Deepfall and Thorne Schreiber: From Left to right: Rich Hopkins(vocals), Thorne Schreiber (Staff Writer- BackStage360), Max Carrillo(Guitar), and Tim King(Keyboard). Not pictured: Anthony Battista(Guitar), Taylor Brandt(Bass), Nick Gray(Drums)
BackStage360’s Thorne Schreiber Interviews the band DEEPFALL at their Sacramento Stop on the Celebration of Life Tour with Nonpoint and Hellyeah.
THORNE: On their tour bus tonight we are talking to Deepfall. Thanks for letting us come over and talk to you guys. Before we jump into music, I’d love to learn a little bit about you guys individually, so if you would, tell us a little about yourselves; Where are you from, anything else about you – your family, kids, dogs, cats, whatever your hobbies are. Anything the fans might want to know?
RICH HOPKINS: I’m Rich. I was born and raised in Michigan. I lived in Tennessee for a little while, for about four years. I got a phone call from my long-time friend, Tim, over here. He wanted to have a new direction with the band that he was playing in. So, he moved me from Tennessee to Michigan, back home, to get to get together and write some tunes. He was trying to take his band in another direction and we’re doing that right now.
THORNE: Seems to be working.
RICH: And here we are! We’re on the road!
TIM KING: Yeah, I was born and raised in Michigan too. I lived outside of Lansing, and then moved to BFE when I was in high school.
THORNE: And you’re the keyboardist, right?
TIM: I’m the keyboardist, tour manager. I’m a network engineer for IBM, by day. So, I’m a big dork!
THORNE: Nice! And what about you? Married? Kids?
TIM: Yep, married. One little one, a two-year old, at home.
THORNE: Nice!
TIM: Yep, she just turned two a couple weeks ago. Getting ready for Christmas.
THORNE: Excellent! I bet you can’t wait to get home and see her!
TIM: Yeah, yeah, for them three days.
THORNE: It will be a good three days, right?!
TIM: Yes, sir, it will.
THORNE: Max, what about you?
MAX CARILLO: Hey yah! So, I play guitar in the band. I switch doing lead guitar stuff; it’s really cool. I’m from Chicago.
THORNE: Home of deep-dish pizza, right?
MAX: Yes, it’s pretty good. I like going to karaoke bars, and long walks on the beach.
THORNE [mixed laughter]: Wow! Excellent.
MAX: I don’t know what else the fans would like to know.
THORNE: That’s a good start. Hey, Deepfall is blowing up right now! You guys are part of the hottest ticket in rock. It looked to me like earlier this year you hooked up with Texas Hippie Coalition in Indiana, and BOOM, off you went, right? Tell us how it feels to finally make it.
TIM: We’re there?! [All: laughter] This whole thing since October has been incredible. Like you said earlier, we started off our tour with THC, Texas Hippie, Coalition.
THORNE: Most of those dates were in Indiana, right? They were all regional.
[ALL]: They were all over.
THORNE: I guess it was right before that, then, that you were pretty much cruising Indiana and that area up there.
RICH: So, previously, we played a ton of shows in Music Factory in Battle Creek, that was like our home. That’s where our Front of House guy actually originates from. We were really trapped in Michigan with a few shows down in Indiana.
THORNE: That’s a tag line right there: Trapped in Michigan!
TIM: Actually, Michigan is a great location for Metal Music and it’s also a great location to stay at. Once you find yourself there, it’s so hard to break out, because the scene there is incredible too.
RICH: The THC tour took us down the East Coast, up into New York, all the way to Buffalo. We played a couple shows in Pennsylvania, then all the way down into Florida.
THORNE: That was your first national exposure, right? Now that you guys are on the National Radar, just between us and several thousand fans, who do you guys want to get on stage with? Who is your dream band to go out with?
MAX: We’re doing one of them in February.
RICH: Right! One of my three all-time-favorite bands we are actually going on tour with them in February.
THORNE: Wow!
RICH: Myles Kennedy [of Alter Bridge] is incredible.
THORNE: Yeah, yeah. I saw that you guys are doing a run with those guys!
RICH: Yeah, that’s going to be a good one. Sevendust was another that was on our list.
