The Era of Rain City Drive: An Exclusive Interview with Matt McAndrew

Rain City Drive has just released their latest track, “Medicate Me.” Of the single, vocalist Matt McAndrew shares:

“‘Medicate Me’ is about chasing the high of a toxic relationship to escape boredom/complacency. Featuring Rory Rodriguez from Dayseeker, produced by Daniel Braunstein, mixed by Zakk Cervini, it was a blast to bring this song to life with such talented people. This track is simultaneously one of our heaviest and most pop-leaning songs to date—a sneak peak into our ambitions and hard hitting third album.”

Many people think that Rain City Drive is just the new name for the former band Slaves after Matt joined, but they’d be wrong. The band truly found their sound in 2020 with the addition of Matt and helped to usher in this new era. In this exclusive interview, we discuss the key differences between the bands, more about their latest single, his time on the hit show The Voice, and more!

What first ignited your passion for music?

Matt McAndrew: “I think it was probably when I was 11 or so. My grandma got my sister and I guitars. She was a little older than me, and so she had asked for it and I didn’t know it. I was going to get one, and I think they just gave me one, too, so I wouldn’t feel left out. And I started jamming on that and I got just more and more into it as high school years went on. That was probably my super enthusiastic intro to music.”

How do you approach the songwriting process and from where do you draw inspiration?

“I would say when I was younger, it was more of me starting out on guitar and coming up with things I thought were cool on guitar, and then trying to write melodies and lyrics over that. And then, as I got older, I think I segued more and more towards starting with vocal ideas and then building music around that. I think I started out more passionate about guitar, and then got more passionate about singing later on.”

I’ve actually photographed two of your shows! One was way back with Blessthefall and Palisades, and then one with Our Last Night.

“Nice! I think that was the first US Slaves tour that I did.”

Matt McAndrew of Rain City Drive in 2019, by Melanie Mae Williamson

Yeah, 2019.

“Nice. Okay, cool. What city?”

Charlotte, North Carolina.

“Yeah, that’s always a fun market for us.”

It was a great show. Do you have a favorite tour that you’ve done?

“Honestly, one that comes to mind that I really liked was the last UK tour we did with Dance Gavin Dance. It was just fun to play bigger rooms overseas, it was just kind of cool. But they’ve all been pretty good.”

So, speaking of Slaves, what would you say are the key differences between Rain City Drive and Slaves?

“I mean, I think the main thing would just be personnel, I guess. I think there’s some stylistic similarities, for sure. Slaves is a band that had a lot of lineup changes and a lot of growing pains until it was Colin West, Zach, Felipe, and Johnny, and then Johnny was ousted and then I came in and that was the final iteration of Slaves. And then, from there, we decided to make a new band, which is Rain City Drive. But I mean, in terms of style, I think there is some crossover. It’s very vocal forward, catchy, harder rock, and, like I said, a lot of the same personnel between the bands. Certainly from To Better Days, that was released under Rain City Drive, is the exact same personnel and band, kind of.”

You guys really seem to have found your sound and flow, though.

“Thank you. Yeah, I think on this next record, we’re pretty stoked on the mid-ground that we’ve landed on in between trying to stretch out and do stuff that’s a little more explorative and kind of genre-bending, but also some of the heavier, more rock-forward stuff that we’ve done at the same time too. So it just kind of reflects the vision that we had a little bit better, I think, than we’ve been able to in the past though. It’s cool.”

So, you just released “Medicate Me.” What can you share about the creative process there?

“So, that one was really cool. We went to the studio with our buddy Christian to write that one, and we were stoked on the song, but it always had the ending open. It was that kind of heavier ending the way the song ends, and I just didn’t have anything in place. I wasn’t sure what I would do, and so we thought that might be an opportunity to maybe grab somebody who could do a scream vocal or something, but then we weren’t sure if we wanted to go all the way in that direction. But we were in the studio with Dan Braunstein, who works with Dayseeker a lot, and so we thought maybe we could get Rory to pop in and try some stuff out. I had had some ideas for verse two, but we wound up just scrapping that and just gave him the open verse that he wrote a really cool part for. And then just him and I just kind of tag team that outro. So that’s kind of how it came together.

“But yeah, it was cool. I mean, that’s our first time doing a feature and usually my outlook on it is usually a feature means another vocalist. And so if I’ve worked really hard on a song and I feel really good about everything, I don’t really want to change anything or I don’t want to just be like, here, sing this somebody else if the song is done. But like I said, that one actually really worked out. We had a couple spots that I just didn’t have stuff for and I was like, oh dude, please. And I’m a big fan of him and his voice and his writing. So it was actually just a big help and I think a really positive experience for us and definitely something that we would like to do more of in the future. I think just being able to utilize somebody’s voice, somebody’s style on your track from a production standpoint is almost like having a different synth sound or a drum sound or guitar tone or just try not to limit yourself to anything if you don’t have to. So to be able to collaborate in that way, it’s really cool.”

You also get to reach more of a fan base, I think, because I’m sure that Dayseeker fans had to check it out.

“A hundred percent. I mean, it was just really cool with the timing of these tours that we’re doing with them as well. And it’s something that we’ve wanted to do and our fans have talked about for a couple of years now about us going out with Dayseekr. So, I think it makes a lot of sense and there’s a lot of crossover there. Probably, I don’t know, maybe one of the most similar bands to us, if not maybe the most similar band that we’ve toured with. So we’re hoping for a lot of fan crossover, for sure. I think some of the tours we’ve done, the fans of the headlining band are like, ‘what the hell are these guys doing here?’”

