Influences Mixtape: The Rising

The Rising have been on hot form throughout the pandemic, releasing a string of singles over the past few months,, alongside regular live streams. The duo of Chris Logan and Chantelle McAteer have a sound that is firmly rooted in country, but often informed by rock or folk. McAteer’s twang sits upon cleanly cut numbers, and latest single ‘Bruise You Left’ is no different. A song that builds to a big radio friendly country pop chorus, it’s one of the best from their current run of releases.

We asked the pair to pick us out a few of their musical influences, the result is a mix of classics and pop.

Playlist

Bruce Springsteen – The Rising

It would be impossible for us to do an list of influences without including Bruce Springsteen. A huge influence in our writing but also a career that we admire. We love how is songs tell a story with lyrics that are relatable to a wide range of people. However, This particular song and album (of the same name) is what the we named ourselves after.

Fleetwood Mac – The Chain

Fleetwood Mac are a huge influence on us, we both own multiple copies of Rumours on CD/Vinyl and it is a regular touring playlist record. Our last single “You Had It All” drew heavy influence from the Fleetwood Mac sound and the idea of using contrasting vocals to tell a narrative between two characters. This particular song inspired one of the songs on our upcoming EP called “Break The Chains”. Taking the idea of the chains that bind us all together further to relate more about breaking the chains of hatred that hold us down as a human race.

Needtobreathe – Drive All Night

This band are hugely influential to our sound. Their blend of traditional instruments such as banjo into a pop/rock setting with overdriven guitars and pop song arrangements was a huge wake up call for us. Showed us that we don’t have to confine our songwriting and sound to one specific genre. Also one of the best bands that we have seen live.

Keith Urban – Never Comin Down

This song really inspired our new single ‘Bruise You Left’ due to its production. The way it fuses electronic elements with organic instruments. In this case we fused electronic drum loops with ‘real’ drums and the drummer played off the loops in order to create an interesting groove.

Johnny Cash – Ring Of Fire

What can we say about Johnny Cash that hasn’t already been said. A massive influence on us. In fact, one of the first songs we ever played together was a ‘rocked’ up version of ‘Folsom Prison Blues’, a song that we still get asked to play. However, when listening to his Greatest Hits on tour we heard this song, ‘Ring Of Fire’ and we thought that it would be cool to write a song that had a trumpet riff as the hook. We wrote the song and it was called ‘I Want You‘.

Carrie Underwood – Church Bells

My ultimate vocal inspiration. I really like this song because it starts off with that warm low tone and builds into a massive range. Taking you on a vocal journey. This is something I try and do when thinking about my vocals on a song and how I can create movement in a song. As well as a vocal journey I also love the story telling lyric style and it is something I try to do when writing lyrics. Not only create an interesting melody but trying to create a narrative and story arc within a lyric.

Ariana Grande – Into You

As well as being one of my vocal inspirations we both watch a video which broke down the production of the song. We were blown away by the techniques used and how every day items were processed to create new sounds. As artists who produce our own music this really inspired us. Especially in our new single “Bruise You Left” where we created drum loops out of household items, parts of musical instruments and processed them to create interesting textures.

Paramore – CrushCrushCrush

This song and the album it’s from is another on our touring playlists. But this song in particular has inspired a song that we are writing at the moment. We are inspired by the vocal sound and attitude and also the punchy production. Plus, who doesn’t love Hayley Williams.

Taylor Swift – All Too Well

We have lost count of the reviews that have compared our music to Red/1989 Era Taylor Swift. We don’t mind however, as we are both hard-core Swifties and aren’t ashamed to admit it. This particular song is a song that we both consider to be one of Her finest musically and lyrically. It’s a long song and its storytelling narrative inspired us to write a song called “Roundabouts” that was featured on our album ‘Moving On”.

Chris Stapleton – Parachute

We are both huge Chris Stapleton fans and this song is one that we covered as part of our ’Sunday Sessions’ on our YouTube Channel. We were also lucky enough play at the same festival as Chris Stapleton in London’s O2 Arena. Albeit a little further down the bill. But his writing, voice and sound are a huge inspiration.

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