By: Matt Warnock
2010 was a huge year for Florida based metal band Nonpoint as the band’s eighth studio album Miracle was released to critical acclaim, helping to launch the band to the top of the modern metal world after 13 years of working together as a band. The album immediately grabbed the attention of promoters worldwide and 2010 saw high-profile Nonpoint performances at some of the world’s biggest music festivals including Ozzfest, Rock on the Range Summerfest and the legendary Download Festival.
Building on the momentum that the band received in 2010, this year looks to be even bigger as Nonpoint gets ready to head overseas to bring their unique brand of melodic metal to a global audience. With gigs already booked in Australia during the Soundwave Festival, as well as a few non-festival shows Down Under, vocalist Elias Soriano, guitarist Zach Broderick, bassist Ken MacMillan and drummer Robb Rivera are already lining up other shows outside the U.S. for this summer. But, their U.S. fans shouldn’t be worried, as the band is also going to be touring heavily in the States, as they always do.
Guitar International recently caught up with Elias Soriano to talk about Nonpoint guitarist Zach Broderick, Miracle and life on the road.
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Matt Warnock: You’re on the road right now. How’s the tour going so far?
Elias Soriano: It’s going great, the numbers are really, really good. A lot of packed shows and Straight Line Stitch is a great bunch of guys and gals. They put on a really good show and they’re helping a lot with the draw. It’s a great tour, especially since it’s only being going for about two weeks now.
Matt: With the crazy weather we’ve had this winter in the Midwest and on the East Coast, have you had any trouble getting around because of all of the snow?
Elias Soriano: We just hit the snow today. It was cold yesterday, but we just caught up to the snow today. The roads are a little slick and it’s a little windy, but we’re used to it. We normally tour in the winter. We hit a lot of places that bands aren’t going to until the summer, so the winter makes for a good touring season for Nonpoint.
Matt: After this tour winds up, you’re headed over to Australia for a number of shows, including the Soundwave Festival. Is this the first time that Nonpoint has been over to Australia on a tour?
Elias Soriano: Yes, and we’re all very excited to get there. We’re doing five Soundwave Festival dates. Then we’ll do a couple of other dates while we’re there, so it’s going to be a great time and we’re looking forward to it for sure.
Matt: Are you already planning ahead for this summer’s festival season? Do you have any specific gigs on the books yet for summer 2011?
Elias Soriano: Of course. We’re going to take a few weeks after this run, just to decompress a tiny bit. Then when we hit the middle of the Spring we’ll be fresh and ready to hit the busy summer touring season. It looks like there’ll be a lot of fly dates, and some overseas gigs as well. We’re already getting offers for this summer, so we wanted to take a few weeks of to take a breather because we’ve been touring nonstop since Miracle was released.
Matt: Miracle has been a huge success for you guys. When you were recording it did you know or have a feeling that it was going to be this big of a hit?
Elias Soriano: We definitely had a vibe that it was something that we were going to be proud of and were about 75% sure that it was going to be taken in a positive light, and it was. It’s actually still moving quite a bit. “Frontlines” is still in the Top 10 on satellite radio and holding strong.
We’re getting ready to release “Crazy” in the next few weeks, which has already been getting airplay on Harddrive. We’re getting ready for the Harddrive tour at the end of the Spring, we’ll be doing that for about 4 weeks. So there’s a lot on our plates right now, and Miracle has definitely helped bring about a lot of these opportunities.
Matt: What has been the international reaction so far to Miracle? Are you finding that it’s been picked up in specific countries more than others, or is it popular across the globe right now?
Elias Soriano: It’s broad in the sense that it’s getting quite a bit of buzz because we haven’t been on the international scene in a while when we were at the mercy of our last record label. There were a lot of opportunities being missed. We were hearing rumors that our popularity in certain countries not being high enough for us to even bother going over, but that turned out to be absolutely not true.
We played over at Download and the promoter from Soundwave saw us there and immediately booked us for the Australian shows. Sometimes you don’t realize that there’s such a strong fan base worldwide, because we’ve been in the U.S. for about 7 or 8 years now without really touring outside the country. As soon as our new management and label got a hold of us that’s the first thing they did was send us overseas, and it’s been great so far.
Matt: Zach Broderick joined Nonpoint on guitar in 2008, replacing former guitarist Andrew Goldman. Did you notice a difference in how the band recorded Miracle with Zach as compared to other albums Nonpoint did with Andrew in the past?
Elias Soriano: It was different because they’re just different people really. We’ve had many great years with Andy. He did a lot of the recording of the band. He was the most proficient with Pro Tools and he led the ship in that direction with the technical side of our records. Getting a new guitar player was a bit nerve racking, but it ended up being a blessing because the transition to Zach was completely seamless.
Zach was the first person that we auditioned and he felt right, right away. He was ready to write music and his style was right for us, so we decided to give it a shot. We had tours booked and so he jumped right in and we threw him to the wolves to see how he survived, and he did great. So we’re still banging on all cylinders.
Matt: With all of the exposure that Miracle has gotten since it was released in 2010, are you already working on new material or are you focusing solely on supporting this record? Where are you in the writing process for the next Nonpoint record?
Elias Soriano: We’ll start writing probably in the summer. We’ll be travelling a lot overseas and I have a feeling that’s where the writing will start. We’re writing a little bit right now, just for ourselves. I’m sure quite a bit of it will make the record. Slowly but surely, but for now we’re just focusing on Miracle until the time’s write to work on the next album.
