![\"Mindset](\"http://thefrontrowreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Mindset-Evolution-300x200.jpg\")
It’s been quite a trip for Illinois-based Mindset Evolution. Pandemonium has been steadily growing over the last year-and-a-half to two years. Being a part of it has been, in one word, “unbelievable,” to frontman Rob Ulrich, who says it seems like just yesterday that he was banging his head against his basement wall wondering why things weren’t moving.
After winning the 2011 Uproar Festival Battle of the Bands, Mindset Evolution were cast straight into the limelight and near stardom. With their debut full-length record,
Brave, Bold and Broken, releasing this summer, the journey is just starting for Mindset Evolution.
When you’re on the outside looking in, sometimes things aren’t always as they seem, says Ulrich.
“When you’re an independent band and you’re looking at the industry,” explains Ulrich, “You’re kind of looking at this indomitable fortress with locked windows and locked doors with all these people inside who are keeping the secrets to themselves; it’s scary and daunting and frustrating, it’s really kind of a strange thing that we all have as independent artists- the way we see it.”
The truth, however, couldn’t be more of a 180 the contrary. In fact, people are more welcoming and excited to help than the band could have ever imagined.
“We’re in the industry,” says Ulrich, “We won that battle of the bands and there’s just so many people ready to bring us in and talk to us and coach us, give us guidance and give us tips and help grow us. We’ve made some fantastic friends in the process and it’s been snowballing; The guy who arranged all the Uproar [Festival], he was working one on one with us quite a bit and coaching us and mentoring us.
“Then we went and recorded with Jay Baumgardner out in L.A. and did this five-song EP and he
loved the five-song EP, so he takes the five-song EP and passes it off to one of his friends, Roxy at Hard Drive,” elaborates Ulrich. “Then Roxy loves it so he passes it off to Prospect Park and Prospect loves it and gets excited so they come down to Peoria and meet us, you know one thing after another and it turns out the industry is full of people who are very passionate about music and passionate about rock and roll and it’s amazing, it’s great to be here.
The lessons they\’ve learned along the way have definitely paid off as 2012 and 2013 have proved to be their biggest so far with 2012 seeing the band traveling with the Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival and 2013 seeing them partaking in Rock on the Range, Rocklahoma and releasing their full-length label debut this summer in
Brave, Bold and Broken.
The most important and meaningful piece of advice the band received was to be honest about their approach and to be themselves in music, something they never really had a problem with.
“I guess we took that for granted because we never had a problem with that,” says Ulrich. “We never tried to be anything, we’re the kind of band that picks up our instruments and, not to sound too artsy fartsy, but we pick up our instruments and our instruments tell us what to do and we listen to them and they guide us through the process and what it sounds like at the end of it is what I would call the most honest approach to music we can do and that’s the most important thing to me. It’s like they always say- be yourself, be honest because people can smell the bullshit.
Ulrich says he couldn’t be more proud of
Brave, Bold and Broken. Even though this may technically be their debut, they’re no strangers to making music.
“I’m more proud of this album and how it turned out than…we did three independent records before we got signed in the Midwest and our fanbase was very supportive and bought a lot of those CD’s and really believed in what we were doing,” explains Ulrich. “I always had an almost folk-style of writing where it’s not very buried in metaphor, it’s very genuine and very straight-forward; I like to write that way best, Ilike to challenge myself, I like to say it differently than I have before or than I’ve heard but you can’t always win that battle.”
For Ulrich, honesty is the key to everything. Sometimes the best songs, he says, come from the honesty of others and just lending an ear.
“The most important thing is to be honest and I think for me as a writer it’s just so easy to look at the world around you, to meet new people and in that interaction with those people everyone has a story to tell,” says Ulrich. “So you let them tell the story and sometimes that story is extremely inspirational and you find out what they did to overcome the obstacles to get where they are or what happened to them in the past that they were never able to overcome and that’s why they are where they are.
“Then to take those stories and put them into song, I think I’ve written more songs about other people than I have about myself. It’s just awesome to be able to translate that, to understand it and to learn from it and I want that to come across in the music and I think we do a pretty good job of that.”
