An Interview With Night Riots Ahead Of The Dark Violet Tour - i99Radio, Philadelphia's Alternative Rock!

Bayside returned to Philly this past week for a two night stand celebrating their music both old and new. i99Radio was on the scene to capture night one of two. For the first night, Bayside brought songs from their early years, 2004 to 2008. For many of us, it takes us back instantly to the songs of our childhood, middle and high school years, and the audience spanning Gen X to Gen Alpha came ready to rock.

Long Island, NY’s The Sleeping started the night off and brought their unique blend of post-hardcore and raw energy to the stage that really got the audience going. People thrashed around and sang along, and even a toddler hopping up on his dad’s shoulders to get a better view of frontman Doug Robinson, who climbed up to the barrier, putting his microphone up to fans to sing along with them, and eventually even crowdsurfing above their heads at one point. The band has been experiencing a revival since their reunion in 2022 and their fantastic newest album, “I Feel Like I’m Becoming a Ghost”, dropping in 2023.

Bayside then took the stage, kicking off their set with the classic track, “Montauk”, from their second self-titled album. Frontman Anthony Ranieri commented how their idea for the “Errors Tour” came about when they wanted to play 44 songs in each city, instead of just 22. He talked about how the band has so many songs that fans love from all across their career, but not enough time to play them all, so they thought, “why not just play 2 nights in every city?”

The night of classic nostalgia continued on, with the band delivering high-energy versions of much loved tracks from their third album, 2007’s “The Walking Wounded”, like “Duality”, “I and I”, and the ballad “Landing Feet First” (of which started a massive audience singalong). The band also reached far back in their discography, playing tracks from their first years as a band, like “Masterpiece”, “Guardrail” and “Kellum”, off of the first album, 2004’s “Sirens and Condolences.” The audience was audibly excited by this, as these tracks are very rarely played live. The audience cheered loudly and unleashed a constant stream of crowd-surfers to the front of stage as they ripped through these classic tracks. The “newest” songs they played for night 1 were tracks from 2008’s classic album, “Shudder”, like “Boy”, “No One Understands” and “The Ghost of St. Valentine”. Again, many of these tracks haven’t been played since the Shudder Tour in 2008 so hearing these songs was certainly a treat for the audience.

Bayside’s show at Brooklyn Bowl was a testament to how the songs we grew up with are forever engrained in our DNA, the music grows with us and becomes a part of us as we grow older, but we never forget the songs that influenced us almost two decades ago. The 1,000 people in the audience who turned up to sing every word of these songs that are almost 20 years old now proves this to be true and Bayside to be a band close to so many people’s hearts.

Photos by Dave Avidan

I had the pleasure of interviewing Night Riots ahead of their highly anticipated Dark Violet tour. Night Riots is an alternative rock band hailing from San Luis Obispo, California, and if you aren’t already a fan then you need to be. Check out the interview below and make sure to catch them on tour!

Shelby: The band has been working on new music recently, what can you tell me about it?

Night Riots: I know all artists say their newest music is the best they’ve done but I feel like these songs we’ve been working on are some of the best we’ve written. I think they keep the elements that define Night Riots, the tinge of darkness to the music but overall uplifting message while being fresh and a little bit different than stuff we’ve done before.

S: How has creating the new music been different from previous albums and EPs?

NR: It’s been really fun and challenging. We’ve pushed ourselves to really stick to what we want. It can be hard to not be influenced from outside pressures who have opinions on your art. We just want to create music we personally are really proud of and enjoy. We’ve also wanted to strive for minimalism with these songs. Boil them down to the simplest and best songs possible.

S: Bands seem to find inspiration in the most random places, whats your #1 weirdest/most random inspiration for a song?

NR: We were in middle America once and saw the most perfect looking peach you’ve ever seen. It inspired a song we never released called ‘Georgia Peach.’

S: Fans were excited about your most recent single, “Colour Morning,” can you talk a bit about the message behind the song?

NR: We put that song out not really as a single…just a song to get people excited for new music. But it’s been rad to see how much people have been responding to it. We just got back from the UK and were playing it in the set. Everyone knew the words already and were singing them back to us in their English accents it was rad. The song is about finding the beauty in moments of life, in a world that can seem so fucked up and ugly at times.

S: You are getting ready to embark on the Dark Violet tour June 1st, what can fans expect from one of these shows?

NR: This is pretty much our first real headlining run, so if you’ve been to a show you can expect a normal Night Riots set but on steroids. A lot of energy, moodiness and a little theatrics.

S: The band recently started a new segment on Instagram Live about love, life, and sex, what was your motivation behind this?

NR: When you have a doctor in the band it feels like a shame to not utilize it. Truthfully, we just wanted to make some more interesting things for our fans. I see a lot of bands and artists using social media and its really boring. It’s fun for us to come up with weird, different ways to be creative and possibly be entertaining. That specific segment is interesting because it started as a joke but we’ve actually gotten a lot of really serious questions. So we’ve taken it on ourselves to try and help, although I wouldn’t trust advice from us.

S: You finally got to play shows outside of the US, what was this like for you all?

NR: It’s been really awesome. We’ve been to quite a few countries now and the reception has been so much more than we expected. It’s a surreal experience to be on the other side of the world and have people know your songs. We are basically vampires so we fit in well with the old architecture of Europe.

S: How do shows outside of the US compared to shows here?

NR: I’m not sure if it’s just the specific shows we’ve played but a lot of the times the crowds seem less guarded outside the US. They are maybe more open to different music, I’m not sure. They also seem to have less toilet seats. We love the US too though…there’s weird and cool places everywhere.

S: The past few years the band has grown tremendously. What goals do you have for the band for the next year?

NR: We just want to keep making good music that we love and hopefully others relate to. I also want us to be the first band to play on Mars.

S: If someone could only listen to one of your fans, which would you want it be and why? (This question ended up being misworded but they went with it anyways! I meant “songs”)

NR: Listen to one of our fans? Hmm I’d have to choose Karen because I think she has a lot of interesting things to say and she makes cool couch pillows.

S: Anything else I didn’t cover that you want to mention or talk about?

NR: Drink your coffee black, come see us on the Dark Violet US tour and get ready for new music.

Starting June 1st Night Riots will embark on the Dark Violet tour, a full US tour, with Silent Rival and Courtship. You can find tickets to the tour here. Check below to see when the band is coming to a city near you, this is not a tour you want to miss!

Upcoming Tour Dates:

JUN 01
Valley Bar
Phoenix, AZ

JUN 02
Lowbrow Palace
El Paso, TX

JUN 04
Antone’s Nightclub
Austin, TX

JUN 05
House of Blues
Dallas, TX

JUN 06
White Oak Music Hall
Houston, TX

JUN 08
The Masquerade
Atlanta, GA

JUN 09
Visulite Theatre
Charlotte, NC

JUN 10
U Street Music Hall
Washington, DC

JUN 12
Brighton Music Hall
Boston, MA

JUN 13
Baby’s All Right
New York, NY

JUN 15
The Foundry (The Filmore)
Philadelphia, PA

JUN 16
The Hollow
Albany, NY

JUN 18
The Basement
Columbus, OH

JUN 20
Blueberry Hill
Saint Louis, MO

JUN 21
Grog Shop
Cleveland, OH

JUN 22
Subterranean
Chicago, IL

JUN 23
Shelter
Detroit, MI

JUN 25
The Record Bar
Kansas City, MO

JUN 26
Marquis Theatre
Denver, CO

JUN 27
Kilby Court
Salt Lake City, UT

JUN 29
Popscene
San Francisco, CA

JUN 30
El Rey Theatre
Los Angeles, CA

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