June 1st The Cold States will release a new EP titled “Black Sunset”.
The four track EP was written and recorded over 3 days in April.
With the “Heavy Shoes” project held up for the quarantine to be over in Memphis,
and the “Ghosts Upon Ghosts” album not set for release until the fall we thought you guys might like to hear a project we’ve done during the lockdown to hold you over.
Inspiration hit last week, and one thing I try to explain about songwriting to people is you can’t force it,
and when it does come, stop and create. All 4 songs were written within a matter of hours, and recorded
within a couple days. The first single will probably sneak out in the next few weeks.
This is the most “rock and roll” project that we have done, and we hope you enjoy it.
Tag Archives: rockandroll
Interview with Chris Tapp –
Podcast with Jay from The Hook, interviewing Chris Tapp of The Cold Stares.
Faced with the ultimate uncertainty of his own life, Chris Tapp of The Cold Stares never gave up. A rock ‘n’ roll journey that is like no other, filled with enough countless challenges and setbacks for several lifetimes, their story of perseverance is absolutely inspiring. With songs powered by honesty and endless depth I’m certain their music and story will resonate with you. Enjoy the show!
Jay from The Hook Rocks on Soundcloud
Check out the world premiere for “Into Black” on Classic Rock Magazine today!
“White Girl” has been released!
And we are LIVE. “White Girl” The first single off of “WAYS” album and the “WAYS BLACK” EP has been released today. First 48 hours are so crucial to making playlists and features so please, if you dig it stream and share with your friends today.
Massive amount of work going into this album, and it feels amazing for it to finally start to see light. Hit the road for tour this morning and check in with you all soon!
Stream White Girl from your streaming service here! –> White Girl
TCS Live Q&A from Sam Phillips studio in Memphis!
Hey folks, we will be going LIVE tomorrow Sunday the 26th at 4pm Central from Sam Phillips Studio in Memphis on Facebook followed by 4:15pm Central here on Instagram to answer questions about the new record, recording process and anything else you guys are interested in! Please join us and share.
Announcement! $1000 Charity Giveaway!
Announcement! $1000.00 Charity Giveaway!
“Sleeping With Lions” goes to national radio!
When we released “Sleeping With Lions” in October we had hoped it would do well based off the TNT Animal Kingdom licensing that we had secured with the song. We had no idea of the impact it would make for us in playlists, further licensing with X-Games, ESPN and Monster Energy. We continue to get messages each day from independent DJ’s literally from around the world that have added SWL to their rotations. Because of all of this, we have decided to throw everything we have at it and do a proper radio campaign. Starting March 1st we have hired a company that will help us get “Sleeping With Lions” on more radio stations with the hopeful intent of getting it to break top 20 Active/Mainstream Rock Charts.
What can you do to help?
If you have a radio station that plays rock in your area please contact them and request that “Sleeping With Lions” be added to their rotation. We’ve even made it easy by creating a link to download the track directly below.
https://soundcloud.com/tcs-private/sleeping-with-lions-by-the-cold-stares-radio-download
If you get a station to pick it up, please comment below that station name and area.
If Sleeping With Lions cracks that top 20, we are going to randomly choose one of the radio stations that is spinning it and make a $1000.00 donation to a charity of their choice in their area, in their name.
This process has been 100% grassroots to this point, but we feel that the amount of success with “Sleeping With Lions” really requires us to get the machine behind it. It truly has been career changing for us and thank each one of you who has added it to your libraries and shared it with your friends.
Thank you to WKTG, and WUEV for being at the very beginning and playing it out of the gate. Found out today the song has been picked up by Hard Rock Cafe globally as well, so thank you to our friends at Hard Rock. Now the hard work begins….
We will release “The Great Unknown” as the second release off of “Mountain”
1/1/2019 The Cold Stares will release the 2nd single from their album Mountain, “The Great Unknown”. The track is featured in Spotify’s playlist “Heavy, Funky, Bluesy”, and Joe Bonamassa’s playlist “Getting Through”. Hear the single here- The Great Unknown
A great review of “Mountain” from Indiesource.com!
And yet another great review on “Mountain”- Happy Monday, now let’s get to the rock and roll…
IndieSource Review of Mountain
“In “Way Gets Dark,” one of the more homespun acoustic tracks to behold on The Cold Stares’ awesome new alternative blues juggernaut Mountain, the band doesn’t rely on imagistic lyrics alone to create a visual experience to accompany the music. The eerie echo of the lightly plucked strings sends a chilling sense of danger in our direction, and the lack of emotion in lead singer Chris Tapp’s voice kills any comfortability that his warm southern drawl may have provided. It’s like the path in front of us is literally getting darker; we’re trapped in this dry but sharply tuned mix next to the guitar, our minds left to wander after the crisp melody that could be waiting just beyond the horizon.
Mountain is driven by its evocative soundscapes, which appear when we’re least expecting them. At fifteen tracks, this is a monstrous LP that offers plenty of intriguing moments for newcomers to The Cold Stares’ sound to get acquainted with their style, but its cohesive, somewhat progressive qualities are what will satisfy the group’s longtime fans more than anything else. As incredibly different in rhythm as “Cold Black Water” and “The Plan” are, they play together in this record flawlessly, as if they were two sides of the same coin. What they have in common is the jarring, neo-noir soundscape that we’re greeted with in track one, “The Great Unknown,” and unable shake for the duration of the record.
