Tag Archives: Radio

Announcement! $1000 Charity Giveaway!

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Announcement! $1000.00 Charity Giveaway!
“Sleeping With Lions” goes to national radio!

When we released “Sleeping With Lions” in October we had hoped it would do well based off the TNT Animal Kingdom licensing that we had secured with the song. We had no idea of the impact it would make for us in playlists, further licensing with X-Games, ESPN and Monster Energy. We continue to get messages each day from independent DJ’s literally from around the world that have added SWL to their rotations. Because of all of this, we have decided to throw everything we have at it and do a proper radio campaign. Starting March 1st we have hired a company that will help us get “Sleeping With Lions” on more radio stations with the hopeful intent of getting it to break top 20 Active/Mainstream Rock Charts.

What can you do to help?
If you have a radio station that plays rock in your area please contact them and request that “Sleeping With Lions” be added to their rotation. We’ve even made it easy by creating a link to download the track directly below.

https://soundcloud.com/tcs-private/sleeping-with-lions-by-the-cold-stares-radio-download

If you get a station to pick it up, please comment below that station name and area.

If Sleeping With Lions cracks that top 20, we are going to randomly choose one of the radio stations that is spinning it and make a $1000.00 donation to a charity of their choice in their area, in their name.

This process has been 100% grassroots to this point, but we feel that the amount of success with “Sleeping With Lions” really requires us to get the machine behind it. It truly has been career changing for us and thank each one of you who has added it to your libraries and shared it with your friends.

Thank you to WKTG, and WUEV for being at the very beginning and playing it out of the gate. Found out today the song has been picked up by Hard Rock Cafe globally as well, so thank you to our friends at Hard Rock. Now the hard work begins….

A great review of “Mountain” from Indiesource.com!

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And yet another great review on “Mountain”- Happy Monday, now let’s get to the rock and roll…

IndieSource Review of Mountain

“In “Way Gets Dark,” one of the more homespun acoustic tracks to behold on The Cold Stares’ awesome new alternative blues juggernaut Mountain, the band doesn’t rely on imagistic lyrics alone to create a visual experience to accompany the music. The eerie echo of the lightly plucked strings sends a chilling sense of danger in our direction, and the lack of emotion in lead singer Chris Tapp’s voice kills any comfortability that his warm southern drawl may have provided. It’s like the path in front of us is literally getting darker; we’re trapped in this dry but sharply tuned mix next to the guitar, our minds left to wander after the crisp melody that could be waiting just beyond the horizon.
Mountain is driven by its evocative soundscapes, which appear when we’re least expecting them. At fifteen tracks, this is a monstrous LP that offers plenty of intriguing moments for newcomers to The Cold Stares’ sound to get acquainted with their style, but its cohesive, somewhat progressive qualities are what will satisfy the group’s longtime fans more than anything else. As incredibly different in rhythm as “Cold Black Water” and “The Plan” are, they play together in this record flawlessly, as if they were two sides of the same coin. What they have in common is the jarring, neo-noir soundscape that we’re greeted with in track one, “The Great Unknown,” and unable shake for the duration of the record.
I found myself taken aback when I discovered that The Cold Stares are comprised only of singer/guitarist Chris Tapp and drummer Brian Mullins. The abrasive “Stickemup” gets started with a colorful little guitar tizzy that sounds like an amalgamation of several string instruments layered on top of each other, while Mullins’ drum kit sounds twice the size of any other I’ve heard lately. “Wade In The Darkness,” “Gone Not Dead,” and really any of the heavier tracks on the record feel so much more mechanical in their execution than what I was expecting, and yet they’re so far removed from the digitalized sound of robotic pop/rock that even the most subtle differences between their melodies and that of their contemporaries is hard to ignore in these songs.
The most somber moment in Mountain ironically might also be The Cold Stares’ most triumphantly reverent so far – “Under His Command,” a Gothic folk ballad that brands us with a smoky vocal by Tapp that plays more like an epitaph than it does a rock song. His words stick to the paper thin strings like glue, and wherever his prose takes them, they melodically respond – in the gauntest of minor keys. This is my favorite song on the record, not because of any machismo-fueled rock luster, but because of its dark, witty minimalism.
I think that the best way to experience Mountain is to listen to its fifteen songs from beginning to end in the chronological order that The Cold Stares’ arranged them. In what can only be described as an operatic approach to making a bluesy garage rock record, this album starts off with a sonic beat down (“The Great Unknown” and more modest “Friend of Mine”), escalates to more methodical, emotional grounds (“Under His Command,” and “Stickemup”) before letting the harmonies go off the rails (“Gone Not Dead,” “Wade in the Darkness,” and the bone-rattling “Child of God”) and giving into this duo’s penchant for fusing nimbly wound rock songs into analogue-style blues rants (“Cold Black Water,” “Two Keys and a Good Book” and “Killing Machine” just to name some highlights). There’s a lot for music enthusiasts to ponder in this album, but there’s just as much excitement for casual fans to discover in its intricately stylized songs as well.”

