Welcome to Dave's On Tour!

Introduce your band mates in Cinder Road and tell me all about your band's history.

Cinder Road is from Baltimore, Maryland. As a vocalist, I'm influenced by the world's first rock star: Elvis Presley. He exemplified glitz, glamour, and charisma, and he was an amazing singer. Another influence is Aerosmith's Steven Tyler. I had the pleasure of meeting him when we made this record. He blew me away. He could sing the phonebook and make it sound like a Grammy winner. I'm also a huge Joe Elliot and Def Leppard fan. I write all the songs, and Def Leppard is my favorite band from a songwriting and melodic standpoint. What I tried to capture when I wrote "Superhuman" was to write my own version of "Hysteria." Pat Patrick, our guitarist, is a huge Joe Perry fan. Chris Shucosky, the other guitarist, is more the metal head. He's a big Zakk Wylde fan and Metallica fan. Nat Doegen is big into Motley Crue. Mac is the odd-ball of the band. He's more into 80s retro stuff like Phil Collins and Huey Lewis.

In 1995, I started a band called Plunge with a few buddies from middle school. As teenagers, Chris was my neighbor and Mac lived up the street. We started playing locally, and I fell in love with making music which is the only thing that matters to me. From playing parties we moved up to opening for bigger local bands in clubs. Then we did the next step of headlining smaller clubs for no money. Then the medium club and the big club. After that, we tried to spread out and keep it going by playing in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and New Jersey. I'm real goal-oriented and I've always set milestones in my career that I wanted to achieve. When you have a vision and goal, it's easier to put your head down and do the work. The next thing you know is that when you stand up, you're there. After time we got a record deal, we played some tours, our record came out, a single is on the radio, and a video is on television. It's like "whoa, where am I"?

I grew up literally playing air guitar on a tennis racket before I got my first guitar. I wanted the dream, the fairy tale, the big record deal. I wanted to be on tour on a big bus, making money and hearing my single being played on the radio station in every town we rolled into. But that's not the music business of 2008 or even the last 10 years. We've been signed a few times to distribution deals in Europe and Japan. We had a development deal with Columbia and finally an artist deal with E.M.I. It took a lot of demos, a lot of showcasing, and a lot of heartbreak.

Cinder Road, like every band out there, has a MySpace page and a website where fans can hear your music. Here's your chance to verbally describe Cinder Road's musical direction. Talk about your sound and your record.

We're doing something different yet something very familiar. Cinder Road plays good old-fashioned arena rock n' roll which had disappeared for quite a while. Bands like Nickelback, Buckcherry, Hinder, and Daughtry are starting to bring that back. That, and the new genre of bands that are bringing back the 80s/arena-rock influenced music that I grew up listening to.

I'm from the greatest hits era of the 80s. If I'm in a club, I don't dance, I play music, that's why I don't dance. I'm real shy guy unless I'm up on stage. Yet I'd watch the crowd in the club dancing. If you throw on a song by Def Leppard, or Bon Jovi, or Journey, you can watch the place erupt. That's what that type of music does to people. It makes you want to party and have a good time and that's the kind of band Cinder Road is. We're not political; we're not religious. It's about playing rock n' roll, having a few beers, meeting chicks, and doing whatever you have to do to have a good time.

You can buy the Cinder Road record at Best Buy or F.Y.E. You can also go to i-Tunes. We'll ship it to people direct if they contact us through our website or MySpace page. Our first single was "Get In, Get Out." It's real heavy and riff-driven, but it wasn't necessarily the strongest song. It was instantly recognizable when I first played the record for our family and friends. Our new single, "Should Have Known Better," seemed like a great follow-up. It's up-tempo with big hooks. It's radio-friendly and we're a radio-rock band. Any of the songs on the record could be a radio single, yet radio is dead nationally. I hate to say that but I'm seeing it first-hand. A handful of stations around the country gave our band a shot the first time around and it's even harder the second time around. Radio, just like the music business in the new era of music in 2008, tries to figure out where bands fit in. Plus, they're resting on the laurels of the bands that came before us. Radio needs to sell advertising and has very little time to give spins to new bands. Very few new groups have broken through. As far as rock bands, Daughtry and Hinder are the only two new ones I can name. College radio is still alive and well for the jam-based bands, but we're heavier than that. Everything is connected. The economy is down; ticket sales and record sales are down. People have less money to spend. There's less concerts. We played in medium-sized clubs with Puddle of Mudd, a band that sold 6 million records. We were on a club tour with the incredible TESLA who used to play in coliseums.

