BAND PROFILE + INTERVIEW: Riley Road
Hello, lovely readers! I On the Arts has returned!
Band Profile
Band Profile
For several weeks now, I’ve
wanted to write a feature about a local band called Riley Road. Comprised of Nicholas Cianci, Isaiah
Weatherspoon, and Brandon Walker, this blues-rock trio is based in the suburban
Philadelphia area and has played venues in Philadelphia such as the Hard Rock
Café and World Café Live since the band’s inception in 2010.
Oh, and the band members are
all under 17.
That’s right. Riley Road is a precocious, insanely talented
trio of young men who have charisma, humor, and energy to spare. Nicholas and
Brandon are 16, and Isaiah is 14.
Nicholas plays the guitar and sings, while
Isaiah handles the drums and Brandon lays down the bass. They have recorded one studio EP, which
dropped last July, titled after the band, and have recorded one live EP. The band has already seen much success, having
won several “Battle of the Bands” competitions, including recently in August at
World Café Live in Philly, a show I had the good fortune to attend. Their next upcoming show is at the World Café
on November 8, which I reviewed here.
I sat down with the band via
Skype to learn more about them. They
kindly allowed me to interview them after their weekly rehearsal. The following is a slightly edited transcript
of my 30-minute interview with the boys of Riley Road.
Band Interview
I On the Arts: So just for
background, could you all introduce yourselves and say what instrument you
play?
(rileyroad.com)
Isaiah: I’m Isaiah Weatherspoon, and I play drums for
Riley Road.
Nick: I’m Nick Cianci, and I play guitar and I
sing.
Isaiah: Should we tell our age, too?
IOtA: I guess!
Brandon: Me and Nick are both 16, and Isaiah’s 15.
Isaiah: 14! I’ll be 15 in
November.
IOtA: Oh my goodness! You guys are so young!
Isaiah: I’m only a grade behind…
Nick: He’s young for his grade. He’s a grade behind us.
Isaiah: Yeah, they’re both in 11th grade,
and I’m in 10th.
IOtA: I’m in college, so I win.
(Laughter ensues)
IOtA: I win the oldness competition…. So, just an
introduction question, I guess: Where does the band name come from?
Nick: So there’s a woman named Erin Riley, and she
founded a place called “Rock ‘n’ Roll After School”, which is in Phoenixville,
which is where Brandon and Isaiah went prior to Riley Road… And so I knew Erin
Riley through “School of Rock”, because I was at “School of Rock”, and then she
was like, “hey, you should check out this kid Isaiah; he’s a drummer and he’s
really good.” And so I was like, “okay!”
So I found him on YouTube and I guess I just called [him] up… And I knew Brandon through “School of Rock”
and we wanted to jam with Brandon.
Brandon and I had really never talked though… And we kind of just tried
it out; we got together…
Isaiah: We started jamming!
Nick: Yeah, we started
jamming here at Brandon’s house. And
then we were like, “oh, okay, we’ll name the band after Erin Riley.”
IOtA: That’s so
nice! So what is the program? You said that she runs this afterschool
program?
Isaiah: Yeah, it’s basically like a music program…
Brandon: Yeah, they give
music lessons and they put people in bands…
Isaiah: Band programs…that they have about every
three months.
Brandon: Yeah, about every three months.
Nick: So what happened was she kind of brought us
together and we did a couple months at her place just to jam together and see
if we liked jamming with each other, and after a couple of months we just stopped
doing that and we just started playing on our own…
Isaiah: Locally and around the suburban Philadelphia
area…
Nick: (laughing) Yeah.
IOtA: How long ago? When did this happen?
Brandon: 2010, like, fall of 2010.
IOtA: You guys are really prolific! When did you guys start recording original
material?
Isaiah: Immediately, actually. Once we got together… about two months later
we started.
IOtA: How does the writing process go?
Brandon: Usually Nick will bring in a riff or an idea,
and we’ll just jam on it for a really long time, and eventually he’ll come in
with lyrics and we’ll put it into a structure together.
