Rain in July

Sadly, we could not meet up with the band members of Rain in July, as they are based in Colorado, and we are based in Ohio. Nevertheless, this was a memorable first interview to say the least. It started on Face-Time, where I greeted their guitarist, Yuta Young and told him that the interview would be screen-recorded and backed up on audio, just in case there were any issues...

There were.

The interview kicked off with a series of improvised questions: "Can you hear me?" "Hello?" "Is your internet down?" "Is the connection failing?"

So, we had to switch to a phone call. Therefore, we do not have any visuals(We promise future interviews will be filmed). By the grace of God, the interview went a little bit smoother from there:

A: Introduce yourself and what role you play in the band.

Y: My name is Yuta Young, I play guitar and arrange a lot of the guitar, we’ve been together now for about a year and a half playing shows. We released a four song EP a little over a year ago, now. It’s kind of hard to define where we are right now. We’re trying to find our sound and really fit it into a genre. Right now, the best way we can say it is like a Pop punk or rock with Emo influences. We’re based out of Boulder, Colorado.

A: How did you guys form the band?

Y: It started with us jamming together. We took a break for awhile and then decided that we want to try it out for real. We got into it and it definitely took awhile for us to decide what kind of band we were going to be. Were we going to be super heavy, super poppy? That’s actually leads into what we have today, where we kind of have multiple influences from everywhere, really. But yeah, we all went to the same high school. Griffin, Reilly, and Ethan are all two years older than me. So, they were all juniors and I was a freshman when we met.

A: So, you guys have already played quite a few big shows. You’ve played with Set it Off, Metro Station, and Grand Junction. Did you get those gigs through your label or did you get them independently?

Y: We have a management company, but we aren’t currently signed to any labels. We just have a few good friends that started up a management company. We’ve been working with them recently and they’re the reason we got the Set it Off show, which we sold out. So, we’re really happy with them, at the moment. One of our goals when we got the management was to play national shows. We’ve played a lot of local shows, and that’s really easy to do because the music scene here is really tight-knit. So, it’s easy to get shows once you break through the local scene. But we spoke with our managers about playing more national shows and they got one for us right away, so we’re incredibly lucky.

A: What inspired your band name, ‘Rain in July’?

Y: We actually stumbled over band names for awhile. I mean, obviously, most people are aware that ‘Rain in July’ is off of a Neck Deep EP. So, that’s definitely where our inspiration came from. We had all listened to the EP, and it all meant something to us individually. It just really felt like the name ‘Rain in July’ just fit us.

A: You currently hold around 500 followers on your Instagram. So, everything’s really small right now, which is why I was so surprised when I heard how refined your EP was. You, collectively, as artists, really seemed to know what your sound was, the type of music you wanted to produce, and carried that out so beautifully. What inspired that EP?

Y: So, we had quite a few songs already written before we even decided to do an EP. We just really wanted to get some of our stuff out there and an EP just seemed like the best way to do it. We just didn’t have the budget for a full-length album, but we also didn’t want to just settle for a single. After playing shows for awhile, we just decided to go for it and really get this thing going. ‘Knockout’ has definitely been one of our top songs and it’s been something we’ve actually had for a long time and we really just wanted to produce it. We were able to get a great deal on a recording studio from Rusty Sun Audio, in Denver. Our EP really turned us into a serious band, in my opinion.

So, there you have it. Our very first interview. If you haven't heard of Rain in July, here's where you can find them:

Instagram:

@raininjulyco

@yuta_young

@reillying

@redsparrowhead

@griffinjuly

Twitter:

@raininjulyco

@YutaYoung

@RedSparrowHead

@Reifromrij

@griffinjuly

Youtube:

Click Here

By: Alexis Lightle