Interview With The Ridgelands Part 2

Here is the second part of my interview with Mike and Tall Doug of The Ridgeland's. I can't say enough good things about this band. They ARE a great band on the rise, doing things the only way they know how...the Ridgeland way! This is the groups very first interview, and the Critical Mass family are proud and fortunate to have had the opportunity to sit down with them for this candid and funny interview. Be on the lookout for Part 3 which will consist of outtakes from this interview coming next week, along with my review of the bands debut album "Corey Webster Must Die".

Critical Mass: Have you guys ever gone out on tour?

Mike Schultz (Bass/Vocals): That was like the first thing we did!

Tall Doug (Guitar/Vocals): It wasn't like a full blown tour. It was SUPPOSED to be a 2 week tour

MS: Check this out. I took 2 weeks off of work, Doug was off for the summer, Chris didn't have to work. And we had just recorded these 8 songs (that make up the band’s debut "Corey Webster Must Die"). And actually my 2 weeks’ vacation was coming up, so I kept egging (GoDIY Records) and I was like "Hurry up and get this shit sent back to us. So they got it send back to us and originally we were gonna do through the Midwest, Salt Lake City, East Bay, LA. And then we had nothing between there and Houston, Texas. So it was Houston, Texas, Tulsa, and southern Illinois and then it was home.

TD: But had people telling us (we had gigs).

MS: Yeah, we had people in every city saying "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do it, do it, do it. We'll hook it up." So as times getting closer we have people juts dropping off our map. I'm like FUCK man! So what we had left was Houston, Texas, Tulsa. And we met the Tulsa dude when we played the Mohawk Fest in St. Paul. So we met them up with the Tulsa dude up in St. Paul, so I knew that was solid. And he was friends with the dude from Houston. So I was like "Well fuck, so if anything, we'll just drive to Texas and Tulsa and play these fucking shows." So as time draws more near we have like fucking 2 cities. So this band the Snottie Kids (Orlando, FL), who we just fell in love with, they were touring up trough Chicago and we got asked to play a show with them in some warehouse. And we didn't know them, we just played a show and it was kinda like... they're covered in tattoos, there are skate ramps in this warehouse, and there's maybe 20 people there.

TD: It was awkward.

MS: Yeah it was awkward until we all started drinking, and we all started skating.

TD: I remember trying to do something and I tried and fell and I just started laughing, and the whole place just started laughing.

MS: And from that moment on we were just like fucking brothers. They we like "Hey, come down to Florida sometime." So we remembered that. And when people started dropping out we hit up Derrick, who's the singer and bass player. And we were like "Dude, our West Coast shit fell through. But we still have Texas and Tulsa. Can you set us up in Florida?" And he was like "Yeah, I got you Gainesville and I got you Orlando." So we just charged it down and we stopped in Louisville just to skate because the park there is amazing. So, we skated Louisville there overnight, drove down to Orlando and crashed for the night. Then both our bands drove up to Gainesville and played there. Drove back down to Orlando and skated for like a day. Then we played Orlando, said goodbye and we went to Houston. And Houston was a fucking blast! Of course, everyone we met was like our best friend. I mean, even now, we have cities in this big loop. Now if we could just slowly figure out people between those cities.

CM: Are there any plans for a possible tour of the Midwest in the near future?

TD: We're actually been talking about that.

MS: As far as Midwest goes, we're just gonna do like Milwaukee, Louisville and places like that. And in summer we're gonna do another 2 week and try and make it up to New York maybe a little farther and make it back.

CM: What's in store for The Ridgeland’s in 2012? Besides a world tour?

MS: See, that's the thing...if we had like 3 grand I would fly our shit out to like London and Poland and just takes busses and tour all over Europe off the dime we're making.

TD: As far as 2012 goes I don't know. Record our next album

MS: 2 albums. An acoustic album and an electric album "Fast Times at Ridgeland High".

TD: And we have a great title for our acoustic album.

MS: We gonna call it "Friends Don't Let Friends Quit Drinking". And what we're doing with the acoustic album is...since it's an acoustic album,  NOT that people may be into it, we're gonna get 100 blank CD-R's, burn em, spray pain stencil all 100. And what we're gonna do is, we screen print all our own shirts so we have the screen print and everything. So, we're gonna make a patch design. Y'know a patch big enough to hold a CD. We're gonna do front cover/back cover all on canvas, sewn all together, 100 of them, and stick a CD in there. And sell em for $5.

TD: So, you get a CD and 2 different patches.

MS: And I think the albums gonna be called "Friends Don't Let Friends Quit Drinking" and that'll be one of the patches.

CM: That's a great fucking title for an album.

TD: Actually how we came up with that title is we picked up our friend (For a Social Distortion show) and...and we have just 40's in hand while he's driving.

MS: We were at a red light and there is only like a quarter of the 40oz left. And there's a picture of us just cheers-ing and smiling. And the worst part about it is you can actually see the red light in the window that we're waiting at.

TD: Yeah, and the quarter of the 40oz that's just left at the bottom.

MS: And it might not go over so well with people but...

TD: But it's funny to watch.

MS: So, yeah we have a bunch of shit going on as far as 2012 goes.

CM: Is there a website you guys wanna plug? An official website or anything?

MS: We got YouTube, search The Ridgelands. We got Facebook...

TD: Search The Ridgelands.

MS: We got Twitter...nobody tweets. (Laughter). Also our e-mail is theridgelands666@gmail.com.

TD: And if you wanna check us out on Tumbler it's theridgelands/tumbler.com or some shit. I don't know.

CM: And with that I wanna thank The Ridgelands for talking with Critical Mass.

TD: Absolutely.

MS: I'm really glad you're stoked on us. And also.....

TD: Fuck Greg Short.

MS: Yeah, fuck Greg Short. Greg Short is the worst person in the world.

CM: Do you want that on the record or off the record.

TD/MS (Together) ON THE RECORD! (Laughter)