IOtA: So often Nick is the one who has the little
seed of an idea?
Brandon: The guitar riff, yeah…
Isaiah: …And we’ll just jam over it…
Brandon: …Sometimes it’s a drum riff or something like
that.
Isaiah: A drum riff! (Laughs)
IOtA: So who writes the lyrics?
Nick: I do, but I’m not really… (Laughs)
Isaiah: Don’t put yourself down!
Nick: I gotta get better with the lyric writing
thing… (laughs)
IOtA: So how long have you guys been playing
official gigs? Because from what I
understood about the World Café Live, that was big.
Brandon: Our first real performance… It was December …
28th, I think?
Isaiah: …28th or 29th?
Brandon: …It was in December of 2010 at Steel City
Coffeehouse.
IOtA: So what was the first song that you guys
completed together?
Nick: “Leave It Alone”, which is the third song off
the EP.
Isaiah: That was the first song we completed.
IOtA: So who are you guys’ musical influences?
Brandon: Well, I like both classic rock and some indie
and new kind of stuff… So I started listening to classic rock and blues too…
blues and classic rock kind of go together.
Let me see…bands…Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin…
Isaiah: So who are some of your bass influences?
Brandon: Victor Wooten.
IOtA: Oh, I’ve heard of him!
Brandon: Victor Wooten’s fantastic.
IOtA: So, Isaiah, your turn.
Isaiah: I’ll tell you a little bit about myself… when
I was younger, I started playing in church at… about 4 or 5 years old. But I wanted to branch out to other styles of
music, so that’s why I went to “Rock and Roll After School” to learn more about
rock music, and that’s how I met Brandon and Nick… we just got together and we
started to jam and basically just formed a band ’cause we liked our vibe…
Nick: It was just fun playing with each other…
Isaiah: Yeah, it was fun playing with each other and
we kind of connected instantly. Some of
my drum influences…I love Tony Royster.
He plays drums for Jay-Z. I just
love his style! I love Questlove…he
plays with the Roots. I like Ronald
Bruner Jr…I’m just giving you a couple, ‘cause I could go all day… those are
just a few out of many of my influences.
Now it’s Nick’s turn!
Nick: Well, I like different styles of music as
well… I, similar to Brandon, like classic rock but I also like soul music and
R’n’B… I like new bands too, though…
Isaiah: …The Village People…
IOtA: The Village People? Like “YMCA”?
Isaiah: Yeah, man. (laughs)
Nick: I don’t know what…he’s talking about… yeah,
okay, whatever. (laughs) But my main
favorite genre is the blues, so…like BB King, Eric Clapton… I like the Allman
Brothers a lot. Blues rock is what we
are, sort of… It’s what I’m drawn to most.
IOtA: Could you all go one at a time and describe your
favorite live concert moment that you’ve had with the band?
Brandon: My favorite is definitely… last November, we
played at the Hard Rock Café in Philly and there was this one moment where we
just got offstage and we walked into the back room and there’s this huge plate
of warm cookies sitting on the table… (laughs)
Nick: That was your favorite moment? (laughs)
Brandon: Because we went from a great set to a great
dinner, y’know?
(rileyroad.com)
IOtA: Ah, the pains of being so talented!
Nick: But it was the best show ever, cause I think
we were pretty on that night, and it was just a lot of fun all around.
Isaiah: I think I’ll have to say the EP release as
well… because a lot of our friends, family and friends came to support us that
night, and it just gave all of us extra motivation to do our best. We just wanted to rock out the show!
Dear Readers, Riley Road is a band to watch. When they take the stage, they always “rock
out the show”. Join me on Thursday,
November 8 at the World Café Live in Philly (3025 Walnut Street) to hear this
great new band performing live. For more information check out the band’s
website, www.rileyroad.com. You’ll be
very glad you did!
Great interview! It really give us Riley Road fans some idea of what the band members are like. They are funny and seem to really enjoy each other. This is a great new band, and I hope your Philly area readers get a chance to go see them play live.
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