Editor’s Note: It was so good conversing with Nick Reese and Robert Sodaro of Joyous Wolf for Madness To Creation. This interview took place backstage at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa as they were getting ready to provide direct support for modern rock heavyweights Buckcherry. This band is riding a wave of momentum as people have been talking about their intense live shows along with “Quiet Heart” and their ridiculous cover of “Mississippi Queen” by Mountain. Fans can find Joyous Wolf at the following locations:
www.instagram.com/joyouswolfmusic
Nick: This venue is really cool, I went and saw the crash site earlier, that was a big deal for me.
Madness To Creation: So did Buddy Holly and Richie Valens play a big influence on your music growing up?
Nick: For me it did. I grew up with all of my dad’s records, he was a rocker, it was all of that, I had all of that, it was the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s stuff, it was early rock n roll and that’s all I had until I was 12 or 13 years old until I started getting into other music.
Madness To Creation: What is the single biggest reason why you’re doing this?
Robert: Because it feels amazing. It’s one of those things where I’m like, “hey I’m kind of good at this”, it’s something I’m good at and I’m not good at a lot of other things so, we have a chance to get something out of it.
Nick: Doing something with it, I just found it and it just kind of fell into place, it’s something that we’re passionate about.
Madness To Creation: What can fans expect from a Joyous Wolf live show? Why should people come out early to see you live?
Nick: It’s probably the best live show you will see, it doesn’t have much to do with explosions and stuff like that, we’re just about playing our stuff and doing well and putting on a live show physically is what we specialize in.
Madness To Creation: You’ve released “Quiet Heart”, how has the response been to the single?
Nick: Nothing but positive, the critics like it and our fanbase is growing at hyper speed now, people are really responding well to it, we’ve sold a lot of CD’s, so far so good with next to no promotion for it, it’s really been off of our own backs.
Robert: It’s really been from show to show and we win over people, we actually have CD’s now so that’s good, slowly but surely.
Madness To Creation: Is that a better approach for the band “going slowly but surely”?
Nick: I think in the long run yeah, if you’re thinking in the short term, not so much, you can stifle your potential in a lot of other things.
Robert: But you never actually have the choice of yourself of how you’re going to grow as a band, the key is that you have to keep working no matter how low things seem you have to keep working and moving forward as a band.
Nick: Music comes first and I think that’s what keeps all of us sane, doing this job is just getting the chance to put something out into the world, and 90% of the people don’t get to do things like that.
Robert: That also plays into why we do this, we like having this unique opportunity
Nick: Just to express ourselves.
Madness To Creation: Speaking of unique opportunity, what is something that you’ve experienced on tour or anything like that you would not experience in your typical 9 to 5 job?
Nick: Traveling in general.
Robert: Meeting your heroes.
Nick: Friendships.
Robert: Friendships between people you would never knew would be the coolest people. We didn’t know that Buckcherry was going to be some of the nicest guys you could meet on tour or in general.
Nick: We met some people that aren’t so cool, but we’ve been lucky with all the heroes that we’ve met that they’ve been so good to us and so supportive, it puts a lot more gas in your tank, that’s the thing about working a 9 to 5 job you’re not going to see every place whether you want to see it or not.
Robert: It’s with regular jobs compared to this, at a 9 to 5 you’re doing at one location, so you have to get time off in order to do something with that job because if you’re trying to go to New York or something, you can’t really do that in between your shifts that’s not really going to happen.
Nick: For us to sit around and do nothing, we have to have time off to do that, it’s the opposite, we don’t get a lot of that.
Robert: Not saying that people with regular jobs do nothing.
Nick: Right, we’re talking about when it comes to seeing things.
Madness To Creation: Based on our conversation, what’s one major misconception that people have about the tour life?
Nick: The nonstop partying thing.
Robert: People are like, “you’ve been to all of these places”, how are they? Man I really don’t know because I’m trying to catch up on sleep after driving forever and half the time we’re trying to prepare for the show and the next day we have the show so we don’t really get to experience.
Nick: We’ve been lucky recently. We’ve had some stops we actually got to go and have some fun and do things. The sad part is that you’re so exhausted that you don’t even have the energy during those times to go do it to actually get off your ass and go do it, but the biggest misconception to me is the nonstop partying, for example everyone thinks that people in bands are abusers but I’ve never even done that, I’ve never even smoked marijuana in my life, and I’m not a drinker really.
Robert: If you’re really trying to execute every night, if you’re drinking all of the time, which some people are really good, sometimes that doesn’t even matter.
Nick: Some people can’t do it without it. It’s crazy to me.
