Statewide Emergency
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Statewide Emergency

Boulder, Colorado, United States | SELF

Boulder, Colorado, United States | SELF
Band Rock Alternative

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This band has not uploaded any videos

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"Back to The Future"

http://www.boulderweekly.com/20090212/overtones.html - Boulder Weekly


"Categorized under Best Rock Albums of 2008"

Another Point of View along with Rose Hill Drive and other well known artists was Categorized under Best Rock Albums of 2008.

link

http://www.boulderweekly.com/20081218/greengiving.html
- Boulder Weekly


"Q&A in Colorado Daily"

Most of the players in Statewide Emergency are still in high school, but that's not stopping this Boulder band from mapping out its musical career.

The local group mixes up a powerful blend of old-school blues with modern-rock sounds, and it's earned the band select gigs at top local venues.

If you go

Who: Statewide Emergency, with Soft Focus

When: 9 p.m. Friday

Where: Club 156, University Memorial Center, CU campus, boulder

Cost: $5

programcouncil.com

Statewide Emergency sums up its music in this Web site posting: "If the Queens of the Stone Age and Jet had a baby that was raised by Jimmy Page -- it would come out sounding similar to Statewide Emergency."

Matt Paradis is the group's vocalist/guitarist and the only member of State Emergency enrolled in college. The local musician was ready to discuss his young Boulder band.

Q: How did you put together this band in high school?

A: All of us played music before we were 10, so this group came together in high school. We've gone through various band member changes, but in the past year-and-a-half, we've found the best lineup.

I'm now going to the University of Colorado in Denver, but the rest of the band's still in high school.

Q: What kind of musical sound did you want to


Statewide Emergency headlines Club 156 on Friday.
create with this band?
A: We're a four-piece band that has two guitarists, bass and drum. We like to create our own sound and have a shredding guitar sound. We're a blues-based, alternative rock band. We have a raw, rock feel to our music, we have strong beats and we like to experiment with non-standard sounds.

Q: How hard is it to start a Boulder band now?

A: It's definitely hard to start a band in Boulder now, so a lot of our first gigs were in Denver. Boulder only has a limited amount of opportunities to play, but we have been able to play shows at Club 156, the Fox, the b-side and the Thunderbird. We got to open for The Swayback at the Fox.

In Denver we've played Cervantes and the Walnut Room. Now we're playing an equal number of Boulder and Denver shows.

We're definitely trying to break out of this market, so we're talking about touring outside Colorado this summer.

Q: What can fans expect at Club 156?

A: We put on a high-energy and pretty loud show. It's definitely a rock 'n' roll concert. We really try to put on a show and we put everything into the performance. Besides, the CU show's cheap. Everyone can come!



Read more: http://www.coloradodaily.com/music-news/ci_14472186#ixzz0oISAfhnc
Coloradodaily.com - Colorado Daily


"Blast From the Past"

When I was a teenager, I sweated out my adolescent angst in a barely listenable garage band like countless other young, hopeful musicians with grandiose visions of rock stardom.


Eventually we had our chance to prove ourselves to the local rock scene at a major battle of the bands at an area high school. We asked ourselves, while scratching our heads, “How did we get this gig?” Apparently someone had slipped a cassette to the booking person, claiming it was our demo, when in actuality, it was material recorded by our favorite semi-professional and polished local band. We played and unintentionally provided some much needed comedic relief for the packed house.

I’m sure this was never the case with Boulder’s Statewide Emergency. The young band’s chops would not allow for this aberration. Vocalist/guitarist Matt Paradis, guitarist Luke Johnson, bassist Caleb Kronen and percussionist Keith Slack — all in their teens —have proven themselves in the Boulder and Denver club scenes. Their debut disc, last year’s Another Point of View, was an auditory testament to the quartet’s strong work ethic and ability to craft loud, guitar-based rock with influences that predate them by decades. The band owes an obvious debt to ’70s-era rock gods whose debauchery involved smashed motel television sets, squealing groupies and binge drinking.

