The Rising are a country rock band from Belfast in Northern Ireland. Since the release of their debut album Coming Home, the quintet – featuring Chantelle McAteer (vocals), Chris Logan (guitars/banjo/mandolin), Brian Mellors (bass), Carla Crawford (piano/keys/synth) and Shane Watters (drums) – has enjoyed a steady stream of success and has garnered support from the likes of BBC Radio and Radio 2 and many more. The band are currently working on their follow up release, but have unleashed their latest track called Last First Love. Recently Logan and McAteer had a chat with AMNplify about all of this and more – check it out below!

How and when did the band form?

Chris: The Rising formed in late 2013 from the remains of another band, a more rock based band called EXIT. The band was given positive reviews in the likes of rock bible KERRANG! Magazine and played a few high profile supports. However, something wasn’t right we were making music to fit into a scene, not making the music we wanted to make. So we rebranded and set about making our debut album Coming Home, which was released in late 2014 on Renegade Maverick Records. However, all this was to change during a UK Tour in October 2015.

A lot of people may know us from our debut album and singles we released, so the most obvious change is personnel changes. We introduced a new singer in Chantelle McAteer and a new bassist, Brian Mellors as the core of the band. This came about completely naturally. I had been writing songs with Chantelle for many years, simply for the fun of writing songs and hanging out. I then produced her solo EP and by this stage we had quite a collection of songs as well as worked quite a bit in the studio. Chantelle had constantly initially begun to joke that she should be the lead singer of The Rising, this then became more serious as time went on.

All this was going on while The Rising were releasing their debut album and things eventually reached boiling point during a UK tour in October 2015. Before we went on tour it started to become obvious that there was a definite shift in interest between certain band members. You could tell people were going through the motions. This lead to it being obvious onstage that the people in the band just weren’t interested. This eventually blew up after a bad gig in Bristol where I was actually embarrassed to be onstage and ended up apologising to crowd members who had come to see us.

I immediately got back to the hotel and called Chantelle. I told her what was going on and the plans I had moving forward, I felt it was time to make a change. So Chantelle became the lead singer during the course of that phone call. As soon as I arrived home from tour Chantelle and I immediately got into the studio and started writing and recording the bands second album. Over Christmas I called my friend and studio session collaborator Brian Mellors (Bass) the songs we had been working on. From the moment he heard the material he became a member of the band. The new line-up was debuted at Country 2 Country festival in London’s O2 in March 2016 with two very successful showcases that showed us we had made the right decision. We spent the remainder of 2016 in the recording studio working on the debut album, gigging and launching the first single Last First Love.

Who or what inspired you to pursue a career in music?

Chantelle: I was inspired by music in general from a very young age. I have never remembered a time when music was not in my life. I am inspired by all kinds of music, but, I draw allot of influence from female artists like Taylor Swift, Demi Lovato, Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson; especially their song-writing and ability to make you feel all of their emotions within the songs. My family have also inspired me to pursue music.

Chris: I was raised into a musical family. My dad was a country singer/guitarist and my Mum was always playing records around the house. A guitar was put into my hands practically at birth and my obsession with music began. Due to my dad being involved in music it was only natural that I would be bitten by the bug. I spent countless hours learning the instrument and all I could about music and the theory of music.

But the moment I knew I wanted to become a musician stems from two events all from the same artist. The first event was when I discovered a vinyl record in my parent’s record collection without any sleeve on it. I put this record on and from the moment the needle touched the record my world was changed. I heard sounds of a guitar and a style of song writing and experimentation that I never knew was possible. This record was Queen’s debut album. I then saw Queen Live at Wembley on video and from that moment on I knew what I wanted to achieve. I wanted to play to an audience that big, to perform that way and present a show like that.

Who are your main musical influences?

Chris: My influences are wide and covering all genres of music. From a guitarist point of view my idols are Brian May, Mark Knopfler, Lindsey Buckingham and Keith Urban. I am a fanatical Queen fan and have been from a very early age but I’m also heavily influenced by Bruce Springsteen, Needtobreathe, The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, James Taylor, Eagles, Jackson Browne, Eric Church, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Dierks Bentley, Tyler Hilton, Kacey Musgraves, Lady Antebellum and Michelle Branch.

