Rise To Remain: Rising to the top (From Ealing Times)

Rise To Remain: Rising to the top

10:44am Friday 9th September 2011 in Interviews By Victoria MacFarlaine

COULD life get any better for Austin Dickinson?

The frontman for metal band Rise To Remain has just released a debut album and is about to set off on a headline tour; he has just made it into Kerrang! magazine’s top 50 greatest rock stars in the world; has picked up a plethora of awards for his music; and he has a cool dad you may well have heard of.

Here he speaks with Victoria MacFarlaine ahead of their High Wycombe show.

YOU’D think that having a superstar dad, one who’d be able to impart pearls of wisdom on how to achieve monumental success in the music business, would be an asset.

But for Austin Dickinson, son of Iron Maiden’s Bruce, that conversation has never really materialised – and he hasn’t wanted it to either.

The Rise To Remain singer is about to embark on a headline tour and has just released debut album City of Vultures, but he hasn’t asked for any advice.

Austin, 20, says: “He didn’t really sit me down and impart any sort of knowledge, he was just like ‘right, **** off – you’re on tour, have fun, if you screw up, don’t screw up again, and don’t mess up for the love of Christ!’

“That was pretty much it and that’s all I ever really wanted, and all he ever really wanted, which was perfect, I think. He allows me to make my own mistakes and to learn from them. He is there to talk to, but as my dad, not as a consultant.”

Austin says his dad has always been supportive of his music and likes it “which is cool,” but rumours abound the internet that Austin banned him from watching gigs when he was around 16, because it was embarrassing. However, the singer tells Freetime Bruce was a vital part of their shows – particularly as a chauffeur.

He adds: “I never banned him from anything. I think they took something he said out of context. No, he was at a load of our shows when we were younger. He’d drive us, me and Will (Homer, rhythm guitarist), when we were Halide before we were Rise To Remain. He used to drive us to shows and stuff like that. He was our chauffeur, I suppose.”

Rise to Remain – a metalcore band which also includes Joe Copcutt on bass, Pat Lundy on drums and Ben Tovey on lead guitar – are set to play the Wycombe Academy of Music and Art next Saturday (17), a venue they played in March with Funeral for a Friend.

Austin, who lives in London, said: “It was a great show – really cool. It is an incredibly ‘out there’ venue, which I quite like. I liked the interior – the décor. The crowd were really up for it, completely bang-on, getting rowdy, everyone pushing each other and stuff – all the stuff we kind of like (laughs). That’s so cool.

“We are practising right now and formulating a couple of ideas and throwing some ideas around of what we are going to pull out the bag (for the High Wycombe gig). There’s going to be a hell of a lot of things and I don’t want to give too many ideas away.

“You might get landed on if one of us decides to stage dive.”

Modest Austin also can’t quite believe he made it into metal bible Kerrang! magazine’s ’50 greatest rock stars in the world’ – at an impressive number 41.

He’s shocked by the affirmation, but admits he won’t be taking it that seriously. “Yeah, that was a bit strange wasn’t it?” asks Austin.

“I was very shocked, there are a lot of reputable people. It was really cool. I am really thankful to Kerrang! for putting me in that list. Some of my friends were in there as well. I’m not going to invest that much worth into it. I don’t really count myself as one of the greatest 50 rock stars of all time, but it’s very nice and I’m thankful to them.”

Find out more about the band at www.risetoremain.com

Questions with Rise To Remain's Austin

What’s your favourite song? It is Purify. It’s an old song and lots of people know it so it tends to get crazy. It’s awesome.

What’s your favourite show? One of my favourites was Sonisphere (festival in Hertfordshire) this year. We played the Red Bull stage and we’d done Bohemia (stage) for the last two years. The Bohemia is way bigger but we had the opportunity to play not just 20 minutes, but 40 minutes, and practically headline the stage and play later.

We were like, yes, let’s do that, so it was absolutely packed out and even outside the tent it was double the size of the people that were in the tent, with people trying to get in the tent. We thought that was pretty cool as we wanted to get everyone in there rocking out.

The cool thing was they stayed out there throughout the whole set. So big up to them and thanks so much for their patience and stuff. It was absolute insanity inside and so much fun.

Favourite band to tour with? A cross with Funeral for a Friend – every band on the Funeral for a Friend tour - and between the Trivium tour. It is so hard to pick. I love Funeral – I think they are the best guys in the entire world, ever.

Exactly the same with Trivium.

There’s all these awesome bands we tour with. But **** it – I give it to Funeral for a Friend.

You are touring until December – and have a lot of places to travel to. How do you cope? Well you’ll probably find me on the internet looking up something of either great importance or complete irrelevance. Um, I guess the key to staying fit on tour when you have to do crazy shows night after night is having a bit of self control. I don’t drink on tour, I don’t eat dairy, because it is bad for your voice. So I just tend to take a lot of water and stay very chilled out, watch a lot of movies and call my girlfriend, frequently. She does sometimes (go on tour). She came out to Australia earlier this year. She’s from the States.

She’s a stuntwoman. I actually met her in New York. She’s definitely got the cooler job out the two of us.

How do you look after your voice? Before the tour I don’t drink alcohol, and only have it if there is a two or three day off period. I drink about three litres of water a day and I just warm up for about an hour before a show. It is really important and a lot of vocalists overlook it.

When you are screaming like I am it rattles your throat to the core. You have to be so careful. You know, it’s not just temporary, the damage can be permanent so you have to be so careful.

First metal album bought? Black Sabbath.

Did you borrow your dad’s albums and get influenced by them? I did get to listen to a lot of awesome music. He had a huge CD collection. That was also when Myspace kicked in and as soon as Myspace came about all music was fair game. The CD collection just became arduous and long. But I have totally got back into CDs – you’ve got to buy them. Everything else sounds like crap.

What was it like seeing yourself on TV? That was weird – I had no idea I looked or sounded like the way I do. (laughs)

Do you keep cuttings? Yeah, I do have a little box, like a scrap book, where I keep all like little memoirs I suppose. We have been doing it for a little while and we have all these cool memories and stuff. As soon as the press rolled in I started keeping them all. It’s nice to have a track of how you have evolved.

Is it nerve-wracking having a debut album out? We are so excited to get this album out. It’s been our pride and joy and our focus for so long now. The time is 100 per cent right. This is our gift to them (fans) for being so patient and so unbelievably amazing to us over all the years.

Rise to Remain’s influences? They are very varied. We are influenced by a lot of American metalcore bands from 2004 to 2006 that was right when I was getting into metal and being in a band. I guess the driving force behind our sound is flashes of that with Rage Against the Machine, black metal, death metal, metalcore and classic metal. We just try to combine everything into a big melting pot and put our stamp on it. When people get it they are not bored and they know it is us.

Metal is a pretty emotive genre. You can channel so many energies into it and really express them so that is something that appeals to me and so many other people about metal. We don’t dwell on the same vibe.