by Reggie Edwards
Fort Wayne, Indiana-based rock band Rains just wrapped up their stint on the Share The Welt Tour with Five Finger Death Punch, All That Remains and Hatebreed.
After graciously sharing some tea with us (we drove over two hours in a car with no heat in 10 degree weather to get to the show), front man Jeff Rains took time to talk to us after his set in Waterloo, Iowa on the tour.
“It’s goin’ great, Rains says,” the crew is great, the fans are fantastic and the crowd response has been just phenomenal for us. We were a little nervous cuz it’s a heavier tour and we aren’t near as heavy as the rest of the bands but it’s going surprisingly well.
“Montreal was really good. There’s only been like two bad shows, every other show has been fantastic. Tonight was probably the best show of the tour for us as far as crowd and everything goes.”
Even though Rains has found success as of late and is on the rise, it hasn’t always been an easy road.
“I started the band 12 years ago,” Rains reflects,” “and I basically would just hire different musicians for every single show, which sucked and was a pain in the ass. Then five years ago I started recording a new CD and started hiring a band.
“Then right before this tour, two of the members quit so I had two days to put together a new band, then we had two rehearsals, flew to Vegas, picked up our bus, then drove to San Francisco and started the tour.
“It’s been a really, really long road for us, for me especially since it was my project for 12 years, so it’s really cool now to see everything happening. We’re really humble people, as most people from the Midwest are, which is awesome. So I’m actually glad it’s taken as long as it’s taken because now I can just sit back and watch everything develop and happen and watch the chart numbers go up on radio and all that cool stuff. It’s really cool to see.”
Not too long ago, Rains released the album,
Stories,” a title that rings all too true for the longtime front man.
“A lot of records come from a really dark place in whoever’s writing its’ life and that’s exactly what I was going through. I was going through a really bad spot in life. I wrote most of the record in about a month our two time frame and they’re all just stories straight from my life,” Rains says.
“It’s kinda scary to put yourself out there like that but I got tired of all the b.s. rock that was on the radio, always singing about drinking, and having sex and doing drugs. I just wanted to put out something honest and see if it clicked with people and it seems to be clicking.”
To Rains, the biggest priority in songwriting is honesty, something he believes strongly in.
“Just honesty,” Rains says. “I hope we never have one of those songs that’s “get stoned” and…I just wanna be real with people and hopefully they like it.”