If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that the show does not always go on and for musicians worldwide it has been a time to reinvent themselves, to show their creativity and forge ahead into unchartered waters. No touring! No festivals! Bands such as NONPOINT have continued to create and remain relevant to those that mean most to them…their fans! See what the band’s frontman Elias Soriano had to say about staying busy during these times in a Music Madness interview.
Since the start of the pandemic NONPOINT premiered their impassioned frontlines tribute video for “Remember Me”!
“This Frontlines tribute aptly named “Remember Me” edited by artist and creator Francesca Ludikar is 233 essential workers made up of nurses, doctors, EMT’s, first responders, local and federal law enforcement, firefighters, military, postal, shipping, grocery, essential store workers, fans and their children who took part in what will go down in Nonpoint history as our biggest thank you for the sometimes thankless sacrifice you all make for us. This is our sincerest appreciation for everyone in the fight with us against the pandemic. We couldn’t do this without you. We will always remember you” says the band.
The band’s latest announcement…Watch us play the entire STATEMENT record on 10/10/2020 for just $10.10 and enjoy rebroadcasts of old performances in iconic NONPOINT cities the 3 Saturday’s leading up. www.nonpoint.com for tickets.
LIVE ANNIVERSARY PERFORMANCE! NONPOINT presents a monthlong online experience with a finale you’ve all requested for years! NONPOINT is taking you on a journey through some of it’s biggest cities, through its toughest stories and lead you to an event 20 years in the making. On 10/10/2020 NONPOINT celebrates the anniversary of it’s first record STATEMENT by performing it in its entirety LIVE online, along with a conversations taking a deeper look into their 20 years of making a statement. www.nonpoint.com for tickets. Also join with the band chatting along throughout and engaging in questions and conversations with fans during all the lead up shows.
Check out this video from the band showing what to expect over the next month long celebration:
Music Madness: We are joined by Nonpoint’s frontman, Elias Soriano. Hey man hope all is going well during these crazy times. Since the bands inception I’m sure this is the most downtime you’ve had in your career.
Elias: Yeah, it really has been. Not since I would say To The Pain (2005), did I have merely this much time off. But yeah we haven’t toured in over a year now.
Music Madness: That’s crazy that its been a year. I think people are starting to get restless and tired of being home.
Elias: Yeah. Well it’s a brand new world man. So we’re adjusting, everybody is adjusting.
Music Madness: That’s all we can do. Congrats on the band’s frontline tribute, “Remember Me”. Can you talk a little bit about the song and how the concept came about?
Elias: Oh yeah. Well “Remember Me” was basically another dive into the frontline coming off of basically what we were calling our alive and kicking initiative. The pandemic had just hit, we were coming from being silent on our socials after being so active last year. People were wondering where we were, what was going on. We were planning on taking some time off and who knew.
So, with everything going on it went from obviously keeping our fans entertained and helping them through the what the hell is going on moments to then shifting our attention to the battle that essential workers were dealing with. And when I say essential worker, that definition changed this year. It went from military people, doctors, police, officers, firemen and EMT to now grocery store workers, delivery store people, teachers that were not having to deal with danger in their jobs and then being required to all of a sudden.
I’m of the mindset that when it comes to people that do a service for you, a thank you is necessary. So we took a new look at the frontlines. I felt like the verses could use a bit of a makeover and put a little bit more attention on these people that we just normally day to day walk up to hand them our groceries, pay with our credit card and say, “All right, have a nice day.” Then we leave and we don’t even know who they are and they keep us stocked and alive. So we just wanted to say thank you to them.
We felt like “Remember Me” was a good way to do that. The video then turned into a fan experience where we were actually able to reach out to a bunch of our 361 family, which is our fan group that were essential workers, police officers, firemen, medical care workers, the grocery store people, and delivery people and had them do the video with us. And it was amazing!
Music Madness: Yeah, that was nice touch and for me it gave the video that extra punch which drew me in.
Elias: Yeah. Putting a face to the movement and to the job that people are being faced with. Hopefully we’ll pull a little bit of that selfishness out of the anti maskers and the people that are losing family left and right. We’re almost at 200,000 deaths in this country because of the pandemic. To say it’s a hoax or to say it’s something that shouldn’t be a concern of everyone and how it spreads is just silly.
Music Madness: Do you think the media is to blame for some of that with all of their inconsistencies? Causing people to have a difficult time believing what the truth may be?
Elias: No, I think it’s honestly not having the unified leadership. We have our federal government and then we have our state’s government and some of our states are doing it this way. Some of the federal government are not… They say, “Hey everybody just follow the CDC.” But then the federal, government is not agreeing with the CDC. So how can you tell us to follow the CDC if then the president is turning around saying, “Hey, the CDC doesn’t know what they’re talking about. I’m the expert.” And then going from that to getting a state like New York who immediately got a handle on it with two and a half, three months of really hard work. And then what happens? People travel, they travel to states that aren’t doing the same thing. So it’s going to spread until we get one unified plan from the federal government where all states are required to do this a certain way.
That’s when things are going to start happening for the entire country, the country as a whole because if Florida is doing whatever the hell they want and California is doing great or Michigan is doing good. If somebody travels from Florida and Michigan, it’s over and all the work is done. So, everybody has to be on the same plan. If that happens, we’ll start moving in the right direction.
