A Farwell Rescue: Listen, Like It, LOVE It!
A Farewell Rescue
A Farewell Rescue’s debut full-length album, “Never Meet Your Heroes,” isn’t exactly hot out of the recording studio, but it’s starting to gain some serious attention, which makes it seem new. Originally debuted last summer, the band’s label, Snapdragon Records, put it back in stores and gave it a second push in mid-September of this year.
The second time around, drummer of A Farewell Rescue, Jordan Rhoads said, “We haven’t gone out of our way to see if it’s being sold in much larger retailers.” He then spoke of last summer and explained how a friend of the band went to a large retailer to purchase the album, but undeniably left empty handed.
But they mapped out a brilliant plan to get retailers to order in their album in larger metropolitan areas.
They’d take their own CD into a music store while on tour and have the clerk ring it up. As expected, it wasn’t in the store’s inventory. Eventually it would make it there. The store would order a handful, five or six copies, and the band could snatch a few sneaky sales!
Along with Rhoads, the band consists of Joey Heid, vocals; Jeremiah Zellers, lead guitar; Johnny Peifer, guitar and vocals; and Josh Kerstetter, bass. The band itself has been together for more than four years, with, of course, the occasional necessary replacement.
In this area of Central Pennsylvania, A Farewell Rescue never felt at home when seeking venues to book shows. Rhoads briefly described the limited resources for themselves. “The people, the venues, and the overall area is very limited to its accommodations for young up-coming artists.”
That led the band to tour virtually everywhere else they could, except Central PA. It built up a bit of resentment, the resulting emotions of which permeate throughout “Never Meet Your Heroes.”
This past summer alone during their Disas-Tour with A Coastline Ending, the band had 31 shows booked in 30 days between June 20 and July 19. Traveling in a gas-guzzling, 15-passenger Ford E-350 — transportation and occasional lodging all in one — they drove from the East Coast to the Midwest and into the Deep South before coming back north.
“It’s definitely a long haul,” Rhoads said of the Disas-Tour. “The hours begin to wear at you. You just get to the point where you’re like, all I want is to sleep in a bed and not have to eat and share economy size peanut butter for two weeks straight.”
Keeping up on top of their game, they would use wireless Internet at places like Panera Bread to primarily promote and book shows for hours on one of their slow days.
Their time, efforts, hard work, and money (a lot, a lot of money, I know, my bank account shows it) on the road and in the studio hasn’t gone unnoticed. According to their space on the Sonicbids Web site, they were the most downloaded band on purevolume.com in July and October 2007, with their music being featured throughout MTV’s regular set of shows — “Parental Control,” “Next,” and “Laguna Beach.”
Their video for “Pretty, Cut & Dry” has been featured on MTV2 and Fuse On Demand, as well. In addition, they’ve appeared at Bamboozle, Summerfest, AmpFest and Van’s Warped Tour ’07 and ’08. And I must also give them recognition on their very impressive accomplishment to be reviewed in AMP Magazine.
“Never Meet Your Heroes,” produced by Doug White, was re-released Sept. 16th of this year and the band’s already been working on a follow up, with plans to record in March of 2009.
In the meantime, the band continues to play and promote “Never Meet Your Heroes” and hope it distributes a bit better this second time around. With the support of Snapdragon Records and national distribution by Sony Red Distribution, chances are good that it could happen.
“We had hopes and dreams of success happening, but deep down I didn’t know if it would see the light of day in stores,” Rhoads said of the albums first release. “Now we’re getting pictures from friends and family with the CD on store shelves.”
“It’s a big step for us that someone feels it deserves national release and attention.”
For tour dates, news, videos or any other information, visit A Farewell Rescue on MySpace. Their record is available to purchase at Amazon.com, FYE.com, Bestbuy.com and can be found in retail stores such as Hot Topic, FYE, Best Buy, Virgin Megastores and more.
The picture listed below is from Harrisburg’s Colonial Park Mall in Hot Topic. I was shopping there a few months ago with a bit of wishful thinking in mind, I thought I’d check out their Hot Topic; and as you can see, it was my lucky day, there their album sits front, top, and centered, this probably was one of the most exciting days of my life.
