Epic Tantrum to Play Sea of Tranquility Festival

Fans of progressive and classic rock will congregate at the Sea of Tranquility Festival on Saturday, Oct. 1, at the Chance Theater in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., taking in the likes of classic acts like Nektar, Vanilla Fudge (featuring original members) and the Pat Travers Band.

However, the band you’ll really want to keep an eye on is Epic Tantrum. The excellent, Syracuse, N.Y.-based prog-rockers’ intricate and complex yet listenable, dynamic songs are buoyed by virtuoso musicianship, a sense of melody and lyrics that make you think deep.

The band is supporting its debut, double-disc release, “Abandoned in the Stranger’s Room” (2020). The remarkable, diverse collection (the first disc features studio recordings, the second captures the band live) includes glimmering soundscapes, and rollercoaster like musical twists and turns. It’s a full sensory experience. And that’s just on album opener “Don’t Bother…” alone.

Even better, each new listen reveals further nuances and depth. This is an album for headphone listening, and to be played from start to finish with no interruptions. We look forward to more great music ahead from these superior musicians.

Epic Tantrum consists of bassist Greg, singer/guitarist Peter, guitarist/keyboardist Paul and drummer Z. We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Greg.

How did Epic Tantrum form?

Greg: Gordon Moore is a guitar teacher here in Syracuse, a brilliant guitar teacher. I was the student he threw out and Peter and Paul were the golden students. I eventually went back and took more lessons. Z met Paul through a musical friend. The earliest form of the band was Peter and Paul recording classical music. It started very loosely. They started writing some songs and had Z come in to play on drums. They said to me, oh, we’re gonna jam. Well, I’m not a bassist and I don’t jam. One day I was bored, I went to a rehearsal, and it really wasn’t jamming music. It wasn’t like, ‘let’s start a band’ either. It was a bunch of people together making music. Some people play golf in their down time. We spend our weekends making music. I’d been in the industry awhile and I started saying, ‘we should do something with this.’

The album was released in January 2020 and its promotional campaign was stopped in its tracks a couple months later. How did you deal with both the frustration and the down time?

Greg: At the end of February, we played a record release show in Syracuse at the local IMAX Theater. It was super cool with all these videos projected on the screen. Two weeks later we were going down to play in New York City. We get all this press lined up and the warnings about the pandemic start coming, it’s here, wait, it’s not really here. Three days before, when the NBA cancelled its games, we cancelled the show. It was pretty frustrating. In a strange way it killed all the momentum for the record. We were fortunate to do a couple of virtual events. The Sea of Tranquility virtual event was really cool. Before that, even though we’re all in Syracuse, we didn’t see each other for four or five months. Then we got back together and filmed some videos.

It’s interesting that your debut record includes both studio and live elements. It’s a big statement. What made the band decide to go that route?

Greg: I was really pushing for the live side of the album. I was listening to the playback to one of our shows and was struck by how different we sounded live as compared to the studio. I wanted to show both sides of the band. Obviously, the songs on the live side don’t have as many layers, but it’s a little bit more of walking a tightrope. When we play the same song five times in a row, it’s different every time. We’re not a jukebox band. All of our solos are different every single time. The live experience is more of a rollercoaster. I don’t know exactly where the song is going to go. There’s a format but sometimes it’s a little heavier or a little more laid back.

We don’t make easy music so we kind of went into this feeling that putting out an album was a victory. We’re not making music for the masses; we’re making music for a niche group. We self-released the record. We had some offers from record labels but this is really for us, it’s our labor of love. The idea of having someone else take charge didn’t seem right. We recorded and mixed it in our studio

Epic Tantrum creates incredibly intricate music. How do you write these arrangements and is it a joint effort or a collaboration of ideas?

Greg: Every song is different. A lot of what you hear is Peter and Paul. I come from a punk background. Sometimes someone comes in with a line. Or someone will come in with an entire song. The idea is getting a jumping off point and there’s a lot of tinkering.

Tell us about playing the Sea of Tranquility fest?

Greg: For us it’s the first show outside of Syracuse so that’ll be fun, and we’re playing with some name artists. For us, we were fans of the Sea of Tranquility website, the videos and reviews. It’s really cool. It really feels like an opportunity to play in front of a crowd that will understand the kind of music we’re making.

For more information on Sea of Tranquility, go to https://www.seaoftranquility.org/

For Epic Tantrum visit https://epictantrum.com/