What was the biggest challenge for Cinder Road: getting recorded, getting heard, or getting seen? Talk about your efforts trying to meet those challenges.

There are challenges with each and every one of those things. We use the example that "we're constantly spinning plates." You're fighting the fight to get a record deal, you showcase, you travel, you showcase some more, somebody liked you, and you finally get a deal. Now you're done with that and you get in the studio. They don't like this song but I love the song. They want you to write more but you have nothing left in you. They want you to play more up-tempo but Cinder Road is not about that. The record's done and you want to tour. The latest thing is having the "baby bands" buy on to the tour. They ask, "how much money can you spend to go on tour"? Then you see other bands get touring slots because they are friends with the headliners. It's a fight every day, all day. We feel like prizefighters. We get in the ring and we get beat up every day. We're out on the road now doing a 15 show tour of the Midwest with a band called Red. They're a Christian-based band out of Tennessee. We're fortunate to get any tour we can because us and our management don't believe in the buy-on thing. Fortunately we've hooked up with bands like Candlebox and TESLA who are above that. Every band we've been out with has paid us to be there. Every gig is a learning experience. Touring with Daughtry gave us a glimpse into what it's like to be in a band that's blowing up all across the country. It was like nothing I've experienced. Every day we'd wake up at the venue and there was barricades around the buses, with extra police and security inside and outside the venue. It was nuts. You'd think the Beatles were playing there. We'd go on first and the place would already be packed. The fans would go crazy. It was more a TV audience than a music audience, and everybody was there to see Chris Daughtry in the flesh. Many were attending their first concert ever so we were the first band they'd ever seen perform. We learned what to do and what not to do and how much fun it could be on a sold-out tour. TESLA are as professional as you can get. I sat down to talk and learn from Jeff Keith, Brian Wheat, and Frank Hannon every chance I got. The stories they have were incredible. They're old-school with the big stage and stacks of amps. But they've hunkered down. The crew and band share the bus; they don't fly home, they drive home. They try to hold on to the money their touring generates. We've also toured overseas playing for U.S. military in foreign countries. Anybody can hang a banner or protest at a demonstration that's anti-war or anti-Bush. But what are they doing trying to make a difference? Cinder Road takes pride in the fact that we do something about it. Playing for our troops is our way of giving back.

It seems like newer bands take one of two approaches these days in trying to build a band: Utilize the Internet to self-market and try to create a fan base that you can invite to your performances, or the "old school" approach of releasing a record and pounding the road to try to play in front of as many new faces as possible. Which is Cinder Road's best way?

If it's going to happen for us, it's going to be out on the road. For rock bands, the Internet's a good way to show people where you're playing and hopefully a few people will find you by accident. It's not the platform or forum we hoped it would be. It's absolutely necessary though. The time I spend on the computer interferes with the creative process. I can't get into writing mode when I'm touring. I'm focused so that when I'm in touring mode, I want to put on the best show possible. I worry about the gear being set up right; I worry about our guests and the press I have to do. I have to delegate the website and MySpace tasks to other guys in the band. When I'm home, I can get in my little demo studio and write down ideas and record some songs. I stay focused.

What is your band's next logical step to make new fans, and what does your band have in store for your existing fans?

TESLA recorded us every night on tour and gave it to us. We'll mix those recordings and release a live album soon. We'll tour behind that. Our plan is to stay on the road throughout 2008, opening for some bigger bands and playing in front of as many new faces as possible. We want all the people we can find to listen to our music and give us a shot. Our music and live show speak for itself. At the same time we have to keep the fans we do have constantly interested. We plan on releasing a DVD someday soon.

Please share your thoughts about Dimebag Darrell.

I began as a guitar player and I always respected Dimebag's work with Pantera, yet I never had the pleasure of meeting him. He was one of the last guys on the list of classic, iconic guitar players. We haven't had one of those in a long time. Not since Eddie Van Halen or some of the guys from the 80s. I never realized the effect he had on people until after he died. When we were in Columbus, Ohio, I was introduced to a police officer named James Niggemeyer. He's the officer who responded to the call and shot Dimebag's killer. We talked about how thing went down that night and how the metal world looks at him as a hero. I also met a writer who wrote a book about that night. Dimebag touched so many people with his music, and it's amazing how many people's live were changed forever by that night in Columbus, Ohio.