It has been a wild ride for Sons Of Texas since their formation in 2013. The McAllen, Texas rock band has been going non-stop for quite some time now, following the release of their album, Baptized in the Rio Grande to now. The past few years have seen the band tour with All That Remains, HELLYEAH, Trapt and more while they also made appearances at multiple festivals such as Houston Open Air, Rocklahoma, River City Rockfest, Welcome to Rockville, and Loud Park 16 in Japan.
Now, only two years later, the hardworking band is gearing up to release their new album, Forged By Fortitude on September 22nd. As it turns out, the album release falls while the band is in the midst of their upcoming international tour with Seether, another big leap forward. With years of experience and hard work now under their belts, Sons Of Texas have a few stories to tell on Forged By Fortitude. Learn more about the album below and pick up your copy on the 22nd!
Interview by Dom Vigil
You guys are gearing up to release your new album, Forged By Fortitude in September! What are you most excited for listeners to hear on this release?
Nick Villarreal [bass]: We’re just really excited for listeners to hear an extension of our first record. It’s a nice array of musical styles and influences blended into another batch of rock tunes we integrated all our personalities into. We all collaborated on it with our producer Josh Wilbur and we’re really proud of the end product! We can’t wait for everyone to hear it.
Forged By Fortitude follows your 2015 release, Baptized In The Rio Grande. How do you feel you’ve grown as a band between your last album and this one?
We like to think playing consecutive nights on tour has helped us become better musicians, performers, and even writers. Being able to see crowd reactions of the songs we play every night gives us some insight on what people dig and what they don’t. We were able to take notes into the writing process this time around and give the people more of what we’ve noticed them to enjoy, of course, without sacrificing the integrity of our music. A lot of the music was written with the live performance in mind.
The title of the new album directly reflects some of the experiences you’ve had as a band over the past few years. Since 2015, you guys have kind of been going non-stop, so what were some of the stories that you wanted to tell with these songs?
Definitely more about the experiences than stories. Before 2015 we’d never ever toured before. It was a crash course for us. We had to learn everything as we went along and most of it was learned the hard way. Touring can be just as frustrating as it is rewarding. We definitely feel like we’ve earned all the success we’ve had thus far and we’re proud of ourselves for it. A lot of that frustration is all over the record.
Were there any big goals you had for this album?
Of course! We wanna wrangle up more and more fans who enjoy what we’re doing. In order to do that we’ve gotta hit the road nonstop while Razor & Tie sets up radio campaigns to get the tunes out there to new listeners. It can be an uphill battle at times but we’re lucky to have visited other countries in support of our debut record. None of us saw that coming. It was an amazing experience to go overseas for tours in Europe, the U.K, and Japan. We just hope to keep doing that for this record.
Did you come across any big obstacles while writing and recording the album? If so, how did you overcome them?
The biggest obstacle going into the recording process was probably the fact that only about 25% of the material was written. We were pretty nervous about whether or not we were going to be able to pull a rabbit out of a hat and follow up the record that put us on the map in such a short time frame. We’d only had a couple pre-production sessions with Josh Wilbur before going into the studio, but we have such a great work relationship with him that once we got in there we got to work. We cranked the songs out and got them sounding the best they could. Also, in the midst of the recording process Josh was moving into a new home. So it was a pretty chaotic on his end but with enough bagels & coffee anything is possible for that guy.
What was the most rewarding part about working on Forged By Fortitude?
The most rewarding part was watching and hearing everything come together. Like I’d previously mentioned, not a lot of the material was written before going into the studio so we were nervous and a little worried. Seeing everyone in the band put our heads together to write these songs on this record was just reassurance that we can do anything if we work well together.
Your pride for your home state of Texas is reflected in your name, your music and even your most recent video for “Beneath The Riverbed.” If you could do anything for your hometown music scene, what would you hope to accomplish?
I think the only thing we can do for our scene is serve as an example. An example that if you get the right group together and work hard you can do anything, no matter where you come from. We also throw a Christmas show every year and toss a couple local acts on the bill to open for us. It’s awesome to see the killer response.
On top of the upcoming release of the album, you guys are also getting ready to hit the road with Seether overseas. Are there any shows you’re particularly excited for or is there anything you can’t wait to do while you’re out on the road?
We’re excited for the whole thing! Every show! We’re visiting a whole lot of new cities and countries. Some of which we’ve been to already but it’s mostly all new territory for us. So we’re stoked as ever to go out there and show people what we’ve got and give a taste of our new material to the cities we’re returning to. We all grew up listening to Seether, so we’re ecstatic to be able to watch and learn from them every night. There’s actually more days off on this tour than there were on our last tour over in Europe, so hopefully we have time to do some exploring and see some castles! We can never get enough of that. Its the coolest thing ever. American history only goes back a couple hundred years but European history is ancient. It’s surreal to see the art, architecture, and culture. We’ll never pass up an opportunity to soak that up.
Do you have any other big plans for the rest of 2017?
Just extensive touring. Maybe a couple music videos, but mostly touring. Hopefully we can land some American and European festivals and hit that market pretty hard. That’s an itch we’ve been waiting to scratch for a couple years.
Thank you for taking the time to chat with us! Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Thanks for having us! We couldn’t be happier to be a part of your publication. Our new record drops on September 22nd in the US and the 27th in Europe UK and Japan! Go out and look for it! Follow us on social media for updates. We handle our social media accounts ourselves, so feel free to reach out to us and let us know what you think about the new jams, or just to say what’s up. Thanks!
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