Stride Interview!!

Wednesday, 26 April 2006

Stride is a progressive metal band from houston, texas, USA, they perform in atlanta prog power festival with great success, and they now opening the shows for bon jovi, thanks guys for this interview!The Interview:
Hello guys, my name is Chuy, I want to thank you for your support to PerfectProg, I appreciate so much, now, I got some questions for you:

1. Are you working in a new album?

We are not working on a new album just yet but we are working on a few new songs.

2. I saw a fragmented video that Leonel, my friend took of your performance in the prog power fest VI (is at or video gallery), awesome, are you got an invitation for another festival?

We have not been invited back to Progpower yet but we hope to be asked back. There are some possibilities for us to go to Europe and play some festivals.
3. Some of you have side projects?

The guys have a Journey tribute band that is for fun. They play locally mostly. It consists of all the members of Stride with the exception of me (Mike Martin/bassist). Another bassist and longtime friend of the band Bobby Cayton is the bassist for the Journey tribute band. The project is called Escape. Other than that there are no other projects yet.

4. Why you start like an instrumental band (Music Machine)? Is was hard for you to find vocals?

The band released the 1st album "Music Machine" without vocals because for one, we could not find the right vocalist for the band. Stride did not want to wait though so Music Machine was born. We later brought Gary into the band. We still have a passion for instrumental songs so that's why we have a few on the new album and you can expect to hear more on albums to come.

5. Mike, how are you adapted with the remainder of the band? Is like you imagined being with stride?

I jumped in and the guys took me as a brother right off. It has been great. Its actually better than I imagined. I am a very lucky person to have the position in the band with these amazing musicians

6. Gary, what happen with Rusty Cooley? Why you did not continue working with him?

The main reason I didn't continue with Rusty was our stylistic differences. While Rusty is truly an amazing player I was looking for a more melodic project, thus I ended up where I always have, playing with Joel Gregoire.

Rusty and I have been friends for twenty years and I think we both understood where we were . Rusty was always more metal and i was always more pop. We played together back in the late eighties and had a blast, but just moved to different places musically.
7. Joel, you learn from great musicians like Scott Henderson and Paul Gilbert, what teaching they left you?

I would say that the biggest impact I learned from these guys was how to teach and explain things better not to mention my playing ability. hehe
8. Why is so important for you to open the shows for Bon Jovi, people expect to see a rock star, or a 80´s heavy metal, or hardcore band and not a talented progressive metal band like you, how are they reacted when you are playing? And let us know how the votes in internet goes.

We felt that it was important for the exposure. We had the opportunity to open for Bon Jovi in Houston, our home town in front of 20,000 people. We felt that the crowd was very responsive. It was an amazing experience. As of right now the votes are still being counted and we don't know the results yet. If everything goes our way, we will be playing another show with Bon Jovi in New York at a Stadium gig.

9. It seems to me that Joel and Rick make great part of the music, Am I correct? How many years have been playing together?

Stride has been together since the early 90's but our current lineup has been together just over a year. Joel and Rick are definitely part of the equation in the songwriting. They compliment one another musically quite well. Joel was the dominant songwriter on many of the songs but everyone really has their hands in it. haha.

10. From the first album to the second I note an improvement in the music, especially Matt, you hear now more progressive, you were working on that?

First, let me say thank you for the compliment...Actually, yes, I was working on creating more interesting and challenging parts to better fit the music. I do like to play in "the pocket" and to be a very solid drummer, but on the first album I wanted everything to be so tight that I played it too safe. This time I tried to go for it and take some risks, and play more double bass. A part of the change was directly due to Joel encouraging me to play more difficult patterns and even writing some bridge sections where the drums could have a spot to "solo" over. Thanks for the interest...
11. In your great album Imagine; we’ll like to know which your favourites songs are.
Joel's favorite - AliveRick's favorite - Role Model/TimeMatt's favorite - How FarGary's favorite - TimeMike's favorite - The Waiting

12. What do you recommend to the new prog metal bands who doesn’t count with the support to record their work?

Software is about the cheapest way to do recordings. A little imagination, patience and perseverance will take you far. We encourage the upcoming bands to keep moving forward. Good luck13. How do you see the future of Stride, Which are your expectations?

Our goals are to move to a bigger label with bigger opportunities for touring and supporting our albums. We are very exited to get to Europe.

Thanks for your time and attention, I’ll hope see you on tour soon!

Thank you. We appreciate the interest in Stride. We hope to see you soon on tour!!

You can purchase Stride Music at : http://www.strideonline.com/check out stride atlanta festival videos!

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