Band Interview: Divided We Stand

Divided We Stand are a hard-rock band from Knoxville, Tennessee. They’ve been steadily releasing music since 2010 & in 2013 they were the Hard Rock Rising winner at Hard Rock Café Gatlinburg, TN.

In 2016 their latest single, New Era was released & you can pick it up here as well as their back catalogue here.

1. How did you get started as a band?

It started out with Mike Russell (Drums), Phil Zimny (Guitar) and Trevor Tucker (Guitar) jamming out and writing songs. Later they added Randy Krouse (Bass) after a random try out. Joe Turner was just hanging out with the band one night and asked to play a song for us. To our surprise he had a golden voice and we quickly added him to the band. After Trevor left to pursue other ventures we had a few guitarists come and go on till we found Jake Wilson. He was in other bands that we had played shows with and caught our attention with his strong stage presence.

2. How would you describe your sound?

We are a modern heavy rock band that combines haunting melodies, infectious grooves, tightly synced guitar riffs and clean, melodic vocals.

3. What bands/artists would you say have influenced your style of music?

We listen to a wide range of music but we never try to take from other artists. We try to play whatever direction our emotions lead us. Some of our favourite bands include but not limited to Avenge Seven Fold, U2, Fear Factory, Poison The Well, All That Remains, Deftones. That list could go on for days.

4. Has the rise of YouTube & music streaming helped or hindered you as a band?

I believe YouTube is a very important tool to get music videos and other talents seen by an almost unlimited audience which was unheard of even in the early 2000’s unless you were on TV. Music Streaming is a blessing and a curse. For established artists streaming music is the wave of the future and has all but killed CDs and physical copies of albums. For unsigned unheard artists it makes it harder to make money because you can’t even give away CDs hardly anymore and streaming music doesn’t pay as much as selling physical copies so there is this trade off. You can stream your music and get your music on so many different sources that you couldn’t before the dawn of the internet but you can’t make as much money as selling your physical merchandise. It is a very interesting time for the music industry and times are changing.

5. What do you enjoy doing when you’re not making music?

We all still work regular jobs on the side. Randy is a delivery driver and does graphic design. Mike works for a moving company and has a wife and daughter. Jake works is a telemarketer. Joe is a caregiver and a gamer. Phil works at a country club and is learning to be a chef. So we all have so a life other than music but we always put our music first and we love to be out on the road playing music for anyone who wants to listen.

6. What are your future plans musically? Tours?

We always have new music in the works. We have plans to record, maybe in Mexico this time, and music videos follow shortly after. We have a tour in March and we are going to be jumping on some pretty big festivals this year. I think we have a big year ahead of us and we love being out in the mix with other bands and venues. We wanna say we respect you for giving artists a chance to shine on your website. Be it video games, horror flicks, or some music we thank you for your hard work and for giving the little guy a voice.

We’d like to thank Divided We Stand for the interview & Stencil PR for arranging it. You can find out much more about the band over on their official website here. You can also check them out on their Facebook page, on Twitter & on Istagram. If you want to hear some of their music check them out on Soundcloud & on YouTube.