struggling to make ends meet and living paycheck to paycheck.”
Hoke added his thoughts on the subject:
“I think the election is important but at this point, where the country is right now–I don’t think any one man is gonna fix that. There’s so much stuff that’s compiled and we’re in a really bad place right now. No matter who wins this election they’re not going to fix the problems. A lot of other stuff has to happen if we’re ever going to get back on our feet. We come from a small town. We’re not from a big city. All my friends are welders and farmers and they break their back every day and they make nothing. It’s really hard for the people that are really running this country.”
You can watch the entire interview below, pick up the EP "Demons", and look for a new album in early 2013. You can also catch our 2011 interview with Jeremy, here.
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