Chantelle: Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, Demi Lovato, Ariana Grade, Kelly Clarkson etc there’s so many, each musical artist influences me in a different way so I don’t really have a main influence, which I believe is a good thing.

What inspired Last First Love?

Chantelle: Well, Chris and I were sitting in a restaurant with a couple of our friends. They had been together forever, since they were 15 years old. I happened to ask – what’s the secret to staying with someone that long and they responded with “he was my first and last love” and that’s when it hit us and we wrote down the title Last First Love on a napkin, got home and wrote the song.

Chris: We began to record the song as we were writing it. So the whole song came together very quickly. By the next day we had a fully working demo of the song. Over the next few weeks we fleshed out that demo adding the rest of the band and making the production bigger.

What are the themes explored on the Coming Home album?

Chris: The first album was a very complicated record both to write and record. It deals heavily in metaphorical lyrics and talks about heavy themes such politics, world events, standing up for what you believe; broken dreams and tackling the ghosts of the past. But as well as the heavier themes we also deal with more ‘down-to-earth’ writing and deal with relationships, love lost and the yearning to be with someone.

These songs pointed the way forward and a new direction for our song writing and sound. The result was a much more storytelling focus to the song with real stories Instead of relying on metaphor. Songs like Calling You, Still Coming Home To You, City By The Sea and Shadows On The Wall are songs that mark this change in writing style. Shadows On The Wall was a particularly hard song to write since it deals with something that happened to my family so it was a big question about whether it was right to use the story for a song or if it was in bad taste. Eventually I decided to put it out because the story might help other people.

What can you reveal about your new music?

Chantelle: It’s going to be a big contrast from the previous album. Exploring different genres and merging genres together to create an all rounded album. This album has a more personal feel to it also.

Chris: This album is very much a step forward in terms of writing and sound-wise. So much so that we have decided to name the album Moving On, after one of the songs on the album but also because we feel that this album is a definite move forward. From a production point the album sounds bigger and more rounded.

This is because we learnt a lot from the making of the first album, what worked and what didn’t. Also, we wanted to make a much more sonically cohesive record while still retaining an experimental edge. We wrote allot of songs for this album and dug deep inside ourselves to write about things that happened to us, or friends, family or people we know. As Chantelle points out this creates a much more personal album and hopefully one that people can relate to and make the songs their own.

What makes The Rising different to similar sounding bands?

Chris: We like to think that we have our own unique sound; something that when you hear it you know it’s us. Our sound is a fusion of Country, Americana, Rock and Pop, we like to classify ourselves as Country Rock or Contemporary Country/Pop. Unlike more traditional Country based bands we like to use electronic elements, loops and instruments associated with Pop/Rock production and instrumentation elements. Perhaps to most people we would be considered a Pop/Rock band with a more Country based song writing mentality in the way that our songs are storytelling.

What has been your most memorable career highlight to date?

Chris: So many to choose from playing Country 2 Country Festival in London’s O2 and seeing people sing along to songs they had never even heard before through to releasing our brand new single. But perhaps having US Country Music Bible “The Boot” feature us on their website by premiering our new music video is a major high point. We all grew up reading the website and reading about our favourite artists such as Keith Urban, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood and many others on it. So to finally be up there was a massive boost and something we are incredibly proud of. As soon as ‘The Boot’ premiere went live the views on our music video on VEVO went crazy and we achieved over 25,000 views on it. So that was a dream fulfilled.

What is something you would like to achieve career-wise that you haven’t done yet?

Chris: We of course want to achieve what every artist wants; an arena tour. We have all dreamed of an arena full of people singing our songs back to us. So that is a major achievement that we would like to work super hard for.

If you could play any venue in the world, where would it be and why?

Chantelle: I would love to play Wembley Stadium because it has been one of my biggest dreams to look out and see thousands of screaming fans enjoying our music and being from the UK that is the main stadium that only the biggest acts get to perform.

Chris: I would love to play the Ryman Auditorium because of its legendary status, the albums that have been recorded there and of course its world famous acoustics. Our bassist visited it last year while he was in Nashville and he came back raving about how cool the place was and the vibe you feel in the place. So what better way to experience this than to actually play it.