Music Madness: What kind of effect do you think the pandemic is having on musicians and bands? Any advice?
Elias: A lot of people really don’t know what to do. The best advice I could give to other bands is to look at what makes you you to your fans and get that out online to them so that way they can engage with you. Concerts are coming back. There’s no doubt in my mind, eventually there will be the day that we will be shoulder to shoulder and having a good time at concerts again. But until then everyone has mouths to feed and you got to keep a roof over your head. So your fan base is there.
There’s other routes to engage with other financial pools, nonprofits and sponsors and all that. Start looking at what makes your band tick and start displaying that for your fans so that way they get that experience with you. I would say start there and that will at least start filling your tank enough and keep your creative juices flowing because that’s basically what it is. You don’t want to let that fire inside of you or that fire that you’ve just been adding coal to all these years, you don’t want it to die out. So keep creating.
Music Madness: Some of the younger bands have called it quits, where unfortunately they could not financially make it during these crazy times. Then you go to that next tier of bands that were just starting to take off with 2019 being a huge year for them. They had built some momentum only to have it come to a screeching halt.
Do you think during the early days of Nonpoint, as you guys were transitioning from that new band to one starting to build momentum…if something like this had happened, would it have been enough to stop the Nonpoint machine? Do you think this kind of thing affects bands where they can’t rebound or just lose steam?
Elias: It really does because it’s not just based on you, unfortunately back then it wasn’t really based on you so much, a lot more labels… I’ve been through a lot of transitions in the music industry. I’ve seen a lot of different types of music delivery. I’ve seen major labels go from 16 to 12 to six then to the big three. So, watching that transition from a tape to CD, to MP3 back to vinyl. All these different changes watching little tiny startups that were in a couple of offices (Spotify) in a building that was owned by universal. Now Spotify owns the whole building and universal just has a couple of floors. You watch all of that stuff start to happen around you.
So you realize that sometimes the machine is bigger than you’re able to move and actually able to get it to move sometimes. So, back then you had teams and handlers and managers, and you really didn’t look at the business. Now it’s a little bit different. Artists are a lot more independent artists. Labels are starting to distribute more as opposed to signing artists. Buying into artists teams and signing artists teams, as opposed to just putting up a song and hoping for the best. As that starts to move and change, those artists that came up during this new sauce I’m doing it all myself DIY, they’re going to survive. They don’t see touring or things like that toppling their brand because their brand was built out of a garage on their laptop with garage band or with a cracked version of Pro Tools or something. So we’re a bit of a different animal. If it had happened back then, I feel like it might’ve almost destroyed the entire industry. Now things are so technologically forward, I feel like artists now, if they stay smart and they stay positive they’re going to make it through this.
Music Madness: Live shows!?!
Elias: That’s something you’re not going to be able to replace. Like I said before, eventually that’s going to come back, but for now create a new experience. That’s all I would say. Is try to create a new experience because people are at home looking for that new experience. And that’s actually what we’re planning on doing here real shortly with a couple of announcements that we’re making here soon. So keep an eye on the page. We’re going to do some special.
Music Madness: Outstanding! Well, all of us Nonpoint fans are definitely jonesing for the best collection of hair in metal back onstage crushing it.
Elias: Yeah. Well, you should see my dreads man they’re way past my butt.
Music Madness: Damn.
Elias: They’re going to be quite the spectacle when we get back to it. We got some visuals coming.
Music Madness: Awesome. I’ve heard that you guys are also working on new music and maybe a new album coming?
Elias: No, we did have some stuff that we were working on during the time off, but the pandemic steered things to Alive and Kicking. And then to “Remember Me” and now the doves, which is a little bit more of a monumental task than we thought it would be. We’ve really made some ground this past weekend, and that should be coming shortly here. But then we have our entire fourth quarter completely scheduled and planned out with events and you know things for our fans to keep them happy all the way up until Christmas. So we’re going to keep grinding.
Music Madness: Looking forward it. Now what we need to do is make a push and get you back on ShipRocked for 2021!
Elias: Well, I’ll give Alan a call about what’s going on with ShipRocked.
Music Madness: Make it happen. Anything happening on the festival circuit for next year?
Elias: Yeah. Well, we’re booked for a couple of shows, a couple of festivals that rescheduled from this fall to next fall Rebel Rock and Rock USA. A couple of different shows that were booked… But again, everything is getting pushed. Now Spain is getting a new peak that’s worse than last one. The second wave of COVID is seemingly worse than the first wave. So we could be in our houses for another year. So, I’m not making any guarantees, but like I said, as soon as concerts start going, professional or not, we’ll be hitting the road.
Music Madness: We are looking forward to seeing what Nonpoint has for fans over the next several months. Thanks again for your time.
Nonpoint is:
Elias Soriano (Lead Vocals)
Robb Rivera (Drums)
Rasheed Thomas (Guitar /Backing Vocals)
Adam Woloszyn (Bass)
Jason Zeilstra (Lead Guitar)
https://www.facebook.com/nonpointofficial/
https://www.instagram.com/nonpointband/
