Last week, we featured “Green River Ordinance” (GRO) and their video for their song “Come On.” (Read about that here.) Hailing from Fort Worth, TX and consisting of members Josh Jenkins, Geoff Ice, Denton Hunker, Josh Wilkerson, and Jamey Ice, GRO’s debut release for Virgin Records, “Out of My Hands,” was released in February and garnered them comparisons to Matchbox 20, Augustana, and The Fray. “Out of My Hands” peaked at #10 on the Billboard “Heatseekers” chart with their single “Come On” reaching #19 Billboard’s “Adult Top 40″ late in 2009. Several of their songs have been featured on shows like “So You Think You Can Dance” and “MTV’s The Hills.” Recently, GRO took a couple minutes to answer some questions about their music, families, and interests. You can find those answers below – Enjoy!
Have you always felt comfortable performing in front of a crowd, or did that take some getting used to?
I think it probably took some time for all of us to get used to. It’s pretty wild playing in front of even a couple hundred people. Lately we’ve been on tours where we are playing in front of a few thousand people and it’s been amazing!
What is the hardest part of traveling?
The hardest part about traveling as much as we do is probably the schedule. When you’re playing radio shows on the same day as shows or waking up to do Good Morning Memphis, you don’t get much sleep. We also drive ourselves so we end up driving a good portion of the drives at night.
How would you describe your music?
If Tom Petty and U2 had a man-child and it grew up in Texas during the 90’s
What does it feel like to be out somewhere and get recognized by your fans?
It’s pretty amazing feeling! We’ve had that happen a few times and it’s really humbling to think that people are out there listening to music that we wrote in a garage.
Who would you say your most influential musical influences have been and why?
Well we all listen to completely different types of music. Denton grew up listening to gospel and jazz, Josh grew up singing old country songs, etc. We do love those influential bands like Tom Petty and U2 though. We actually adopted Tom Petty’s saying “Don’t bore us; get to the chorus” when we were writing songs for our last record.
Besides music, what are some of your interests? What do you feel makes your band different from other bands in the genre?
We’re total nerds…Geoff and I like video games, Geoff reads tons of sci-fi books, and Josh is a die hard Dallas Cowboys fan. I think what might make us different is that we just have fun. We don’t take ourselves too seriously. We’re very hands on as far as business goes, but when we’re writing and playing we just have fun. Also, we love meeting new people. If we can ever do a meet-and-greet or have the opportunity to go over to the merchandise table after a show, we’re doin’ it.
What are your hopes as a band for the upcoming year?
We’re just hoping to continue touring like mad and play all over the place. If we’re lucky enough, we could tour overseas. That would be amazing!What direction are you heading towards?
Where no man has ever been before
How does your newest album differ from the ones you released in the past?
For this album we actually had time to write and time to record. The previous albums have been very quick. We had 1 day to record 1 song in the past. That’s pretty hard to do and you rarely have time to experiment. That being the case, I think we’d all agree that this CD is more mature than some of the older songs.
Do you have any pre-gig or post-gig rituals?
Josh warms up with a yodeling vocal warm up that’s pretty funny to listen to. Other than that, we don’t really have a ritual yet. I’m hoping that in 2010 everyone hops on my idea to all play with our Tamagotchi’s for one hour before we play.
How supportive were your parents of your decision to want to become musicians?
Our parents have been insanely supportive of our band. When we told them that we were going to drop out of college and tour full-time, they said that they’d be behind us. I’m assuming that our experience with that conversation was pretty polar opposite from most of those conversations that occur. They said that they’d give us a year to get signed, which was our goal. It took us a year and a half or so, but they were behind us the whole time and they still are. Needless to say, we’ve got cool parents.
Special thanks to Green River for taking the time to chat with us.