So, if you could collaborate with any artist, who would it be?

“I mean, I have a short list right now for future things, but I would always love to collab with Bring Me (the Horizon). They’re one of my favorite artists in general, and certainly in the scene. I think Bad Omens or Spiritbox would be cool. I also feel like Memphis (May Fire) would be really cool. Big fan of Matty and just him as a guy in general. Yeah, I feel like there’s a lot. I think those are some that come to mind that seem a little more obvious to me. And I like the idea of collaborating with those people that do seem like it’s maybe the same world and just building up that little kind of vibe, but also it would be fun to do.”

Your lyrics touch on some deeply personal experiences and emotions. How do you go about writing about such personal topics?

“I always want to be honest in my lyrics, and I think in the past I wanted to be really autobiographical and more in an essay format where if somebody didn’t know what I was talking about, they could figure it out based on the lyrics. And, I think, on this last record, I kind of just followed my intuition and emotion and I didn’t really stop and think about how it would read to somebody else necessarily, or even a hundred percent what it meant to me, as I was going. I just knew that it was good and was resonating with certain imagery and stuff. And then I kind of never want to stifle that creative spark.

“Rick Rubin’s book, The Creative Act, talks about how it’s like if you squeeze an orange, you get orange juice. And so, whatever’s inside you was just in there and just kind of running with that. So there were certain things where it’s almost like saying a joke, and if you get a laugh that’s good enough, and not being like, yeah, this is why it’s funny. But I also think, too, that it never seemed like too much of a stretch to share and be vulnerable or talk about personal things just because I grew up being so inspired and so for me to go down that same path, it feels like something good and cool to do and not like, oh gee, this is going to be embarrassing or something.”

Rain City Drive, provided courtesy of Thriller Records

So, based on who you would love to collaborate with, I feel like I know some of the answers to this question. What artists have been inspiring you the most lately that you feel are pushing boundaries?

“I mean, I feel like Bring Me (the Horizon) is always just going to be my answer to that question. I think Oli’s always on some next shit that everybody will be copying a decade from now with what they’re doing currently. And they’re probably the first proper heavy band that I got into. I heard Sempiternal when it came out, and that was my introduction to them. A buddy of mine was working at the studio that mixed that record, and so he had showed me early on and I thought it was really cool. It was anthemic enough, and it had kind of big singy choruses, so that was kind of my way in. I listened to mostly either alt rock or more classic rock, I guess you’d say. Certainly classic now, but even something like, I don’t know, Rage Against the Machine or the Smashing Pumpkins or Nirvana would be the heavier side for me growing up. But yeah, and Oli’s such a great lyricist. I don’t know that he gets enough credit for how good he is. And I think he tries to not repeat himself and he finds new imagery and ways of expressing himself. There’s so many people in all genres that feel like they write almost a more paint-by-numbers approach where it’s find a cool catchy title and just sort of try to fill it in. And he’s always giving me these cool little tidbits or terms of phrase that I think are really creative.”

Do you have a particularly memorable performance in your career? Anything that really stands out? 

“I would say recently when we played a show at the Shrine that was sold out. It was really cool. It was on the DGD (Dance Gavin Dance) tour. And I think that one comes to mind just because that’s a venue that I had went to. I saw a show there, Yungblud, I think.. I wasn’t really paying attention to where we’re going and just all of a sudden we’re in this huge space and it was like, I dunno, I just thought it was a really cool venue and I was like, man, it’d be cool to play here. So I think anytime you have that experience of being on being on one side of the glass and then being on the other side, it’s kind of fun. I think that one comes to mind. Anything overseas is sort of in the same category for me, that’s why I like playing over in England so much. Just feels cool to have anybody even know who you are over there.”

So, you’ve obviously come a long way from The Voice, but is there anything you picked up from being on The Voice that you’ve kind of carried over into your career?

“Yeah, a lot of things. That experience was just very informative and intense. We would do 16 to 20 hour days, production days, whether it was rehearsals and studio shooting commercials, and starting your day with shooting content. Back where I’m from on the east coast in Philly, and then ending the day in LA at 2:00 AM tracking songs for the show. That was where I got into more hands-on vocal training, shout out to Alani on the show. That’s where I got into a really good warmup regimen doing warmups pull downs, which I think that’s the only way that I got through that. And that’s what helped me carry over into touring. I’d done a lot of shows before The Voice, but I’d never toured before. And so I think that experience really prepared me for being a super busy working and touring musician.

“That’s probably the main thing. It was also a lot of fame all at once and it’s like a chance to have a career. So, I think that was fun. I think you find out about what kind of person you are. Fame affects people differently and it just kind of amplifies whatever’s inside of you. So for me, I just was like, oh, this is really cool, and I don’t think it really changed my mindset at all. It was always my dream to do music professionally and maybe I wouldn’t have experienced being that busy and said, ‘Hey, this isn’t for me.’ Some people go to school to be a doctor and then they find out they don’t like it when they get hands-on or something. But for me, I really loved it. It’s great. So I think it was a really intense bootcamp of the music industry, you know what I mean?”

Absolutely. And my last question—do you have anything else that you’d like to share with your fans?

“I would like to share the rest of the album with our fans, but it’s not quite ready yet. I ust hope they check out “Medicate Me” for now, and I don’t think it’s going to be too long. Lastly, until we drop another album, there should only be maybe a month or so in between songs. Don’t hold me to it, but I believe that’s the schedule we’re on. So, I think that’ll be good. I want to share that. And I want to say thanks for sticking with us and I think they’re really going to enjoy this new record, so hope to see them on the road.”