Mountain on Spotify!

Thanks to the folks at No Depression Magazine for the great review of our new album Mountain.

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Thanks to the folks at No Depression Magazine for the great review of our new album Mountain.

“You don’t need a lot of crazy, overindulgent solos to make a good guitar record in 2018, and The Cold Stares’ Chris Tapp proves as much in the band’s new album Mountain. The record’s opening set includes the stop-start alternative rocker “The Great Unknown,” the swinging blues tune “Friend of Mine” and the organic “Under His Command,” which together set the table for what we can expect in the dozen tracks that follow by showing off the three pillars of The Cold Stares’ guitar-oriented sound. “The Great Unknown” represents the trudging power chord rock that we were introduced to in their last record Head Bent; “Friend of Mine” offers us a taste of their more relaxed, radio-friendly side in the form of a patient guitar lick; and “Under His Command” serves as a sampling of their uniquely contrasting acoustic songs that leave a trail of hostile energy in their wake.

Mountain is structured in three song suites that steamroll over our senses without a second thought; “Stickemup,” rises from the ashes of “Under His Command” and bleeds right into “Gone Not Dead” and the bulging “Wade In The Darkness,” which pristinely reverberates like a lonely voice bouncing off of huge canyon walls. Drummer Brian Mullins doesn’t command every song with his calculated arrangements, but the songs that he does make a big impact on (“Sleeping With Lions” and “Cold Black Water” particularly) are the best of the album. Tapp’s lyrics are a constant presence and tend to overshadow some of the more plaintive musical bits in tracks like “Child of God” or the correspondingly muted “The River,” and I actually think that his style of prose goes out of its way to be more creative and freewheeling than it has to be exclusively with this result in mind.

The Cold Stares are very good at taking a simple song and transforming it into a roots rocking firestorm, which is demonstrated perfectly in “The Plan.” The mix of this track is what takes it out of the pastureland and drops it into a crowded concert hall – every gilded nuance of Tapp’s heart-pumping blues guitar is highlighted with great detail, and Mullins’ drumming occasionally gets so overwhelming that it feels like his cymbals are going to come crashing through the invisible barrier between recorded music and tangible reality itself. The same can be said of the familiar melody we find in “Way Gets Dark,” which borrows heavily from the folk/blues of yesteryear but comes across as authentic and original thanks to The Cold Stares’ tailor-made equalization.

For a record that feels like it’s actually two LPs crammed into a single disc, there isn’t a spot of filler in Mountain to be skipped over, and if anything the more streamlined tracks make the progressive flow even more lucid and relatable to the listener. Obviously our attention is, more often than not, drawn to Tapp’s vicious guitar play on this record, which flirts with classic rock tonality but remains relatively contemporary courtesy of this sublimely textured mix. But to be frank, what probably affected me more than anything else here was the relationship between his verses and the riffs; the way they seem to reflect each other’s pain and longing for calm amidst all this musical chaos. In that sense Mountain isn’t just more sonically mature than what The Cold Stares have produced in the past, it’s also more aesthetically evocative and creatively diverse.”

No Depression Review of Mountain

Vents Magazine review of Mountain

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Another great review in today on our new album Mountain from Vents magazine. Worth a read-
Humbled again. Hear Mountain now!
“Singer Chris Tapp preaches elements of the Christian gospel in “Under His Command,” “Child of God” and “Two Keys and a Good Book,” but his words aren’t dripping with a self-righteousness that would repel non-religious listeners. The imagery that these verses inspire isn’t rosy or divine; it’s grimacing and reflective, like a message from beyond the grave voiced by those who have once walked the road we’re on now. There’s a great deal of continuity between these songs that is reminiscent of flipping through pages of a Bible; with each passage we consume, we find another hidden lesson suggesting how we can right our past wrongs.”
Vents Magazine – Mountain

Mountain is now available!

