Their new single, “Lights Out,” is a pleasurably hard-hitting, aggressive mix made for a MMA commercial. I.A. caught up with Ramey - who is currently on tour in Europe and had just finished soundcheck - for a conversation about the new song and what he’s been up to since we spoke last.
MP: How was soundcheck?
AR: Soundcheck was good. Europe's been awesome. It's been pretty dang cold, but today we're in Germany and it feels good outside actually. It snowed the other day in Switzerland. That was weird. I'm not used to that.
MP: Are there differences between touring Europe and the U.S.?
AR: Definitely. The hospitality is great in Europe. There's usually showers at every venue. They give you this crazy food spread and treat you super well. Not that they don't in the U.S., but, on average, it's a lot better. So there's that. And then the crowds are different. You can tell they all really want to be there. Europa has been one of the funner experiences I've gotten to have doing this. It's cool to see how different people live, but you also realize people are way more similar than they are different.
MP: Last time we spoke you were in a van traveling across the Midwest and just starting to get back to touring again after the pandemic. Have you been on the road a lot?
AR: Last year we were on tour for at least six months out of the year. This year we've been going pretty strong and it's been consistent. We have something going on every couple months. I'm happy with it. We hit the ground running ever since the floodgates opened again and haven't looked back. We're just trying to build these markets, meet our fans, play a really good show and have a good time. After the pandemic, I feel like people appreciate the live experience and being there more than they used to.
MP: You're definitely keeping busy. You return from Europa and then head rightback out for all of May with Ill Nino.
AR: Yeah, I'm really happy about that one. That one's gonna be super fun. Those are the boys and I'm definitely excited and looking forward to that. I feel like our audiences are pretty comparable, so it will be a good one for us. MP: Talk about the new track, "Lights Out." How did you hook up with Joe Cotella from DED for the song? AR: They're from Arizona too, so we've known each other for a while and always wanted to do something together. It's just one of those things where it finally panned out for the track. We were working on this track and I called Joe to see if he wanted to jump on it and made it happen. We were on the recent ShipRocked cruise and decided to film the video on the boat. We had Joe film his parts at home and put them together for the music video. It was really natural to work together.