The Dead Revolt
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The Dead Revolt

Houston, Texas, United States | SELF

Houston, Texas, United States | SELF
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The best kept secret in music

Press


"The Substance of Things Not Seen"

By Jack Daniel Betz

This band is clearly influenced by the Mars Volta. That’s one of the first things the listener will notice. However that quickly becomes irrelevant as the album progresses. The songs are not cheap cardboard cutouts of Mars Volta tracks, they’re merely inspired by the same energy and most contain the same depth. The execution is there.

While nearly every song is solid enough to be its own single, the track that truly makes this album is “Vulpecula/Luna Mare”. There are radical variations in tempo, volume, and mood which set it apart from even other songs on the same record. Besides their more modern influences the band admits they’re also inspired by older prog rock acts like Pink Floyd. The ending of “Walk-Ins and Wanderers” contains a small section that would make David Gilmour proud before plunging back into a more aggressive hard rock sound.

For a freshman effort especially, this album is simply incredible. If this band continues to write the way they do, there will be even better records ahead. - Free Press Houston


"Rivers, The Dead Revolt"

Houston blues-metal trio Rivers reminds us of Mudhoney and Blue Cheer, with an extra dose of Mark Arm's nihilism and just a dash of The Cult's mysticism. We only caught wind of these boys a month or so ago, so we're a tad late to the party, but that doesn't mean you have to be. Their first set of seven songs, self-released and distributed (we got a burned disc), will smoke out your car like Willie Nelson on the way to Whataburger. The band is headlining the Mink with the like-minded Dead Revolt's "howling lizard-free indie-rock" on Christmas Eve Eve, so if you have a friend coming home from college who has been listening to deadmau5 in their dorm all semester, bring 'em on down to the Backroom to set them straight. - Houston Press


"Ask a Simple Question"

Sooooooo... The Dead Revolt. They're loud, crash-bangy indie-rockers who tend to do very well here in the city. However, we are not here to tell you how awesome they are. We are here to talk about why someone would call their band The Dead Revolt.

Most of us are revolted by the dead. Especially if they sparkle. Names involving corpses are usually reserved for Cookie Monster Metal bands, but that did not deter guitarist/vocalist George Baba when he reached the end of the most holy of all journeys that a band goes through: Finding a moniker that hasn't been taken.

We here at Rocks Off are notoriously hard on local bands that adopt names that are already being used. In the MySpace generation, there is really no excuse for it at all. Common sense has therefore elevated Baba a great deal in our eyes.

deadrevolt poster dec22.jpg
?"For the first six or seven months we jammed together we had no name nor did we worry about what we should call ourselves," he says. "The idea of a name only really came up when we decided to play live. We first came up with the name Vimana, a word from ancient Sanskrit texts that describes a flying machine.

"We all agreed on that name and were quite satisfied until we found out that it had already been taken by another band. We soon realized that about any name or stupid combination of words is somehow already a band name for some other band out there. Unable to easily come up with originality - is anything original ever easy?, we decided to brainstorm.

"We were looking for simplicity but also wanted originality. The name started out like a list of others on a piece of paper after a few weeks of just righting down random thoughts or ideas that popped into our heads. The name just kinda stood out so we checked and it wasn't taken. Original, intriguing, and fitting for our style of music, we took the name and now its stuck with us."

We applaud this. We really do. It's a simple little method that more bands should follow. Now that you have a name, though, you have to live up to it. You can't just call yourselves The Dead Revolt. Now you have to be The Dead Revolt. The name struck a chord with the band, and they currently plan to use it as a plot for a future concept album.

According to Baba, there will be an inter-dimensional civil war at some point in the future. The souls of the dead who do not wish to be reincarnated will nonetheless be forced to by higher powers. Stuck on Earth, these souls will rise up against the very cycle of rebirth itself! Talk about taking on the Man!

Rocks Off is still troubled, though. When you say The Dead Revolt, we're not thinking of these ethereal specters. We're thinking of rotting corpses marching to devour.

"Aren't you revolted by the dead?" we asked Baba.

"I mean we all end up there," he said. "We are not like fixed on the idea of death our anything, but it is a big event in everyone's lives. You know the end part. Like how when you're at the end of a bag of chips and you wish you had more chips?

"That's what we are revolted by, the short amount of chips bestowed upon us in this life."

Rocks Off isn't far enough on the road to enlightenment to maintain that kind of detachment, and going over the list of luminaries in the music world we've lost this year has us spending our nights brooding about the afterlife by the light of our Christmas tree.

Baba and crew seem to have the whole thing figured out to the decimal place, whereas most rock and rollers we know tend to regard death as something that happens to other people. Since we've gone this far, we figured we might as well drop the big question on The Dead Revolt.

What happens to us when we die?

"We respawn with 20 percent health and have to start the level over," says bassist Spencer.

"We shed our skins!" puts in drummer Dylan.

Baba was the most practical.

"I'm gonna bang Brittany Murphy."