The follow-up, Carnivorous Carnival, which will be released digitally on May 30, continues this tradition.

The disc showcases a solid, capable band and sounds like it could have been recorded in 1975 — its vintage glory aided by the capable hands of local studio techies such as John Macy, Mark Oblinger and James Tuttle. The band’s limited recording fund is hardly noticeable.

“We were on a decently low budget, so we wanted to be really tight on all our songs going into a studio,” Paradis says. “So once we got in there, everything went pretty straight-forward and as planned because we [were] pretty prepared and ready for it.

“We actually tracked all to analog,” he reveals. “We tracked through a 24-track tape machine and then into ProTools from that. Analog has that warm kind of tone that most digital recordings don’t have. Then on the way out, when we were mixing it, we went back through tape. I’m sure that helped [with the vintage sound].”

Production choices and musical tightness only go so far, though — the content has to match. Paradis and company rise to the task by blasting through Carnivorous Carnival’s six tunes with power chords and bombast galore. This is stoner rock with enough swagger to split the seams on a pair of polyester skinny jeans. Don’t come to the Statewide Emergency table hungry for sugary pop or over-produced radio fare; feast here if you like your rock loud and straightforward.

“The Inside,” which starts off Carnivorous Carnival, contains the album’s finest moments. Heavy guitars and muscular vocals arise from the mix and sucker-punch the listener in stereo. Drums and bass swirl in the background, providing a propulsive rhythm section, while a strong melody dives and rises up continuously. All the elements work together, and the result is easily likable.

“It was probably the song we worked on the most. I think it’s the one that we’re going to promote as our single, and we had a feeling about that going in,” Paradis says. “The biggest problems we found with that song were getting the vocals to fit right in there. The vocals are really what drive that song — just the effects and levels and processing on all that — we definitely struggled with [that] for a while, but then in the end it turned out perfect.”

The guitar-filled juggernaut “The Inside,” the electric piano-containing, more subdued “Rubber Legs” and the rest of Carnivorous Carnival will be provided free of charge to all those who pay the cover for Saturday’s album release show at the Fox Theatre. These days, with so much music available for free — both legally and illegally — it makes sense on the promotional side of things to sometimes give music away free of charge.

“We’re really proud of this album. We want people to hear it, and that’s [a] bigger priority than getting money for it, because getting heard is what we want above all else,” Paradis says. “You want people to know what you’re doing, because if people don’t know what you’re doing, why are you doing it?”
- Boulder Weekly


"Meet Statewide Emergency"

Once upon a time not all that long ago, there was a group of badasses from Boulder who played rock and roll like the past three decades had never happened. Those boys, still in high school, rocked the socks right off their fans. Literally. Every time Rose Hill Drive played the Fox Theatre, the stage would be littered with socks. Impressive, sure. But that's nothing compared to Statewide Emergency. Bet those Rose Hill dudes never got weed in exchange for a pair of their socks.


Emergency broadcast: Matt Paradis is the face of Statewide Emergency.
Details
Statewide Emergency CD-release show, with Bassline, Steller Atlas and Rogue Sound, 9 p.m. May 29, Fox Theatre, 1135 13th Street, Boulder, $10-$13 (price includes CD), 303-443-3399.
Related Content
Hit Pick
April 12, 2001
More About
Matt ParadisCaleb KronenKeith SlackVan De BogertArts, Entertainment, and Media

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"She was definitely really high," says Statewide Emergency frontman Matt Paradis, recalling a gal he met at last year's South Park Music Festival. "She acted like she really liked our band and was worshiping us. She wanted any article of my clothing. At first she wanted my headband, but I told her I wouldn't give her my headband, but I'd give her my socks."

Before they began trading on the sock exchange, the members of Statewide Emergency were wide-eyed tweenagers looking up to Nate Barnes and the Sproul brothers. "They were definitely a huge inspiration, especially starting out, just being a rock band from Boulder," notes Paradis. "Those guys took a really legitimate route doing what they did. I think they turned down making a CD with some pretty major labels and really had a vision in mind, and they stuck with it and worked really hard on the road and toured their asses off.