THORNE: But that’s all going to be acoustic, right?
RICH: Yep.
THORNE: Acoustic Christmas, I was impressed.
RICH: If you have not seen them acoustically…
THORNE: I have not, no.
RICH: …then look them up on YouTube. They are incredible! They do it every year, right Tim?
TIM: I think so.
THORNE: That’s three nights?
[ALL]: Yep.
TIM: I told the agents, the guys we are working with right now, I had given them a list. Five Finger [Death Punch] was up there. That’s like an ultimate tour break, and Breaking Benjamin…
THORNE: Wait, you got to check boxes and pick?
TIM: Yeah, yeah, I was like this is where we are going, or we are not going anywhere.
THORNE: Wow! Was that John, at Pavement [Entertainment]?
TIM: Nope, nope. These were the guys at M7 [Agency].
THORNE: Oh, ok. Right. You’re current run with Nonpoint and Hellyeah started back in November, right?
RICH: Yep.
THORNE: Ok. What’s been the most memorable moment for you out here with these guys?
RICH: With Hellyeah, probably the fact that Chad [Gray] starts the show going a hundred and fifty miles-per-hour and doesn’t stop. He does it consecutively every single night. It is a blessing and a curse, both, to be on this tour, because it is so hard to even try to get anywhere close to him. So, we just do our best…
MAX: He’s a front man!
THORNE: You guys just have to get everything going for the other two bands.
RICH: Oh my gosh, yes.
TIM: We do our best to warm them up.
THORNE: It’s a bitter-sweet subject, but I’d like to discuss the theme of the tour: Celebration Of Life of Vinnie Paul, Hellyeah’s former drummer and legendary rocker. Did any of you ever have a chance to meet Vinnie?
[ALL]: No…nope.
RICH: I have not met him, but I have been a life-long fan of his.
THORNE: Yeah, yeah. Aren’t we all, right?
[All]: Yeah…yep.
RICH: It’s such an honor to be on this one with Hellyeah.
THORNE: Just the whole succession of great music, that guy made wherever he went and with his brother. Do the members of Hellyeah talk to you guys about Vinnie at all? Do they refer to him, tell stories about him? Is any of that going on, on the tour?
RICH: There have been some telling story sessions with them and the other guys on the tour. The guys are great, and they help us every day with a lot of tips and pointers.
TIM: Very welcoming.
RICH: Yeah, very welcoming.
THORNE: Anything about Vinnie?
MAX: I’ve talked to Tom and Christian at times, and they bring it up here and there. But I try not to bring it up myself, because it’s a tough subject.
THORNE: Right, of course. Any fun stories that you want to tell?
MAX: Just like things, like, he would take shots, and say, “Chad, don’t sweat the small stuff.” So, just a very nice human being.
THORNE: Oh, cool! It seemed that way from everything I’ve ever read or seen. All the musicians that ever came into contact said that he just gave – that he was just a very giving individual.
RICH: I think the coolest thing is when they play Pantera. That is the closest that you can get to Vinnie when they play that.
THORNE: What’s been the fans response to the tour? Do the people understand what you’re doing out here? What the theme of the tour is?
RICH: Yeah, they usually get going and when we meet people before we even get on stage. That’s one thing they bring up is Vinnie – a celebration for Vinnie and this is what this is all about.
TIM: A lot of the people here have something, like a picture of them with Vinnie, or something that he signed.
THORNE: So, people are really into this? They’re really a part of this, then?
[ALL]: Yeah, absolutely.
THORNE: You’re latest LP, Broken, is rockin’! The album dropped October 18th [2019]. What’s been the fans’ reaction when you hit the stage?
RICH: Lots of times they say, “I’ve never heard of you, until today!” Or they say, “We’ve listened to you on Spotify, then we come to the show, and it’s completely different than what we heard.” Yeah, their fans have been very welcoming to us, as well.
TIM: The most common one is that, “We’ve never heard of Deepfall, before today, but were going to follow you now.”
THORNE: Well, good that’s why you are out here, right? Get your music out there. Which song is your favorite to play in your set?
RICH: Depends on who you ask!
THORNE: Really? Well how about I ask all three of you! Rich?
RICH: Probably a tossup between “Ghost,” and “MFKS.”