Robert: But when you’re back on stage and you’re like, “oh, that hangover is gone” and you start sweating and you’re like, “oh it’s still totally there”.
Madness To Creation: What’s the big summer plans after this run with Buckcherry?
Nick: We will be releasing a new music video, expect an ass-ton of Joyous Wolf content to be coming out soon in the early fall, and we have a lot of shit that we can’t talk about yet, all I can say is expect more touring from Joyous Wolf, after we finish up in August, we get one week off and we’re right back to it.
Madness To Creation: That’s all impressive, what else would you like to add?
Nick: Check out our record “A Place In Time” if you haven’t already. Tell your friends and if you want to see a real rock show, come see us do our thing.
Joyous Wolf continues their tour with Buckcherry. Check out the dates below:
Wed. 7/10- Maxwell’s Concerts and Events in Waterloo, Canada
Thu. 7/18- Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver, Canada
Sat. 7/20- Shaw Conference Centre in Edmonton, Canada
Sun. 7/21- Grey Eagle Resort and Casino in Calgary, Canada
Tue. 7/23- Burton Cummings Theatre in Winnipeg, Canada
Thu. 7/25- Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (w/Slash)
Fri. 7/26- The Colosseum at Caesars Windsor in Windsor, Canada (w/Slash)
Sat. 7/27- Theatre of Living Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (w/Buckcherry)
Sun. 7/28- Darling Waterfront Pavilion in Bangor, Maine
Tue. 7/30- Touch of Texas in Binghamton, New York
Fri. 8/2- Kewadin Casinos in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan
Tue. 8/6- Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto, Canada
Wed. 8/7- The Venue in Peterborough, Canada
Fri. 8/9- Headliner in Neptune City, New Jersey
Sun. 8/11- Sherman Theater in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania
Thu. 8/15- The Truman in Kansas City, Missouri
Thu. 8/29- Iron City in Birmingham, Alabama
Fri. 8/30- River Neck Acres ATV Park in Florence, South Carolina
Sat. 8/31- American Rebel Mud Park in Waynesboro, Tennessee
On tour providing support for Deep Purple:
Tue. 9/3- Fox Performing Arts Center in Riverside, California
Wed. 9/4- The Wiltern in Los Angeles, California
Fri. 9/6- Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temacula, California
Wed. 9/11- Paramount Theatre in Seattle, Washington
Fri. 9/13- Grand Theatre at Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, Nevada
Sat. 9/14- House of Blues Restaurant & Bar in Las Vegas, Nevada
On Tour providing support for Buckcherry:
Sat. 9/21- Templelive in Fort Smith, Arkansas
Mon. 9/23- Revention Music Center in Houston, Texas
On Tour with Deep Purple:
Sun. 9/29- Coca-Cola Roxy in Atlanta, Georgia
Fri. 10/4- Resorts World Catskills in Monticello, New York
Sat. 10/5- Orpheum Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts
Tue. 10/8- Beacon Theatre in New York, New York
Wed. 10/9- Mohegan Sun Convention Center in Uncasville, Connecticut
Thu. 10/10- Tower Theater in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania
Fri. 10/11- Discovery Park in Sacramento, California (w/Beartooth, Deadland Ritual, Falling In Reverse, Phillip H. Anselmo & The Illegals, Babymetal, Tool, Fire From The Gods, Highly Suspect, Evan Konrad, Ded, Bad Religion, Lamb of God, Stone Temple Pilots, Badflower, Knocked Loose, Marilyn Manson, Andrew W.K., Crystal Method, Fu Manchu, Sick Puppies, Santa Cruz, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, Chevelle, Fishbone, Blue Midnight, Dead Posey, Halestorm, Korn, The Parlor Mob, The Interrupters, Rob Zombie, Gojira, Bring Me The Horizon, I Prevail, Clutch, Slipknot, BRKN Love, A Day To Remember, Dropkick Murphys, Architects, Blink 182, Angel Du$t, While She Sleeps, Health, Motionless In White, Broken Hands, Ghostmane, Sum 41, The Pink Slips, The Hu, Staind, Spirit Adrift, and Ho99o9)
Sat. 10/12- Murat Theatre at Old National Center in Indianapolis, Indiana
Tue. 10/15- Fox Theatre in Detroit, Michigan
Wed. 10/16- MGM Northfield Park in Northfield, Ohio
Fri. 10/18- Rosemont Theatre in Rosemont, Illinois
Sat. 10/19- The Armory in Minneapolis, Minnesota
For tickets and further information on any of the shows listed above, click here.
