Page 26 - ROCKNATION ISSUE 25

E.Z. RIDERS
PAGE 26 ROCKNATION ISSUE 25

Hello E.Z. RIDERS and welcome to Rocknation. Your band has 4 CD releases, please tell
us a little about each one.
Our first album, “Experienced Zydeco Riders”, was very spontaneous, every song came out
in a very simple way. There was a kind of unconsciousness mixed with the excitement for the
just born, brand new project. Most of the songs are simple but effective, we had a surprising
response from magazines and from the followers. In the second album “Long Way From Home”
we’ve been exploring our “jam side”; the title track, which was recorded in two versions, acoustic
and electric, is a rock ballad with a long guitar solo, and with the whole band jammin’ together.
This album also features our first and last instrumental, a song called “Far Away”, wich is a 8
minutes long jam. The third album, called “Try Hard or Die Hard”, is the best of our 3 pieces band
period. The overall sound is much consistent, you can listen to nice guitar solos and to one of our
most successful songs called “Down in Mississippi”. The title “Try hard or Die hard” was inspired by a James Brown song called “Down and out in New
York City”. Our 4th Album “Wishing Well”, featuring Ivano Andreozzi as new lead singer, is a strong rock album, probably our best overall production.
The artwork was once again designed by Steve Johannsen (same as for our previous record), an artist who signed a lot of works for Gov’t Mule, Allman
Brothers band and Grateful Dead.

Please tell us about the recent concerts or festivals with your band.
Recently we attended a festival called “Emergency Festival”, which is held simultaneously in many cities around the world. We held three gigs for that
festival, and each night was sold out, which made us very proud and grateful to our fans. Some of them rent a bus to go to the venue and called it “the
Rock’n’roll Bus”. It was a lot of fun for us and for all the people that came from miles around to attend to our shows. One of the greatest crowd we’ve
ever had and for sure an unforgettable experience. We also gained a deal with a recording studio called “Golden factory Studio” in Florence, Italy, for the
recording sessions of our brand new single that will be released in January 2019.

How has your facebook.com/ezriders.it page help promoting your band?
Our Facebook page is an important promotional tool, but I think it is more effective in local or national context, it is also useful to promote our concerts in
the local area; but I also believe that tools like the Instagram profile and our You Tube channel are much more important internationally and are more
effective in earning new fans and followers all over the world. I note that outside of Italy Facebook is much less followed and users are much less
interested in Facebook than other social media.

If you had to tell someone what your E.Z. RIDERS music sounded like, what bands would you mention?
In our music you can hear clear influences from the Blues Rock and Rock ‘n’ Roll classics of the seventies; so I would mention ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd,
Allman Brothers Band, Johnny Winter, Cream, Derek and the Dominoes, or speaking of UK and Irish artists, Led Zeppelin, Rory Gallagher and Deep
Purple in their early days. But of course the most inspiring Artist for me, as a guitarist and songwriter, has been Warren Haynes, as solo artist and as
singer/guitar player/band leader of Gov’t Mule. The sound of my guitar playing also recall Warren Haynes sometimes; by the way I use a
Gibson Les Paul Warren Haynes signature model for several tracks in studio recordings and live performances.

What plans do you have for 2018-19?
We’re now working on new songs and our goal is to release a new Album in 2019. We have already about 6-7 new songs, a couple of whom has been
played live during this past summer and had a good response from the crowd. In January 2019 will be recording our new single in Florence, at “Golden
Factory studios”; a well known recording studios that’s still working in analogic way, with old tape recordings, and we can’t wait to hear our new Tunes
recorded the “old school” way. We also look forward to work with some major booking agencies, in order to increase our number of gigs across Italy and
Europe. Our dream still remains to come back playing in the U.S., maybe at one of the greats upcoming festivals of summer 2019.

Thank you for taking time for this interview. Any last words to the fans.
Thank you so much for having us once again as guests on the pages of your Magazine and for your Always interesting questions. We’d like to say to
our fans and listeners, most of whom are from U.S.A., that we’re working hard to make a step up to the next level, and there’s a lot more to come
for E.Z. RIDERS in 2019. Maybe we’ll manage to come
playing in the U.S.A. We’re also planning to host a rock
Festival in our home town, inviting major artists. So
Always keep in touch and thank you so much for your
great support. Cheers, Alex from E.Z. RIDERS

www.facebook.com/ezriders.it