Quietdrive

October 22, 2008—Quietdrive’s sophomore release Deliverance debuted this week at #1 on Billboard’s Alternative New Artist Chart, beating out other releases by We The Kings, The Secret Machines, Ludo, Mayday Parade, Ra Ra Riot and Black Kids, among others.
Deliverance is currently streaming in its entirety exclusively on Purevolume. Head over to www.purevolume.com/quietdrive to listen to the album now.
Tour stalwarts hailing from Minneapolis, Quietdrive feels completely at home on the road which is where they’ll be spending most of their time promoting Deliverance. It’s the life they’ve dreamed of and it’s the life they can’t give up. Having played well over 900 shows since 2005, the band doesn’t know any other way as they currently find themselves on tour across the country with Mest, and Rookie of the Year.
“We tour like maniacs,” lead vocalist Kevin Truckenmiller points out, “and we have never slowed down. We are on our fourth van already. We never had more than 3 consecutive days off while touring on our last record, and there were days where we did 4 performances, starting at radio at 7AM, and ending at 11PM at a club show.”
Indeed that hard work has paid off for Quietdrive. Now in the toughest sales climate to ever face the record business, Quietdrive’s debut release, When All That’s Left Is You, sold 64,000 in the U.S. alone and put Quietdrive at the forefront of emerging artists. The band sold another 400,000 digital singles as well.
With the release of Deliverance (The Militia Group) last week, Quietdrive has hit the road with Mest and continues to showcase its ability to deliver strong pop-rock gems one after another.
One of the band’s final U.S. shows, before heading overseas, is Mistletoe Meltdown 2008 on December 6 in Milwaukee. The show at Turner Hall Ballroom with Sing It Loud, and Danger Is My Middle Name, will donate all proceeds to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Catch Quietdrive on tour with Mest and Rookie of the Year:
October 20 – Seattle, WA @ El Corazon
October 22 – Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theatre
October 23 – Ames, IA @ Iowa State University (Students Only)
October 24 – Lawrence, KS @ The Granada Theatre
October 25 – St. Louis, MO @ Fubar
October 26 – Lexington, KY @ Red Mile Round Bard
October 28 – Pontiac, MI @ The Eagle Theater
October 29 – Chicago, IL @ House of Blues
October 30 – Cleveland, OH @ Peabody’s
October 31 – Williamsville, NY @ Club Infinity
November 1 – Poughkeepsie, NY @ The Chance Theatre
November 2 – New York, NY @ Irving Plaza
November 3 – Hartford, CT @ Webster Theatre
November 4 – Asbury Park, NJ @ Stone Pony
November 5 – Towson, MD @ The Recher Theatre
November 6 – Falls Church, VA @ State Theatre
November 7 – Allentown, PA @ Crocodile Rock Café
November 8 – Pittsburg, PA @ Status
November 9 – Lancaster, PA @ Chameleon Club
November 13 – Houston, TX @ Scout Bar
November 14 – Dallas, TX @ The Door
November 15 – San Antonio, TX @ Jack’s Patio
November 21 – Collegeville, MN @ Brother Willie’s Pub
November 22 – Mankato, MN @ What’s Up Lounge
November 29 – Lansing, MI @ Mac’s Bar
November 30 – Hazel Park, MI @ The Rec
December 3 – Lacrosse, WI @ The Warehouse
December 6 – Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall (Benefit Show)
December 8 – Madison, WI @ Majestic Theater w/ Boys Like Girls
December 9 – Iowa City, IA @ The Picador
For more information check out:
www.purevolume.com/quietdrive
www.myspace.com/quietdrive - thedeadhub.com

Quietdrive Rings In the New Year on Xbox Live
Minneapolis quintet chosen as January’s Xbox Live Artist of the Month
Beginning Jan. 1, Xbox Live members can download exclusive Quietdrive content from Xbox Live Marketplace to their Xbox 360™ console, including free videos from the new album “When All That’s Left Is You.” Fans can download the band’s latest video “Rise From the Ashes” free on Xbox Live Marketplace, and select Xbox Live Gold members will also have the opportunity to go head-to-head with the band in “Gears of War” during their 90-minute Xbox Live Game with Fame session.

Fans who are interested in gaming against Quietdrive should log on to http://quietdrivemusic.com/xbox to sign up.

The Minneapolis-based quintet, made up of vocalist and chief songwriter Kevin Truckenmiller, guitarist Justin Bonhiver, guitarist Matt Kirby, bassist Droo Hastings and drummer Brandon Lanier, was formed in 2002. Their recently released debut album, “When All That’s Left Is You,” is a perfectly paced record of sumptuous pop hooks, raw rock thrills, and beautifully warm, openhearted melodies about faith, hope and love. Produced by Butch Walker (Avril Lavigne, Bowling for Soup, The Donnas) and Matt Kirkwold and mixed by Chris Lord-Alge (Green Day, Switchfoot), this sharply penned album of volcanic, guitar-driven rock introduces Quietdrive as an electrifying, pop-savvy band with musical smarts well beyond their years. Tour dates for their current tour can be found at http://www.quietdrivemusic.com. - Gamezone.com

Talk about trial by fire: Quietdrive went straight from making demo tapes in its tiny rehearsal space in Minneapolis to working in a hi-fi Atlanta studio with one of the nation's hottest producers.