"We look up to them in a lot of ways," he goes on. "I think our music has kind of gone in a different direction than theirs. We kind of started out similar, but it's branched a bit away from that. That's good, because we don't just want to be doing the same thing — just another rock band from Boulder playing the same music. It is cool to have them as an inspiration because of how hard they toured for so many years."

Naturally, the Statewide Emergency guys — Paradis and guitarist Luke Johnson, bassist Caleb Kronen and drummer Keith Slack — are likewise striving to make music a full-time endeavor. "We all put more than enough into this to make it our lifetime goal, I'd say," declares Kronen. The timing couldn't be much better. Three of the guys are graduating from high school this year, while Paradis is finishing up his first year as a music-performance major at the University of Colorado Denver.

The guys, who've all been playing instruments since they were in grade school, display the proficiency of men at least twice their age. As it turns out, unlike most kids, the music that inspired them early on was, in fact, made by men twice their age. Well, except for Paradis, who got his start on piano at age five before moving on to guitar a few years later after being inspired to cover some Avril Lavigne songs — which he's understandably hesitant to admit now. "Luckily," he points out, "within a few months I moved on to other stuff that was actually kind of cool."

Soon Paradis began composing his own songs. "I'd have two different chord progressions," he recalls, "and one would be the verse and one was the chorus. But it didn't have melody or lyrics; it was just me alternating between all the chords I knew."

Not too long after that, Paradis, who went to Shining Mountain arts school in Boulder, started Statewide Emergency. Although he was in a band with a few buddies prior to that, Paradis admits he was the only one who was musically inclined. As he got more serious about music, he let go of the guys who were less serious and brought in Slack and Johnson, themselves students at Peak to Peak, a charter school in Lafayette. In October 2008, Kronen, who's graduating from Boulder's New Vista High School this year, joined the band after seeing an ad on the group's MySpace page.

Bonding over a mutual admiration of classic-rock icons like Led Zeppelin and Cream and more modern rockers like Queens of the Stone Age, the outfit has crafted a sound that leans toward Them Crooked Vultures. "Josh Homme and Jack White are probably the two biggest influences," notes Slack. "I think I have respect for a lot of older artists, but I tend to gravitate more, at least nowadays, toward newer sounds that aren't like listening to the same songs over and over, because I like to listen to current stuff that's being explored."

"I think it's really easy to create that with classic rock," Paradis says of tapping into the heaviness and intensity of bands like Zeppelin and Cream. "But with melody, the bottom line is that you can create music that sounds good without being super heavy and intense. But what I realized from the whole classic-rock experience was that heavy and intense sound is super cool live, and it was something we wanted to continue doing live.

"Our first few live shows, even though the songs weren't the greatest, they were just high-energy songs," he continues. "And they're so solid and heavy and rock-and-roll that they were really great songs to play live — or at least they were back then. I think that's how we started to get recognition as a band, is that we were a really powerful live band. That was the most important thing I was trying to keep in mind, even though I was trying to write songs that were melodic."
When writing songs for the act's new six-song effort, Carnivorous Carnival, Paradis says he didn't want to lose any of the heaviness and intensity of the band's live set. So when it came time to lay down songs for the record, they recorded them live, doing three takes at the most for each track, at Macy Sound Studios. Part of the reason they chose Macy's was to achieve a big drum sound, which was key for the band.

The new disc, Paradis insists, is better and more modern-sounding than the band's debut, 2008's Another Point of View. "It's just tighter and musically more advanced," he says. "It would probably fit more into the genre of alternative and modern rock. A lot of the newer music is a lot more melodic, and I think it has more rhythmical hooks in it, like specific rhythms people can remember and get caught in their head. I think melody and rhythm are pretty much the most essential parts of the songs being catchy, too."


