Band/Artist: Rival Empire
Location: Chicago, IL
Styles: Alternative Pop/Rock, Synth-Pop, Electronic Dance-Rock, New Wave
Similar to/RIYL: Duran Duran, Cut Copy, The Killers, Friendly Fires
CD: (Self-Titled): Rival Empire
Members/Instruments: Steve Rivera – (Riv): All Electronic Instruments: Drums, Bass, Guitar,
Piano, Synths, MIDI, and Vocals.
Matt Koliopoulos – (MFK): Lead Vocals.
Tim Franz – (Frantana): Rhythm & Lead Guitar.
Production: Steve Rivera: Producer, Recording & Mixing Engineer
Primary Recording & Mixing took place in: Home Studio, as well as, “The
Bunker” on Paulina / 35th Street Studios in Chicago, IL.
Final Stem Mix/Mastering Completed By: Crazy Daisy Productions in
Beaverton, Oregon.
Bio: The Rival Empire is an idea, born out of randomness and captured in the moment. The Album came from the most simple of beginnings. Two old college buddies, lets call them Matt & Steve, were hanging out one summer night when Matt said, “Hey, let write some songs.” Steve’s response, “For sure.” A few months down the road our two old friends met a new gentlemen along the way, lets call him Tim, and said “Hey Tim, we’re writing some tunes”. Tim’s response, “I’m in.” And so there were three, and so they wrote…
After writing their first three songs they realized that each of the songs were very different from one another, radically different in fact. They had started off by writing a dance song, a reggae song, and electronic rock song. At this point they probably should have questioned what in the hell it was that they were trying to accomplish. But that question never arose, and an idea did instead. That idea was the Rival Empire.
The Rival Empire was from then on not meant to be about writing a single genre album with a common style. However, the album was not necessarily meant to be about genre chaos either. They simply wanted it to be free from the more familiar structures of the “mainstream” album. Once you give the album a good listen you will clearly see that they still wanted to capture the essence of several popular genres, with the “Theme” serving as the main commonality and unifying factor. The principal theme here is an introspective and often satirical look into oneself, society, and pop/mainstream culture. Interestingly enough, throughout the writing
process, sometimes the best way to convey that theme was through the combination of genres within a single song, ie. Casino. Also, taking it a step further they also found that integrating key portions of popular songs into there own work added the artistic and satirical punctuation necessary to deliver their intended message, i.e. Reagan’s Rancho Del Cielo, Cameo Crush, Casino.
(Rival Empire would like to take a moment here in advance to respectfully thank: Phil Collins, Fleetwood Mac, Michael Jackson, Ronald Reagan, Christie Brinkley and their corresponding Publishers/Rights Owners, for their understanding of Rival Empire’s artistic use of repurposed lyrics and minor compositional melodies from: One More Night, Little Lies, Billie Jean, Ronald Reagan’s excerpts, and Ms. Brinkley’s namesake, respectively. All of the above uses were designed carefully to
fall under the fair use protection of section 107 of the Copyright Act. The uses of these works are clearly transformative and parodic, intended to serve as comment and social criticism. The key factor here being social criticism and commentary, as there is no intention of malice toward the above-mentioned persons.)
Beyond taking the above-mentioned artistic liberties, our friends at the Rival Empire, simply wanted to write songs that they enjoyed and that hopefully provide some meaning to you as the listener. This is a crucial element, because the Rival Empire isn’t only about the creation of what might seem to be at times, outlandish music. It’s also about we as people and viewing ourselves from a different perspective. Creative expression, social criticism, plain old fun, and free thinking is part of the essence of who we are as people. So if we all for a moment can step out of our collective structures and into the randomness, we can rise as a Rival Empire.