by Eric Toennis
Hello gang, please each state your name, role in the band, and favorite cooking show.
Nate Yeager – Guitar, Elzar
Tony Morales – Guitar, Parts Unknown
Jr Anderson – Drums, Chopped/Good Eats
Samm Bauer - Keys/Synths, Cooking on High
Zach Ostwalt – Bass, Chopped
So, you all have been a band since 2013 in the Billings area. That’s a pretty good run for a local band, let alone a metal band in the heart of a country music loving state. How would you describe the state of the local metal scene in the Magic City?
Tony: It’s been thriving the past year with new blood, and bands working hard together in the scene. It has really helped put down the veil of, “Oh another metal band? Pass.”
Nate: There are some good metal/hardcore acts around here. I'm really into Deathwish lately. Shores of Leine of course as well.
You recently released a new self-titled album. Please describe the album to our dear readers to the best of your ability using the words “wormhole,” “Sasquatch,” and “double rainbow.”
Tony: The album is quite a journey. Each song transition can make you feel as if you were in a wormhole due to the changes in mood or tempos. Beautiful songs, ugly songs, and straight up angry songs that make you wanna act like the angry Sasquatch from the Jack Link’s commercials. Not sure how to use double rainbow because I don’t believe anything on our album refracts that kind of light. There’s a possibility though I guess.
What is the story behind the band’s name?
Samm: I came up with the name when the first recordings were brought to me and I went off of the overwhelming sense of feeling the music stirred within me, as it did with everyone else in the band. The music and each of our energies and presence are states of rapture. Overwhelming with a variety of emotions intermingled with bliss. We love and enjoy what we do, it only seemed fitting.
Something that makes In Rapture unique and that I love is that you guys are an instrumental metal band. Give us an idea of how your writing process works.
Nate: We have no single way of writing. It's always different. Sometimes it will start with me or Tony writing a riff or series of riffs, sometimes it starts with keys or a sample, and sometimes it’s something we all come up with on the spot at practice. Jr will sometimes come up with a cool beat that we will write to as well.
I noticed that local visual artist Natalie Myers does a lot of your concept and album art. How does her style of art help contribute to and inspire your music?
Samm: I feel Natalie uses her own interpretation of our music when it comes to the art she has done for us. Its a good reflection of where she takes it in her journey. Imaginative, beautiful, chaotic and organic.
Tony: Natalie Myers is an extremely talented visual artist that really knows how to capture the emotion she wants to portray. Her style is very unique, and her methods are very different than other artists, which really sticks out in the best way. For instance, I’ve seen her paint with coffee, and use Himalayan pink salt to add more detail to her paintings! Having different styles than what you regularly see nowadays is something we like to capture with our music, so I believe it translates the same way through her artwork.
You are dropped into the pages of a comic panel. Each of you choose, super-hero or super-villain? What are your powers?
Samm: I’d be a super villain with mind control powers!
Nate: Super-villain. My powers are having the ability to stop super-hero movies from being created ever again.
Zach: Super villain. Flatulance Man. Self explanatory.
Tony: Super-villain. Gassy Boy. I’m just Flatulance Man’s sidekick providing all of the broccoli and beans.
Jr: I’m a super villain who can control the bowel movements of my enemies.
Y’all have played our little festival before. Favorite Dreyfest memory?
Nate: Witnessing the aftermath of Idaho Green's set last year. The heat, the horrible smell, the drenched stage covered in someone's hair and a pair of clippers laying there.
Jr: I was packing the last of my drums up right at the end of Idaho Green’s set, and right the end of the last song, their drum set came crashing through the curtain that was separating us. It was a pleasant surprise to say the least.
Last but not least. You are forced to add vocals to your music and must choose between the following vocalists: David Bowie, Prince, or Elton John. Who do you choose and why?
Tony: Probably David Bowie because he is the right kind of artistic weirdness that everybody loves no matter the type of music he touched.
Samm: Each would be awesome and bring something to it, I’d go with Bowie because he had an alien like way about him that we relate with.
Zach: Elton John.
Jr: Prince, I just wanna see how weird it would get.
Nate: Bowie. Just seems most fitting.