The Dead Revolt play
The Mink Thursday, December 23, with Rivers. - Houston Press


"Howling Lizard Free Indie Rock"

Rocks Off loves four things:

* The Dead: Zombies rock tits, there are no two ways about it.

* Revolts: As long as they are not aimed at the Rocks Off contingent, a revolt is just about the most interesting that can happen on any given day.

* People who collect ceramic cows.

* Genuine indie rock.

So when we happened across a Houston band that covered at least 75 percent of that list - we never explicitly asked them about No. 3 - we made certain to work space for them in the now indomitable Artist of the Week army.

Keep it moving to read some convenient alliteration.

Rocks Off: Tell everyone everything they need to know about your band in exactly six words.

The Dead Revolt: My friend Kamar describes us as "A calamitous coalescence of chaotic creativity."


RO: We should probably address the name; it is a bit curious. Exactly what is going on there? The Dead Revolt? Is that, like, saying that the dead (zombies) are revolting? Or maybe is it a revolt that was once taking place is now done and it finished unsuccessfully? Or is it just some cool shit to say?

TDR: I guess it's kinda what you want it to be. We thought of both of those scenarios and we just decided that no one had taken the name so we took it.


RO: To that last question, what is a "Mar Iguana"? Is it some sort of sea lizard? Are there even any sea lizards? Can you name your next album Sea Lizards?

TDR: "Mar Iguana" has nothing to do with lizards. I believe it is about the consumption of a certain plant material actually. We have names for our next album but we'll call a song "Sea Lizards."

The Dead Revolt, "Mar Iguana"


RO: To that last question, "Mar Iguana" is an excellent song. It's sporadic, but kind of a controlled sporadic, if that makes any sense. And George's mini-indie howl is just about perfect on it. And it'd make for a proper upper-level song on Rock Band 14. We guess what we're trying to say is, can we have a shirt of y'all's to wear while we nap?

TDR: Yeah, that is probably one of our favorites to play. We had been playing for a while and had written the other songs on our album; "The Substance of Things Not Seen" and that was the last one that we wrote for that album. It really pushed us into a new direction musically. A lot of our new songs have that feel to them.

And as to your shirts question, we'd love to have you sleep in our clothes but unfortunately, we don't have any shirts yet, but soon, hopefully.


RO: Oh, and you're aware that the aforementioned song is 5:24 long, right? FYI, B L A C K I E released an entire album that was about 10 minutes long.

TDR: I know, our songs are pretty long. "Mar Iguana" is a short one compared some others. I mean, B L A C K I E is great but we gotta impress. Songs like "Vulpecula" and "Half/Plant-Half Ghost" are longer than 10 minutes. We compose long numbers live especially 'cause we want people to get lost in the music, not just listen.

We are indie artists, we do what we want. I think people like the unedited sound we have. We don't decide how long our songs are based upon anything, we have lots of ideas and we mold a song to what we think it should be.


RO: Let's say you were in charge of setting the lineup for the ideal Houston indie-rock concert. Which five acts are on the bill, and who gets to headline?

TDR: Well, if you're asking me, obviously we would want to headline. But one of my favorite acts in Houston is a band called RIVERS (we cap the name 'cause they assure us it's in all caps). We played with them a few times and they definitely got our attention. Tax the Wolf too. We played at Fitz with those guys and we really admire what they're doing. Also, Wild Moccasins and Smoke and Feathers from Austin. That way the show would be a nice mix of genres.

The Dead Revolt, "Vulpecula Lunar Mare"


RO: After listening to your music for about two seconds, it's immediately clear that you all are heavily influenced by Lil' O. How'd that come to be?

TDR: We actually prefer the big 'O instead of a little one. I mean it's all or nothing with us. But we sort of think of ourselves as if Led Zeppelin and the Mars Volta had a baby, and Pink Floyd and The Fall of Troy had a baby and those baby's had a baby. Then that wonderful little ball of joy would cry like us.


RO: Anything you want to make sure gets mentioned? Now's the time to do it.

The Dead Revolt is about us getting to do what we love, writing music not just playing it. Our band is a simple three-piece but we think its sounds much bigger. Our styles and capabilities as musicians have taken shape over the course of many years of playing and practice.


Experience The Dead Revolt live, with RIVERS, December 23 at The Mink. Tickets are (not) $1 million. - Houston Press


Discography

"The Substance of Things Not Seen"

1. Appetizer
2. Bird's Eye Rot
3. Wearing Saris
4. The Grand Design
5. Vulpecula/Lunar Mare
6. Walk-ins and Wanderers
7. The Eternal Tortoise
8. Mar Iguana

Photos

Bio

The Dead Revolt is a three piece progressive rock band from Houston TX formed in 2009. Members include George Baba (vocals/guitar) Spencer Golvach (bass) and Dylan Golvach (drums). The band incorporates various influences such as progressive rock, experimental jazz, and technical instrumentation. They recorded their first full length album titled "The Substance of Things Not Seen" when Dylan was just fifteen years old, and was released in September 2010. In October 2010 they entered the studio again to record they're second release.