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“Mountain” available from online retailers – here! –> Mountain

“Mountain” on Vinyl is available – here! –> Mountain – Limited Edition, Limited Run Vinyl

TCS - Mountain

Breaking down the songs of Mountain, day seven – “The Great Unknown”

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TWO DAYS until the official release of Mountain. So much news coming your way today, new reviews, new playlists adds, continued success leading up to this release and we want to thank all of you again for your role in helping getting the word spread and turning people on to our music.

Today I’ll break down the first track on the album “The Great Unknown”. Lyrically this is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written. It’s set in the open western landscape as early Americans travel west. The songs meaning is really that no man knows his future. No two days are exactly alike in our lifetime, and if you make plans and think you know exactly how your life will go you can bet it will not follow that path. I was focusing on settlers moving west and how that must have felt, not knowing what the future would hold, so many obstacles, such beautiful land, how native Americans must have felt. Life was so hopeful then, but also so fragile.

First verse a stranded young husband has lost his wife, standing on a hill, looking up and questioning God. Meanwhile his brothers have made it out west and have hit gold. Their sister broke, has turned to prostitution in an effort to stay alive.

Second verse we have an man coming back north from a train robbery in mexico, perhaps to get money to start his family back home. In the meantime his wife at home has taken up with another man, by the time that he gets home he has lost what he sat out to build.

Third verse a solider has returned from a battle and finds a war tribe has destroyed his home and killed his family. It discusses the topic of revenge and war and how that cycle never seems to end.

The Great Unknown

Young man stands high on a hill shakes his fists at the sky above.
Down below in the valley there’s a grave with a name of a woman he loved.
Out west cross the rivers and plains now his brothers striking rich with gold
Their sister in hotel room working money off a man she knows

Just beyond the great unknown
Are the answers that nobody knows
Just beyond the great unknown
Are the answers that nobody knows

Pale rider on a jet black mare, got a rifle and a .44
500 dollars from a train he robbed down south in Mexico
Back home now his wife got a suitor, got a ring and an evening gown
By the time that he reach Sioux City, she done laid that poor boy down, down, down

Just beyond the great unknown
Are the answers that we will never know
Just beyond the great unknown
Are the answers that nobody knows

Red man with a scalp in his hand on a horse that he calls war
Soldier just beyond two days ride walks back in through his front door
Someone always gotta debt to pay, someone always gotta settle the score.
No matter how the blood is shed, someone always wants more, more, more.

Breaking down songs of Mountain, day one – “Sleeping with Lions”

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We are 9 days away from the release of “Mountain” now. We thought it might be cool to break down some of the songs from the album for you guys. We’ll start out with our single “Sleeping With Lions”.

