Rival Sons picked an ironic place to start what will be an extensive and busy last half the year on tour.
Singer Jay Buchanan was calling in early May from his hotel room in Oklahoma City, where in a few hours he and his bandmates would launch the tour – an outing that all concerned are hoping will be a considerably smoother undertaking than when Rival Sons went on tour in 2021.
That fall, the band hit the road, and all four band members — Buchanan, guitarist Scott Holiday, bassist Dave Beste and drummer Michael Miley — as well as crew members, caught COVID. But they fought their way through and completed the tour. Oklahoma City was where Miley caught the virus and passed it on to Buchanan.
“Yeah, this was ground zero for me,” Buchanan said. “I ended up contracting it just a couple of days later.”
The Long Beach and Orange County-based band have lots of incentive to avoid the issues of that tour. The band released “Darkfighter,” the first of two new albums, on June 2. The second release, “Lightbringer,” is tentatively planned for an October arrival.
After completing a bunch of headlining dates in the spring, the band is now on a summer tour opening for The Smashing Pumpkins alongside Stone Temple Pilots. The outing hits FivePoint Amphitheatre in Irvine on Aug. 9 and North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre in Chula Vista on Aug. 10. During these shows, Rival Sons have been able to present “Darkfighter” material live, and Buchanan is enjoying letting the new songs come to life on stage.
“We’ve been waiting to let this new blood flow through the veins. So we’ve been waiting to live the statement of the ‘Darkfighter’ record,” he said. “We get to live this now. And now these songs get to be out into the world and they begin their new life of how they’re going to be translated live.”
“Darkfighter” and “Lightbringer” are products of an intense and productive period for Rival Sons, which debuted with a self-titled…
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