I found myself taken aback when I discovered that The Cold Stares are comprised only of singer/guitarist Chris Tapp and drummer Brian Mullins. The abrasive “Stickemup” gets started with a colorful little guitar tizzy that sounds like an amalgamation of several string instruments layered on top of each other, while Mullins’ drum kit sounds twice the size of any other I’ve heard lately. “Wade In The Darkness,” “Gone Not Dead,” and really any of the heavier tracks on the record feel so much more mechanical in their execution than what I was expecting, and yet they’re so far removed from the digitalized sound of robotic pop/rock that even the most subtle differences between their melodies and that of their contemporaries is hard to ignore in these songs.
The most somber moment in Mountain ironically might also be The Cold Stares’ most triumphantly reverent so far – “Under His Command,” a Gothic folk ballad that brands us with a smoky vocal by Tapp that plays more like an epitaph than it does a rock song. His words stick to the paper thin strings like glue, and wherever his prose takes them, they melodically respond – in the gauntest of minor keys. This is my favorite song on the record, not because of any machismo-fueled rock luster, but because of its dark, witty minimalism.
I think that the best way to experience Mountain is to listen to its fifteen songs from beginning to end in the chronological order that The Cold Stares’ arranged them. In what can only be described as an operatic approach to making a bluesy garage rock record, this album starts off with a sonic beat down (“The Great Unknown” and more modest “Friend of Mine”), escalates to more methodical, emotional grounds (“Under His Command,” and “Stickemup”) before letting the harmonies go off the rails (“Gone Not Dead,” “Wade in the Darkness,” and the bone-rattling “Child of God”) and giving into this duo’s penchant for fusing nimbly wound rock songs into analogue-style blues rants (“Cold Black Water,” “Two Keys and a Good Book” and “Killing Machine” just to name some highlights). There’s a lot for music enthusiasts to ponder in this album, but there’s just as much excitement for casual fans to discover in its intricately stylized songs as well.”
Thanks to the folks at No Depression Magazine for the great review of our new album Mountain.
Thanks to the folks at No Depression Magazine for the great review of our new album Mountain.
“You don’t need a lot of crazy, overindulgent solos to make a good guitar record in 2018, and The Cold Stares’ Chris Tapp proves as much in the band’s new album Mountain. The record’s opening set includes the stop-start alternative rocker “The Great Unknown,” the swinging blues tune “Friend of Mine” and the organic “Under His Command,” which together set the table for what we can expect in the dozen tracks that follow by showing off the three pillars of The Cold Stares’ guitar-oriented sound. “The Great Unknown” represents the trudging power chord rock that we were introduced to in their last record Head Bent; “Friend of Mine” offers us a taste of their more relaxed, radio-friendly side in the form of a patient guitar lick; and “Under His Command” serves as a sampling of their uniquely contrasting acoustic songs that leave a trail of hostile energy in their wake.
Mountain is structured in three song suites that steamroll over our senses without a second thought; “Stickemup,” rises from the ashes of “Under His Command” and bleeds right into “Gone Not Dead” and the bulging “Wade In The Darkness,” which pristinely reverberates like a lonely voice bouncing off of huge canyon walls. Drummer Brian Mullins doesn’t command every song with his calculated arrangements, but the songs that he does make a big impact on (“Sleeping With Lions” and “Cold Black Water” particularly) are the best of the album. Tapp’s lyrics are a constant presence and tend to overshadow some of the more plaintive musical bits in tracks like “Child of God” or the correspondingly muted “The River,” and I actually think that his style of prose goes out of its way to be more creative and freewheeling than it has to be exclusively with this result in mind.
The Cold Stares are very good at taking a simple song and transforming it into a roots rocking firestorm, which is demonstrated perfectly in “The Plan.” The mix of this track is what takes it out of the pastureland and drops it into a crowded concert hall – every gilded nuance of Tapp’s heart-pumping blues guitar is highlighted with great detail, and Mullins’ drumming occasionally gets so overwhelming that it feels like his cymbals are going to come crashing through the invisible barrier between recorded music and tangible reality itself. The same can be said of the familiar melody we find in “Way Gets Dark,” which borrows heavily from the folk/blues of yesteryear but comes across as authentic and original thanks to The Cold Stares’ tailor-made equalization.
For a record that feels like it’s actually two LPs crammed into a single disc, there isn’t a spot of filler in Mountain to be skipped over, and if anything the more streamlined tracks make the progressive flow even more lucid and relatable to the listener. Obviously our attention is, more often than not, drawn to Tapp’s vicious guitar play on this record, which flirts with classic rock tonality but remains relatively contemporary courtesy of this sublimely textured mix. But to be frank, what probably affected me more than anything else here was the relationship between his verses and the riffs; the way they seem to reflect each other’s pain and longing for calm amidst all this musical chaos. In that sense Mountain isn’t just more sonically mature than what The Cold Stares have produced in the past, it’s also more aesthetically evocative and creatively diverse.”
Vents Magazine review of Mountain
Another great review in today on our new album Mountain from Vents magazine. Worth a read-
Humbled again. Hear Mountain now!
“Singer Chris Tapp preaches elements of the Christian gospel in “Under His Command,” “Child of God” and “Two Keys and a Good Book,” but his words aren’t dripping with a self-righteousness that would repel non-religious listeners. The imagery that these verses inspire isn’t rosy or divine; it’s grimacing and reflective, like a message from beyond the grave voiced by those who have once walked the road we’re on now. There’s a great deal of continuity between these songs that is reminiscent of flipping through pages of a Bible; with each passage we consume, we find another hidden lesson suggesting how we can right our past wrongs.”
Vents Magazine – Mountain