THORNE: I’m glad you reminded me. I was going to ask, what the hell that stands for [MFKS]?
MAX: I think my favorites are “Ghost,” and “Wasted.”
THORNE: I like “Wasted” a lot.
TIM: What’s our content rating with this?
THORNE: Well, you know with post-production, anything can go away. Anything can go away…
[ALL]: [laughter]
TIM: That is the “Mother Fucking Keyboard Song.”
THORNE: Ohh, the “Mother Fucking Keyboard Song.” I kept looking at that for days, putting all kinds of words together to try and figure out, and I couldn’t get there.
TIM: So, that’s probably my favorite…
THORNE: And that has to be your favorite isn’t it? I took a wild shot.
TIM: …and the Journey cover, [“Separate Ways”] so…
THORNE: When you guys are on the road. Are you guys writing now, or do you go back home to do the studio thing, when you are making new songs?
RICH: We pitch ideas here. We kind of run through everything but try not to concentrate too much on writing new songs. Because we want to be somewhere, where we can get everyone to sit down and…
Thorne: So, you want to be focused on writing. You don’t want to be too casual about it. I get that.
TIM: These days, just fly.
RICH: I got a notepad in my bunk that I do right down ideas. Everybody’s got that and then once we come together then we can come up with some songs.
THORNE: On that note, do you have a binder or anything that is full of music that we would expect to be coming out soon?
RICH: There’s at least 16 in the binder, I would think, yeah. There’s a lot. I mean, I don’t want to call it soon, because they want to run the album cycle.
THORNE: Sure!
RICH: Once we get all that stuff done, we will be pulling another single off from that one when we go off with Alter Bridge.
THORNE: What are they telling you an album cycle is? Makes sense, but I don’t know if I know what that actually means.
TIM: A year, to a year-and-half.
THORNE: Oh, ok.
RICH: Unless of course you are like Five Finger Death Punch that puts one out once or twice a year.
THORNE: I see that you guys are finishing up the tour on the December 19th [2019]. Is that right?
RICH: Yep.
THORNE: Are you looking forward to hooking up with Sevendust on the Acoustic Christmas?
[All]: Yes, absolutely.
THORNE: What I’d really like to hear is if you are looking forward to going home?
RICH: Yes, ye
s. That is always nice. We all have family. I’ve got kids I’m going to be able to see – you know, friends and family, and all that. But, not to say that we don’t enjoy being out on the road, but two months is a pretty long time for your first tour!
THORNE: Sure! Imagine Hellyeah and those guys.
TIM: And we were talking with Elias, from Nonpoint, the other day. They actually broke down, so we ended up picking them up and we all rode together to Boise, Idaho. Elias was talking that his longest was being 18 months out and 23 days solid.
THORNE: I didn’t see any dates in January. I think we talked about that when were standing out by the door. Anything going on there? Are you just going to do local stuff, or are you going to go home and crash and rejuvenate?
TIM: Yep, yep. Sleep. Make sure the house is still standing.
THORNE: …make sure the house is still standing… Dude, your honey-do list must be a thousand miles long!
TIM: It will be, I’m sure it will be!
THORNE: Max is lucky! I don’t think you have a honey-do, do you? I’m not getting that; I’m not getting that.
MAX [laughter]: nah.
THORNE: Where can the fans get “Broken?” Where are you guys at? Your website?
RICH: So, you can get it on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon.com.
TIM: We have physical copies, and directly from our website, as well.
RICH: We’d really like it if you get it from our website. But if you want it signed…
THORNE: Yes, I’m sure. Get out to a Deepfall show and get their music directly, or from their merch – girl or boy. Hey thanks for talking with us. Happy Holidays, guys. Look forward to seeing your show tonight. This knucklehead [Matt Higdon-photographer] is going to be in the pit, shooting lots of photos.
RICH: The picture pit!
THORNE: If you guys get off and want to have a beer, then come find me, I’m happy to buy a round. On behalf of BackStage360, thank you guys.
Special thanks to John Souchack, Pavement Entertainment.
Photographer: Matt Higdon.
Graphics/Proof: Sloanelynn Cerise
THORNE Schreiber-staff writer for BackStage360