ARTS AND CULTURE: Revision, Revised
Published 12:00 am Tuesday, September 7, 2021
Charles Cody Wilds – Vocals; Josh Bailey – Guitar; Austin Roberts – Guitar; Jared Webb – Bass; Jose Couvertier – Drums
Genre Style: Metalcore Infused Hard Rock
Location: Ironton
How did the project start?
Revision, Revised started in 2014, formed from various local band members coming together after the MySpace mainstream emo culture boom in the late 2010s. Starting off as a metalcore band on our first album, which was recorded by Grammy-nominated producer Joey Sturgis, “Dead Icons” was released in 2016 and was reissued as a deluxe edition in early 2018. Moving out of our initial style in 2019, we focused more on being a hard rock band instead of a pure metalcore band, while still featuring parts in each song that showcase our early sound. As vocalist Charles Cody Wilds started becoming more of a clean singing vocalist, we focused on creating a more mainstream sound for their upcoming album for early 2022, which was produced by Billboard Chartibg Producer Lee Albrecht. The first single off that album “Call Of The Haunted” was released earlier this year and is closing in on 50,000 streams on Spotify and gathered national press from magazines such as Revolver and online publications Lambgoat, New Fury Media. These Publications have stated that the band has a certain uniqueness with their heavy sections of the song while also nailing the vocal styles of mainstream bands like Bring Me The Horizon and Linkin Park. Currently, we won a contest in July against 128 other artists to make the final four for a chance to play main stage with Metallica at this years Welcome To Rockville in Daytona, Florida.
What are three adjectives to describe your style?: Catchy, energetic and theatrical
Walk us through your creative process. Does it vary, if so, how?: Our creative process is probably a lot different than most bands I’d assume, we don’t just jam out in a garage or practice space to come up with our music. We take ideas from each member and sit down in the living room with a computer to take the ideas and make it a song. We usually start with a the general idea of what do we want this song to sound like, as we are a band that blends genres on each and every song, as a band that sings, screams and raps a little. We have many different styles to put into our sound. When we write our demos, we start out with the question. What do we want here, is this gonna be a heavy track, a mainstream radio track or a blend of both. As guys all in our late 20’s we grew up on the Nu – Metal surge in the early 2000s which we have started to incorporate into our sound today. So the creative process can be kinda off the wall with our music. We also start with a song motif, the key of the song and what the BPM will be, then just go from there. Once we get our demos produced in house, ee make the trip to Lansing, Michigan to work with our producer to make the songs the best they can be!
How has your art evolved since you started? What is your favorite creative tool, and why?: We have evolved so much in the last few years as artists, as we are started around 2010. The rock & metal genre has changed a lot, so you definitely have to evolve with the times, bands like Bring Me The Horzion, Spiritbox have definitely paved the way for the new mainstream sound in hard rock, So as a bunch of kids that just played heavy music the beginning of our career, we have definitely matured as musicians as it shows in our upcoming songs! Honestly our favorite tool would be our producer Lee, working with someone who has had Billboard Success in this genre really helps because he can take an idea we had and make it flow even better.
What about being an artist fills your cup? Why should others take interest in the arts?: There is nothing like being on stage, absolutely nothing compares to that feeling, it’s hard to explain and resonate to people who haven’t done it, but the best example I could give is like if anyone ever played sports, or done theater or acting, that feeling of all eyes on you performing is just so surreal. Luckily for us as a touring band we’ve got to play in 28 states so far and meeting people from each part of this country that all share the love of music and performing is the best feeling you can have. Seeing complete strangers know every word to your songs is just something that can’t be explained until you have it happen. It’s kinda like returning that kickoff to win the game as time expires. Yes, we are all huge football fans! Go Tigers!!
We would love to see more people take interest into the arts because everyone has a dream, no matter what that dream is, everyone has one and we believe everyone should follow that dream, life is short and hard and having passion about something and never following through with it, will always weigh on your mind and you’ll always be like “what if” your entire life. Take the chance, follow that dream! We believe that everyone is capable of greatness if you try hard enough! Art is never going to go away, it has always been around and always will be.
Any advice for new or struggling artists?: Don’t give up, that’s number one. We took a hiatus for two years in 2016 and it seemed like the longest two years ever and losing two years of something we love doing looking back was pretty miserable, so definitely don’t give up! Keep pushing!
Number two, invest in what you love to do. In this day of social media, just getting a break in the music industry is a lot harder than it used to be and the saying is, spend money to make money applies to your music and band. Research producers and studios who have had success in the genre you play and work with them. There are industry professionals out there that care and will make you 100x better as an artist.
Number three, work hard! For anyone wanting to make a place for themselves in the music industry. You have to work hard, the grind is real but the payoff outweighs the hardships! Like mentioned before, being on stage in a new place where people know your all the words to your songs, there isn’t much that competes with that feeling!
Number four, surround yourself with great musicians that you call also consider your best friends, it makes things way easier, luckily we are five guys who are as close as brothers but also have the talents needed to make it in Industry.
So yeah! Don’t Give Up, Invest in your career as a musician and work harder than you’ve ever worked before and surround yourself with likeminded musicians wanting the same goal.
It’s worth it.
What upcoming project should we look for, and where can we look for it?: Our new album will release in early 2022, We don’t have an exact date yet, that’s the marketing teams call, but it will be out early 2022 on all major publications, iTunes, Spotify, Amazon music.
The first single off that album is already released and is titled “Call Of The Haunted” it is available on all streaming sites and there’s a music video on YouTube for that track! That track is based around giving the power to the people by unity and coming together as one.
The next single for our upcoming album comes out mid November and is titled “Amethyst,” that track tackles the post grief period of losing a loved one and the grief you experience and have to overcome to be yourself again after losing someone you’ve been around your entire life. I wrote the lyrics after the passing of my grandfather Dane and it means a lot to me because that was the first time I’ve experienced that feeling and everyone will unfortunately feel that pain in their lifetime.
Each song on this album lyrically talks about the vices put on our everyday lives just being a person in this world and will be relatable to almost everyone.
So be sure to follow us online and keep up to date with the new releases as we firmly believe this is the best work we’ve done as a band.
What question do you never get asked that you would like to be asked? How would you answer?: We’d like to be asked more about our genre, we sometimes just get lumped into different subclasses that we show elements of which can turn some people away from what we really are. Instead of what actually is metalcore infused hard rock? It’s a term we actually made up ourselves.
Metalcore is a sub genre heavy metal, heavy metal was made popular by bands like Metallica, Judas Priest, Pantera in the 70s through the 90s. Metalcore became popular around the mid 2000s from bands like Killswitch Engage, All The Remains. Hard Rock, is your mainstream style radio rock like Nickleback, Breaking Benjamin, Three Days Grace, Stuff Like That.
So having five different members who all are fans of the different genres is really what makes our genre of “Metalcore Infused Hard Rock.”
We take everyone’s tastes to blend it into our own sound. The fist bumping rock choruses from hard rock, the low guitar tunings of Metalcore and combined themes, we play in G# on Seven String Guitars and five stringed Bass Guitar, which wasn’t seen in mainstream rock until recent times. So taking a guitar tone that hasn’t really been used in the hard rock genre alot and making it our main tuning was different, but it gives us the ability to be heavy when we want but also keep the same catchy vocal driven choruses hard rock is known for. We have songs on this album that borderline pop rock but when played live the low tunings it still has that metal feel, that the heavier crowd will like but still will appeal to people who don’t like a lot of screaming. We feel like doing this genre will open us up to way more casual fans than our first album!