New Orleans-based rockers The Revivalists headline The Westcott Theater Tuesday night during a stop on their Strangers In The Bright Lights Tour. The band released their third studio album in July of last year. Guitarist Zack Feinberg took a break from the road to discuss the band’s recent travels and its distinct sound.
D.O.: So, you’re a few dates into the tour right now — how has it been so far?

Z.F.: It’s been great, man. We started in Nashville, we did this great outdoor thing called Live On The Green. We did a festival in Chicago. We flew from there to Massachusetts and did a radio festival there. Then the bus met up with us and we did something in Westport, then we went out and started our shows in venues with this great band The Temperance Movement. And we’ve had a couple shows with them in Buffalo (New York), Indianapolis, and Detroit. It’s been killer. They moved us into a bigger room in Detroit because we sold out the other one and this last weekend we had our lead singer, David Shaw, his own festival in Hamilton, Ohio — the Big River Get Down. It was an amazing lineup. The Wild Feathers, The Temperance Movement, Maggie Koerner, Roosevelt Collier, The Marcus King Band. It was just so awesome hanging with all these musicians and our singer’s family and childhood friends. It was a beautiful thing.

D.O.: This band you’re touring with, The Temperance Movement — what’s the relationship like between the two bands and what’s it like sharing the stage with them each night?

Z.F.: We just have so much respect for them. They’re such a great band and we’ve immediately connected and become friends with them. They’re just the real deal, rock ‘n roll band from England. They’ve opened for The Stones in England and I think a show in Orlando is what the singer said. They’re just seasoned musicians — like the bass player has been on tour with Jamiroquai for four years, the guitarist has done a lot of work on cool records, the drummer is badass — same deal — and the vocalist, he’s like this Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, real deal dude.

D.O.: Now, making a stop in Syracuse isn’t the most common thing for most tours. Is coming here something you guys chose or is that more just the work of the booking agency.

Z.F.: Well, I’m not going to lie to you and say that every decision of where we go is up to me or anything like that. I think they were like, “Would you want to go to Syracuse” and we were like, ”Sure.” But I’m happy we’re coming through and we’ve been coming through for a couple years.

D.O.: So you guys have been here before?

Z.F.: Yeah, we’ve played at The Westcott (Theater) a couple times.

D.O.: Do you like it here?

Z.F.: Yeah, it’s nice, man. It’s a good time of year to come by, too. You know, weather’s good, the kids are in school, you know? It’s going to be a party. It’s going to be good.

D.O.: Your shows are known to be pretty high-energy, but what would your pitch be to someone who doesn’t really know your music that well to say “come out our show”?

Z.F.: It’s just a really fun, high-energy show. And it’s more than just that — like the high-energy thing — we really orient ourselves around songs. So, the range of emotion is going to be wide and deep in terms of the different songs.

D.O.: Your style combines a lot of genres. Is that a formula you guys found naturally or was it something you had to tinker with a lot?

Z.F.: It is something that comes naturally but also something that we’re aware of. We never want to box ourselves in with a particular genre. I think now the barriers between the different kinds of genres have really fallen because everybody listens to everything and everybody is into everything. So naturally, when we’re arranging a song and writing songs, we’re open to them going in a bunch of different directions and we’re going to try different things with it before we land on what’s the best.

D.O.: You’ve had a lot of success with your most recent album “Men Amongst Mountains.” Is that something you saw coming? What’s it been like to kind of take off with this album?

Z.F.: We hoped it would go as far as it could go and it’s been like a slow build. Now it’s doing really well. The second single on it is number two on the AAA chart, which is the radio format that it’s in. And it came out last summer, so it’s really cool that it’s catching on a year later. We wanted it, of course, to be as successful as possible, and we’re happy with how it’s going right now.

Published on September 12, 2016 at 8:19 pm

Contact: jtbloss@syr.edu | @jtbloss