Pre-cancer, so around late 2011 I had the main riff of the song and it had morphed into a song called “Come Apart”. At that time it was angsty relationship song with what I felt were sub-par lyrics. We were playing the song out some and had even cut a demo in the studio. “Come Apart” didn’t feel up to snuff to me, and so it didn’t make the cut. Move forward two years and I was in the middle of chemo and radiation fighting cancer. We were doing everything that we could to move forward and keep recording. I literally was in the studio with Brian and Greg with a rash covering my body from the chemo trying to cut guitars. It was during that time that I kept coming back to this powerful guitar riff, and the opening anthem type melody. It just felt like it deserved lyrics that would match the power of the riff. I had been reading and focusing on people that had faced great adversity and overcome through faith. Two men really stood out to me, one was Job and the other Daniel from the bible. Both having to survive on nothing but faith. I could really relate to that. At the time I was also thinking about legacy, and that if something happened to me, any lyrics I left behind I wanted to inspire people. I was driving home one night and starting singing a line in my head over the guitar riff. “I hold the light that lights the pathway”. The way I write a lot of times is to construct the entire song in my head. I write a line, repeat, add another, repeat two, and another repeat three, until I’ve written and memorized something until I can make it to a pen and paper. By the time I had gotten home I had the chorus. “I hold the light that lights the pathway, I hold the key that locks the door, I mark the steps that lead to freedom, I swim the sea that leads to shore”. It was a declaration of giving 100% trust and faith to God that he would lead me through whatever was to happen.
I sat down and wrote the rest of the song in probably 2-3 minutes. The first verse I imagined a prisoner, locked away with no hope. Metaphors for a woman trapped in an abusive relationship, a kid stuck in a bad home, someone fighting disease, people silenced for their views, anyone trying to overcome. “Well they took them a hammer, and they took them a nail. And they built you a prison, and they made you a cell. And they gave you no ransom, and they set you no bail. No view of a heaven, yea they gave you their hell.”
Second verse came easily as well, and it is the story of David which still makes me shudder to think about. “Daniel on his knees, he continued to pray, and the king he forbid him, and they led him away. And they laid him with lions, and they told him goodbye. They returned in the morning, just to find him alive.” It is the universal story of faith and perseverance.
Forward months later, and I was on the mend and we cut the new song which was now “Sleeping With Lions”. With no releases immediately coming up we sat on the song. Forward a couple years and we had given some songs to our new publisher who was synching songs to television. Out of all the songs he had to pick from he kept telling me that “Sleeping With Lions” would land somewhere. I wasn’t so sure, and didn’t see it as a single. Sometimes this happens when you are very close to a song and it seems like it was just written for your circumstance. Regardless, I said sure, give it a shot. A few months later I got the call that it had been chosen out of our songs for the “Animal Kingdom” show on TNT. The rest as they say is history. “Sleeping With Lions” then followed up to be placed on ESPN’s coverage of the X-Games this fall. We have a good inclination that you will also hear it on something big in 2019. It was released October 1st 2019 as the first single off of “Mountain” and was added to 12 Spotify Editorial Playlists. To put that in perspective, on our last album “Break My Fall” and “Head Bent” were added to ONE each. Previous releases saw NO playlists placements. “Sleeping With Lions” is currently doing 10-15,000 streams per day and has done 180,000 since October 1st at the time I’m writing this.
I want to add one more note while we are on this subject. Bands ON record labels release records and spend tens of thousands of dollars to have consultants recommend their songs for Spotify playlists. Even after doing that, most do not see any of their songs make the editorial playlists. Those lists are the new top 40. The fact that we have released this record, WITHOUT a label, without consultants, paid for by our fans, and had this success solidifies that it’s a new world out there and this can be done without labels. It requires a lot of hard work, a lot of hustle, and more than anything a lot of FAITH. See you tomorrow with another track explanation. CT

Sleeping with Lions on Spotify

Call or post a request for “Sleeping With Lions” on SiriusXM Octane or email Octane@siriusxm.com them and help us continue the success.

“Sleeping With Lions”
Well they took them a hammer
And they took them a nail
And they built you a prison, and they made you a cell
And they gave you no ransom, and they set you no bail
With no view of a heaven, yeah they gave you their hell

But I hold the light that lights the pathway
I hold the key that locks the door
I mark the steps that lead to freedom
I swim the sea that leads to shore

Daniel on his knees, he continued to pray
And the king he forbid him, and they led him away
And they laid him with lions, and they told him goodbye
They returned in the morning, just to find him alive….

I hold the light that lights the pathway
I hold the key that locks the door
I mark the steps that leads to freedom
I swim the sea that leads to shore

Kickstarter for album “Mountain” to help self fund “Ways”

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Please check out our Kickstarter for “Mountain”, share and tag your friends. And thank you very much for playing a role in Cold Stares history- TCS

A tale of two records, publishing rights, and the struggles of a roots rock band in 2018.

As we began to discuss our next record which would have been titled “Ways” we decided together to pass on the record label offers we had and try to self fund the album in an attempt keep our music publishing this time. For those of you that don’t know when you see our music on a Monster Energy commercial, ESPN or a show on TNT, the money made from those performances actually go back to the record company instead of the artist.

Every record deal offer out there for us at the moment had the record label holding our publishing. Our last record deal the record label held our publishing. At this point in our career we were no longer willing to give that up, and artists shouldn’t have to. It’s hard enough to be a rock band out there right now, and for us to sustain our career we have to hold our licensing. So we decided to try to fund our record with our fans.

Here’s the dilemma. To properly record, produce, and promote “WAYS” we needed to raise around 20k. We have been really struggling on asking our fans to contribute that kind of money. We are a working class band, and we know a lot of our fans are blue collar working folks and to be honest it just felt a bit heavy to us. We built a kickstarter and then mulled for weeks over a discussion on what to do. We lost a lot of sleep, but through a lot of prayer and meditation we came to an answer.

What we decided. We decided we wanted to try to pay for the “WAYS” album ourselves. But how could we do that? Release “MOUNTAIN”.