Emergency broadcast: Matt Paradis is the face of Statewide Emergency.
Details
Statewide Emergency CD-release show, with Bassline, Steller Atlas and Rogue Sound, 9 p.m. May 29, Fox Theatre, 1135 13th Street, Boulder, $10-$13 (price includes CD), 303-443-3399.
Related Content
Hit Pick
April 12, 2001
More About
Matt ParadisCaleb KronenKeith SlackVan De BogertArts, Entertainment, and Media

Share

Paradis's songwriting approach was shaped in part by former Firefall singer and guitarist Mark Oblinger, who taught a songwriting class at Paradis's school. Oblinger also had a hand in helping with Another Point of View, the act's first record. Making the album was part of a school assignment, and he was Paradis's mentor on the project. "He wasn't that involved with it," Paradis clarifies, "but what he did do — it was really clear that he had a connection with the music, and he got what we were trying to do."

When it came time to start recording Carnivorous Carnival, Paradis says it made sense to work with Oblinger, who acted as producer on the album. "The first few songs are the most rock-and-roll. It just starts out straightahead rock. It's not that classic-rock sound from a lot of our first album. Toward the end of the album, it gets kind of weird and dark, and there's a slower song in there."

In addition to drawing inspiration from Rose Hill and receiving tutelage from Oblinger, the band received more sage advice from some other elder statesmen. Kronen, whose dad is friends with Allman Brothers drummer Jamo Van De Bogert, says the best advice he ever got was from sitting down with Van De Bogert, Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks.

"They basically said, 'Play as many live shows as you possibly can. Just play, play, play.' Last summer and all last year, that's what we did. This time last year we played five shows in one week or something — so that was definitely a good word of advice." - Westword


Discography

2007 - Edge of Reason EP
2007 - Escape Plan Single
2007 - Saving Face Single
2008 - Another Point of View Album
2010 - Carnivorous Carnival Album

Photos

Bio

Inspired by recent rock pioneers such as Radiohead and Queens of the Stone Age, Joe Kovack, from Colorado’s Marquee Magazine describes Statewide Emergency as “Somewhere between Led Zeppelin and Them Crooked Vultures, with a slice of post-punk sprinkled throughout”. Through heavy riffs, punchy lyrics and an element of experimentation, Statewide Emergency is returning to what Rock and Roll first meant – freedom. Freedom to experiment with sounds, freedom to express themselves musically, freedom to do something completely different. Freedom to not be wrapped up in a genre that faces mediocrity and to rise above the modern expectations of rock music.

Their debut release, Another Point of View, did nothing short of set the standard for future rock albums. The first track “Midnight Creeper”, received airplay on 93.3 ktcl. Indie 105.1, and the band appeared on 99.5 ktvr and radio 1190 for interviews and live sets. Carnivorous Carnival – their sophomore EP, released in May 2010 – only built upon the first album by showing a band capable of experimentation and evolution within their craft. The Boulder Weekly’s Chris Calloway described the album as “stoner rock with enough swagger to split the seams on a pair of polyester skinny jeans”. Over the course of these two releases Statewide Emergency captivated the music scenes in Denver and Boulder, with Eli – Boonin Vail from The Boulder Weekly labeling them as the “latest local explosion”. The release of Carnivorous Carnival was marked by a near sold out show at Boulder’s Fox Theatre (650 capacity).

Along with headlining the fox theatre, Statewide Emergency has been an opening act at Dicks Sporting Good's Park (26,000 capacity) and bluebird theatre (1,200 capacity) for national acts such as Badfish and The Swayback. They have appeared at a number of festivals including the Boulder Creek Festival, the City of Denver Capitol Hill People’s fair, Localpalooza, South Park Music Tour, and others. The first track off Carnivorous Carnival, “The Inside”, was their first song to have an accompanying music video.

Shortly after the release of their debut music video, Statewide Emergency relocated from Boulder to Portland, Oregon to work on their presence along the west coast. Once arriving in Portland and reforming with two new members, they began playing along the northwest debuting the new lineup in Portland at Kelly’s Olympian. They have also received airplay in Portland on 107.1’s “the rock zone”. Look for them on tour this summer.

Check out the music video for the first track off Carnivorous Carnival, "The Inside".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxPVvoFEJ-o