Listen to the full phone interview below:
Mindset Evolution
![\"Mindset](\"http://thefrontrowreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Mindset-Evolution.jpg\")
It’s been quite a trip for Illinois-based Mindset Evolution. Pandemonium has been steadily growing over the last year-and-a-half to two years. Being a part of it has been, in one word, “unbelievable,” to frontman Rob Ulrich, who says it seems like just yesterday that he was banging his head against his basement wall wondering why things weren’t moving.
After winning the 2011 Uproar Festival Battle of the Bands, Mindset Evolution were cast straight into the limelight and near stardom. With their debut full-length record, Brave, Bold and Broken, releasing this summer, the journey is just starting for Mindset Evolution.
When you’re on the outside looking in, sometimes things aren’t always as they seem, says Ulrich.
“When you’re an independent band and you’re looking at the industry,” explains Ulrich, “You’re kind of looking at this indomitable fortress with locked windows and locked doors with all these people inside who are keeping the secrets to themselves; it’s scary and daunting and frustrating, it’s really kind of a strange thing that we all have as independent artists- the way we see it.”
The truth, however, couldn’t be more of a 180 the contrary. In fact, people are more welcoming and excited to help than the band could have ever imagined.
“We’re in the industry,” says Ulrich, “We won that battle of the bands and there’s just so many people ready to bring us in and talk to us and coach us, give us guidance and give us tips and help grow us. We’ve made some fantastic friends in the process and it’s been snowballing; The guy who arranged all the Uproar [Festival], he was working one on one with us quite a bit and coaching us and mentoring us.
“Then we went and recorded with Jay Baumgardner out in L.A. and did this five-song EP and he loved the five-song EP, so he takes the five-song EP and passes it off to one of his friends, Roxy at Hard Drive,” elaborates Ulrich. “Then Roxy loves it so he passes it off to Prospect Park and Prospect loves it and gets excited so they come down to Peoria and meet us, you know one thing after another and it turns out the industry is full of people who are very passionate about music and passionate about rock and roll and it’s amazing, it’s great to be here.
The lessons they\’ve learned along the way have definitely paid off as 2012 and 2013 have proved to be their biggest so far with 2012 seeing the band traveling with the Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival and 2013 seeing them partaking in Rock on the Range, Rocklahoma and releasing their full-length label debut this summer in Brave, Bold and Broken.
The most important and meaningful piece of advice the band received was to be honest about their approach and to be themselves in music, something they never really had a problem with.
“I guess we took that for granted because we never had a problem with that,” says Ulrich. “We never tried to be anything, we’re the kind of band that picks up our instruments and, not to sound too artsy fartsy, but we pick up our instruments and our instruments tell us what to do and we listen to them and they guide us through the process and what it sounds like at the end of it is what I would call the most honest approach to music we can do and that’s the most important thing to me. It’s like they always say- be yourself, be honest because people can smell the bullshit.
Ulrich says he couldn’t be more proud of Brave, Bold and Broken. Even though this may technically be their debut, they’re no strangers to making music.
“I’m more proud of this album and how it turned out than…we did three independent records before we got signed in the Midwest and our fanbase was very supportive and bought a lot of those CD’s and really believed in what we were doing,” explains Ulrich. “I always had an almost folk-style of writing where it’s not very buried in metaphor, it’s very genuine and very straight-forward; I like to write that way best, Ilike to challenge myself, I like to say it differently than I have before or than I’ve heard but you can’t always win that battle.”
For Ulrich, honesty is the key to everything. Sometimes the best songs, he says, come from the honesty of others and just lending an ear.
“The most important thing is to be honest and I think for me as a writer it’s just so easy to look at the world around you, to meet new people and in that interaction with those people everyone has a story to tell,” says Ulrich. “So you let them tell the story and sometimes that story is extremely inspirational and you find out what they did to overcome the obstacles to get where they are or what happened to them in the past that they were never able to overcome and that’s why they are where they are.
“Then to take those stories and put them into song, I think I’ve written more songs about other people than I have about myself. It’s just awesome to be able to translate that, to understand it and to learn from it and I want that to come across in the music and I think we do a pretty good job of that.”
Listen to the full phone interview below:
Mindset Evolution