Rain City Drive: “We all serendipitously came together… It feels like this was meant to be”

You could say that Rain City Drive were formed out of necessity. But so too did the band come together with careful consideration and a deep understanding of who they wanted to be.

“That’s a really good way to put it,” muses vocalist Matt McAndrew, as he walks his (quite frankly adorable) four-year-old dog, Huey, in California.

Matt was drafted by the instrumentalists of Slaves (US) to be their stand-in vocalist when they were left stranded in Manchester, after their frontman had hopped on a plane home. “It’s funny – it’s such a common thing in the industry,” Matt explains. “You get a call, like, ‘Hey, can you memorise an hour’s set?’ and then you’re on tour two days later.

“Rain City Drive came together in a funny way,” he continues. “It wasn’t a scenario where it was five friends who thought they should start playing – it was more like we all serendipitously came together, one-by-one, in projects that were already rolling, and thought to restart it as a new project.

“It felt like it was meant to be. And it is an empowering thing to think about, at the time, when it seemed like the odds were stacked against us, to create something new, from the ground up.”

In spite of these “odds”, Rain City Drive have spent the past few years knuckling down, earning a name through touring as openers for others, just as if they were a brand-new act. And in 2020 – just like a new band would – they put out their debut album To Better Days. Crafting a sonic world for themselves out of the gate, they fused together both modern rock and pop that crashed, banged and soared.

“When we first started talking about Rain City Drive, even before To Better Days came out, we thought about what the band could be, as the five of us together,” Matt smiles. “And I think I’ve always had a vision of that, who we are and what we want to be.”

In 2024, armed with newly-released LP Things Are Different Now, the vision is still clear. “I want to be the biggest rock band we can be,” Matt asserts. “I want to write rock music as if it’s still the biggest genre in the world.” Fusing “poppier, catchier choruses” with rock is how RCD aim to bring that mentality back: that rock is popular music.

“All the old classic rock bands like The Beatles, the Stones, Zeppelin, the Doors – they weren’t considered pop acts,” says Matt, “and if they were at the time, they aren’t now. But they were the biggest artists of their time.”

Now, having laid the important groundwork, Rain City Drive will continue in the same vein: by doing what feels right to them, and embracing the serendipity that has already propelled them to this point.

“I think with every record, continuing some things that we’ve done, and also expanding on sound, that’s important to us,” Matt enthuses. “The old records don’t go away when you put out something new. So, it’s better to try to do something a little bit different each time.”

Things Are Different Now is out now via Thriller Records

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