BASH 2013 graduate Bryan Rolli and his friend’s band toured the country this past summer after releasing their debut album “Fight To Live”. 

The band calls their brand “Glam Thrash” and takes heavy influence from bands like Metallica, Avenged Sevenfold, and Aerosmith. The band also has been given the opportunity to play in front of the large crowds of Black Veil Brides, The Misfits, and the 2012 Vans Warped Tour in Camden.

The band’s first tour made stops in Spring City, PA; Detroit, MI; Indianapolis, IN; Chicago, IL; St. Louis, MO; Kansas City, MO; Austin, TX; Atlanta, GA, and a few other places.

The tour opened in Spring City, PA, where many of the bands hometown friends and family came to see them and get a copy of their new album. The album had previously released online two days before the show, and fans welcomed the band’s performance by yelling out all of the band’s lyrics. Two nights later, the band reached Michigan for their first show on the road.

“I wasn’t excited to go on tour until about 30 minutes after we hit the road,” Rolli said. “There were so many stress factors that we had to handle last-minute, like ordering all the shirts and CD’s in time, re-booking gigs that fell through, and ultimately just making sure we were tour-ready. Of-course, once we hit the road I was beyond stoked.

“The whole thing was so surreal.”.

 In addition to the success of the tour, Rolli came third place for guitar playing in a battle of the bands just outside of New York City, in Secaucus, NJ, in June, three weeks before their tour.

Rolli said Austin was his favorite stop on the tour, where he is currently studying Music Journalism at the University of Texas.

“I invited everybody I knew down there to come see us,and about forty of my friends from school and church were there to support,” he said. “It was great to show them a whole different side of me. I think I scared them a little.” 

Rolli said the tour was not without challenges. The band’s booking agent booked them for only eleven of the 20 shows the band paid him to book, he said.

“At one point we drove from Columbus, GA, to Jackson, TN, only to find we weren’t playing that night and we were out of gas money,” Rolli said. “We also got our window smashed in Chicago on our fourth day out. We didn’t lose any gear but I lost my backpack holding my MacBook, $300 cash, and my prescription glasses. I ended up unable to drive at night for the rest of the tour.”

The band isn’t planning any upcoming tours until the summer, but does plan on playing a few hometown shows this winter.

The band’s new album “Fight To Live” starts out with its ear-catching, fan favorite hit “Throwing Stones”, featuring vocals from Rolli and bassist Raymond Figueroa, fun catchy guitar riffs, a few breakdowns, and one of Rolli’s guitar solos. 

Following that, the album features a rerecording of the band’s biggest hit “Proud to be Ashamed”, a song the band had released twice, which they’ve gotten recorded non-professionally. “They swore atonement for your sins, never thought they let you in, now you’re proud to be ashamed” can be heard being yelled throughout the venues they play locally and now it is available to fans in a much cleaner-cut recording of the song. The song also features another solo from Rolli.

The next song featured is “Resolution”. Known for its deafening harmonic opening, the band’s newest song is taking its place as a fan favorite. It’s the band’s heaviest, and Rolli’s favorite. He said the song is just about people taking a stand for what they believe in and making their dreams come true.

“It’s our take on Lamb of God and Machine Head,” he said. “The song basically happened by accident. One day I was tuning my guitar and hit some dissonant harmonic. I thought it was kinda cool how ugly they sounded and we developed some massive riffs to back it up.”   

*Rolli’s other favorite song on the album also happens to follow “Resolution” . “Vessel” is the band’s newest song. It brings out different roots from hardcore and metalcore with implementing breakdowns, while still keeping the bands hard-rock and thrash identity. The band is known to jump around like “mad-men” when playing this song live and getting the crowd going, Rolli said. 

“DSA” is the fastest song on the album. The band likes to yell out to the crowd to be “dumb and stupid’ and have a ton of fun during their sets, Rolli said. Fans thrash their heads as the crazy riffs pump up the crowd.

The final song on the album is the band’s oldest song and the name of the album, “Fight to Live”. It expresses the band’s roots of classic heavy metal bands like Slayer and Metallica. The song’s bridge is a catchy gang chant of “Fight to live. It’s our right. Fight to live. Through this night”, followed by another one of Rolli’s guitar solos.

“All the songs just reflect the struggles we all go through at this stage in life, and we try to approach them in a positive and articulate manner,” Rolli said. “Life can be hard, and we acknowledge that on this album and hope that gives other people some sort of hope.”

The album can be purchased from the band’s bandcamp page. http://thelastremark.bandcamp.com/