The first round of recording for its major-label debut was a five-day session with Butch Walker. The quintet finished two tracks, "Get Up" and "Take a Drink With Me," but they said they got a lot more out of it.

"We learned so much from Butch," guitarist Matt Kirby said last week at a coffeeshop around the corner from their practice space.

Kirby's friend from St. John's University, singer Kevin Truckenmiller, added, "Those five days were really high-pressure, but they set up the rest of the album."

After Atlanta, the band spent a month recording in a studio in the basement of WCCO-TV with local producer Matt Kirkwold, who also worked on their demos. The finished tracks then went through mixing with mastering guru Chris Lord-Alge.

Working with Lord-Alge and Walker doesn't come cheap for a band (which eventually pays such expenses out of its record sales), but the guys believe the results will pay off with more than just radio airplay.

"I look at it like paying for college," said Truckenmiller, 24.

Since the recording for "When All That's Left Is You" was finished a year ago, Quietdrive has built up a fan base on Myspace.com and done what every band must do: toured a lot. The guys have played about 100 gigs since September.

"We've laid the groundwork, and I think we're definitely ready for the record to come out," Kirby said confidently. - Star Tribune

Up-and-coming bands now flock to Myspace to showcase their music. Minneapolis rock group Quietdrive has yet to release its first album, but the band already has over 36,000 Myspace friends. More than half a million copies of their songs have been downloaded from the site.

"Dateline NBC" caught up with the band during a gig at New York's legendary rock club CBGB's to talk to lead singer Kevin Truckenmiller and guitarist Matt Kirby about how the Web site has boosted their popularity.

Kevin Truckenmiller, Quietdrive lead singer: We started using Myspace right before we were signed. I signed up and I didn't really know what it was, but I knew that you could post your music on it. So I was looking into it and I was researching it a little bit and I was like, this is kind of a cool way for us to get our music across and to connect with people.

Matt Kirby, Quietdrive guitarist: We kind of made it a part of like, daily routine, you know. We would spend a couple of hours branching out to people that we couldn't branch out to just out of Minneapolis or you know places or shows that we'd be on tour with because we never really went far out of the region, so...

Truckenmiller: When you tour, you see all of your fans every day. But when you're not touring it's difficult to communicate with those fans. So when we spend time writing music and then spend time just contacting our fans and talking to them through Myspace, it's an easier way to just do that all across the world and still maintain those fans and still keep the fans interested in your music and what you're doing.

Kirby: It worked out where it just started catching on fire....and then one day we ended up on the front page of Myspace and fans started coming in the droves. People started finally hearing our music and stuff. But we actually started out to use it as a tool to make ourselves stand out a little bit in an area where we had, you know, very little chance without a step above.

Truckenmiller: I think when you're a band you have to have your name known to a lot of people in a lot of different ways. They have to be approached in like through their friends, through the Internet, they need to see it, they need to hear it. For them to become a complete fan, sometimes that's what it takes. So with Myspace it's helped us get our name out therel

Kirby: Myspace has advanced our career a lot. It's kind of pushed the accelerator button on us. We started out before we got signed. We started using Myspace, you know, consistently, and we haven't even released our record yet. I would say it's probably shaved a year or so off of where we would be without it. It's been a tool and a half (laughs)

- Dateline NBC

Quietdrive's When All That's Left Is You: These Minneapolis rockers have "buzz" written all over them, what with a red-hot Myspace page and raves from The Los Angeles Times. They get an additional boost from Avril Lavigne producer Butch Walker and heralded mixer Chris Lord-Alge on the LP, which features "Rise From the Ashes," "Take a Drink With Me" and "Maybe Misery." - Mtv.com

After Quietdrive signed with Epic Records, the Minneapolis quintet didn't sit back and wait for the label's marketing machine to turn them into stars. They took matters into their own hands -- and computer mice -- using the social networking website MySpace.com to build a massive cyber-following.

During breaks from recording their Butch Walker-produced debut, "When All That's Left Is You," members of Quietdrive solicited the MySpace "friends" of other bands on the site to check out Quietdrive's music. "It's a totally indie attitude," guitarist Matt Kirby says. "We wanted to make ourselves apparent to our label -- like, 'Look what we can do on our own. Imagine if you help us.' "

The results were staggering. The band has more than 33,000 friends, as they're known on MySpace, and its two songs have been downloaded almost half a million times. "We all had our MySpace work time," Kirby says of band mates Kevin Truckenmiller, Justin Bonhiver, Droo Hastings and Brandon Lanier. "Somebody would tell us we remind them of Jimmy Eat World, or Fall Out Boy, so we'd go to their MySpace and write their fans and say hi."

Kirby reports an increasing number of MySpace contacts showing up at concerts (next: Monday at the Knitting Factory), but whether the buzz can translate to sales after the album is released early this summer remains to be seen. Purveyors of Quietdrive's brand of hooky emo-rock, with its spit-polished guitars and soaring choruses, crowd the marketplace right now. But at least the band has earned a hearing. "It's so easy," Kirby says of using MySpace. "The possibilities are endless." - Los Angeles Times