Antigone Rising, the all-female-boot-stompin’-alt-country-rock band from New York, has launched a Pledge Music campaign to raise funds, guerrilla style, for the recording, promotion, marketing and touring for their upcoming TWO new EPs, ‘Whiskey & Wine – V 1″ and “Whiskey & Wine – 2”
The fundraising campaign kicks off today with 5% of the proceeds to be donated to GLAAD upon hitting the targeted goal. The campaign is also granting backers the opportunity to get an exclusive advanced digital download of “Whiskey & Wine – Volume 1” before it’s available anywhere.
Asking their fans to be an integral part of the new project, Antigone Rising is offering exclusive incentives for ultimate access into the band’s 2014 exciting musical journey. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for all their fans!
Antigone Rising, the band that exploded into the spotlight in 2005 becoming the first band on Starbuck’s Hear Music (Lava Records) selling over 150,000 copies of their debut LP, is set to release not one, but TWO 5-song EPs this year.
The first EP, “Whiskey & Wine – Volume 1,” featuring the singles Everything Changes, Whiskey & Wine, Call Me Crazy, Magnolia on the Breeze, Get To You, is already completed and will drop March 25, 2014. The second one, “Whiskey & Wine – Volume 2,” still in its production phase, is set to come out October 28, 2014.
Starting on March 25, 2014, the band will begin a never ending cycle, one song at a time, releasing a music video, followed by an acoustic or alternate mix version. The goal is to provide audiences a variety of online content from video interviews to blog posts all year long. Treating each song as a single, the band will dedicate 6 to 8 weeks on the individual promotion of each of the five songs featured on ‘Whiskey & Wine Volume 1’, and will keep the cycle going all through Fall when ‘Whiskey & Wine Volume 2,’ gets its October 28 release.
In the meantime, Antigone Rising is hitting the road again with tour dates lined-up across the US including an upcoming performance early February on the leadership and equality cruise sponsored by Olivia, along with The Indigo Girls.
The fab four comprised of Nini Camps (lead singer), Dena Tauriello (drums) and founding sisters Kristen Henderson (bass/vocals) and Cathy Henderson (guitar/vocals), are showing no sign of slowing down!
Since then they’ve been shaking things up ever since, touring with acts such as The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, The Allman Brothers Band and Rob Thomas. After the 2011 release, 23 Red, Antigone Rising traveled to the Middle East, spending time in Israel and the West Bank as cultural ambassadors for the United States Embassy. More recently, founding member Kristen Ellis-Henderson was featured on the front cover of Time Magazine‘s groundbreaking Marriage Equality issue (April 8, 2013).
As the band puts the finishing touches on a new EP, they’re thrilled to introduce the first video. “That Was The Whiskey” was co-written with Nashville song writer Lori McKenna (Faith Hill, Little Big Town, Hunter Hayes) and is getting praise from critics as a foot stompin’ country/rock mash up, perfectly marrying the band’s ability to rock with their gift for writing undeniably catchy songs.
So why don’t you introduce yourself?
I’m Cathy Henderson, co-founder and lead guitarist of Antigone Rising. Currently the band consists of four (4) members including myself. They are Kristen Ellis-Henderson (co-founder and bass guitar), Nini Camps (lead vocals and rhythm guitar) and Dena Tauriello (Drums).
How did you put this band together?
AR has been a constantly evolving band, with myself and my sister, Kristen Ellis-Henderson at the core. We’ve played in bands since we were in Jr. High School, and frankly have never been without a band since! Antigone Rising itself was born in Greenwich Village with two other girls we used to play with in college. We started gigging in the local village bars almost every night, and the band evolved into what it is today. Although the original members have changed, Dena Tauriello has been the drummer for nearly all of AR’s lifespan, and Nini Camps joined us as our lead singer in 2008. Both we met while playing the NYC circuit.
What’s the story behind the band’s name?
The story of Antigone is rooted in standing up for your beliefs, regardless of the situation or the outcome. In Greek legend, Antigone insisted on giving her brother a proper burial after he was killed in battle, deemed a traitor by the king and left to be eaten by vultures (so the story goes…). She stood up against authority for what she felt was right regardless of consequence at a time when women were outwardly treated as inferior. In a sense, it’s what we are committed to doing as well. We believe in ourselves and our music, and will stop at nothing to continue doing what we love.
What are your musical influences?
My personal guitar influences are many including Lindsay Buckingham, David Gilmour, Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison, Neil Geraldo (Pat Benatar) and all the Allman guitarists! Big musical band influences are The Beatles, Fleetwood Mac and the Allman Brothers. The band as a whole brings in influences from different genres including folk, pop, rock, country and Latin music. I mean.. really the influences are endless as we continue to be inspired by each other as well as the many artists we tour with and meet along the journey.
“That Was The Whiskey.” How was the filming experience and what’s the concept behind the video?
The whole idea behind the “Whiskey” video was to create a hometown bar feel that exists in “anytown, USA”. And what better way to capture that than to shoot it in our hometown bar out on Long Island? Very good friends of ours own a local bar called “Still Partners,” and allowed us to film it all there. We invited all our close friends to join the fun, including previous members of Antigone Rising (Jen Zielenbach, Peppy Kokines and Suzanne Obolsky), who without them, we wouldn’t be where we are now. Our roots! The video story line was two fold with the first being AR coming home for a hometown show and the second following a girls night out / bachelorette party that goes awry after a few too many whiskey shots! We think it’s pretty relatable!!! (Most) Everybody’s had a night out on the town and regretted a little something the next morning! Just blame it on the whiskey!
How was it to work with Lori McKenna?
Lori McKenna is such an exceptionally talented songwriter and performer. We had met Lori a few years back when we were down in Nashville writing songs, and bumped back into her last year at the 30A Songwriters Festival down in Florida. It was AR’s show at this festival that actually inspired “That Was The Whiskey”. We had the last slot on Saturday night – everyone was just on fire and it was Nini’s birthday. And…. the birthday shots started circulating, so the story goes. Luckily, Lori, along with Kristen and Nini, were able to capture it all in a song!
So there’s a new EP on the way, what can you tell us about it? Any official release date, title in mind?
We have been working hard in the studio when we are not touring. We are really excited about the new material and have been lucky enough to be able to record at Nini’s home studio. This has allowed us the time to really dive deeper into the tracks and to experiment a bit more with sounds and arrangements. We actually have been adding tracks to the project which is now possibly turning the EP into a full length CD. This would push the release date to early 2014. No title yet. We will be posting updates on this to our website and Facebook page.
What’s next in AR’s world?
Our future will always include writing, recording and touring our music. That’s just in us, and we will never stop that. In the near future, we will be touring the US over the next year (with a primary focus on the east coast). We’ve got a few ideas brewing for the longer term (can’t spill them yet!), including the possibility of touring internationally. In the meantime, we have digitally released “That Was The Whiskey” as a single from the upcoming CD – which can be found on iTunes, as well as on all the major music platforms (Pandora, Spotify, Sound Cloud, etc.). The video to “Whiskey” can be viewed from our site and Facebook pages (see below for URLs), as well as on CMT.com among other places.