Backstory- In the beginning of 2016 I was a bit over 2 years out cancer free. At that point I wasn’t for sure what life held ahead, but I knew my goal was to just live and make it to the goal we set with my doctors, five years. I also knew a lot of my friends that had gone through treatment with me had lost their battles. Not knowing exactly what we might have to deal with in the near future, we wanted to write and record everything I could so that if something happened to me I would leave a musical legacy behind for The Cold Stares. So we went in the studio with Greg Pearce and recorded “Dark Dark Blue”, and then “The Southern”. Both of these EP’s were released in 2016 with ZERO PR budget, zero buzz behind them. We also released some singles “Stickemup”, “Sleeping with Lions” and our version of the Allman’s classic “Whipping Post”. What we thought at the time, was that later when we got more well known our new fans would find these older EP’s. What we didn’t understand and what we have learned over the years is that without some PR budget behind ANY release- no one will hear or find it. No one is exactly pushing rock music onto the front page of Spotify or iTunes these days to be seen if you haven’t noticed. Those EP’s were very difficult to find online and most of these songs have never been heard outside of our close immediate fan base. So what we decided to do was take that group of songs, along with a few others our fans had never heard, remix and master them together and release as one album “Mountain”.

This group of 15 songs, all written around the same time, share a common theme and feel and we have always felt that they are just too important not to be presented correctly. Releasing “Mountain” will do a couple things, it will give these songs an opportunity to be heard, give our old fans a few new songs and remasters, and it will also give us an avenue to raise money for our February release “Ways”. We felt much better about raising the money with our fans in this fashion and we think it’s the proper way to move forward.

With your help we can meet or exceed our goal of 5k that will allow us to release “Mountain” and have a reasonable PR budget to get “Mountain” heard. Sales from “Mountain” and any additional money that might be possibly raised from this campaign will go to the funding of “Ways”. Any money we might be short of for “Ways” we will be funding ourselves. We honestly feel that “Mountain” will be our best album release to date, and when we look at the song listing I can’t say any other release comes close to summing up who we are musically. “Mountain” symbolically means so many different things to us, but more than anything what we’ve overcome, on our terms to be here with you. Thank you for your support in getting us here, and beyond. God Bless-

THE COLD STARES

The Cold Stares 2018 – Snippet of things to come

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The Cold Stares 2018 – Snippet of things to come

Ok. So many things we have to share with you guys for 2018. We have to keep the lid on the details of a lot of these things until they are finalized- but I have to say we are super stoked about the upcoming year.
Can’t go without giving our fans a little sneak peak at least-
Details will come out about all these things by December 1st.

1- There will be a limited edition new Cold Stares CD released in January that will be FREE- and only available in Evansville at all Azzip locations. We are super stoked to be teaming up with Azzip Pizza and trust me you are going to be seeing, hearing and reading about this one a lot… coinciding with the promotion will be gigs in Jan/Feb/March at various Evansville locations that you may not have seen us before. We had 68,000 streams in the last week from cities around the world- Evansville was not in the top 20, we are about to change that. And yes WE LIVE HERE. First show is at Backstage Jan 5th, and you don’t want to miss it. Other dates announcing soon-

2- We are doing a residency EVERY month of 2018 at our favorite venue Lafayette’s in Memphis. We are also doing a FREE Cold Stares CD that will be available in Memphis for our fans available at the club only. Memphis you’ve shown us some love, and we are returning it. This is DEFINITELY worth a road trip. We’ve played at the best venues in the country, and this is one of the best. If you have friends or family in Memphis, please help us spread the word….

3- There will be a live full length Cold Stares album released in 2018.

4- There will be a new full length follow up to “Head Bent” album released late summer/fall 2018 of 12 new Cold Stares songs.

5- There will be a national tour and European dates, as well as some other possible international shows.

6- You will be hearing more Cold Stares music on your favorite television shows.

7- There will be a host of Cold Stares giveaways including an huge Turntable/stereo giveaway partnering with our label Small Stone Records and a soon to be disclosed company.

8- Tour dates with another well known National act.

And more….
Stay tuned and please help us continue to spread the word about our album Head Bent with your friends. Please save our music into your playlists and libraries on Spotify and iTunes music as well. And please continue to email Bluesville and Octane and request our music! We thank you for your support and hope we can give it all back to you guys in 2018. Here we come……. TCS

The Cold Stares