After more than a year, Dallas's Power Trip have earned some well-deserved R&R. Since the release of Nightmare Logic, the band has been on the road almost constantly, logging miles across the globe with Obituary, Cannibal Corpse, Gatecreeper, Trivium and more. Now after all of those dates, the crossover killers are on a bit of a victory lap, heading out for dates with Sheer Mag, Fury and Red Death as part of a full U.S. jaunt that kicks off tomorrow (April 27th). The date will also double as a coming-out party for their odds-and-ends compilation, Opening Fire, which hits on digital tomorrow. Stream that in full for the first time below.
With the band about to head out on this final lap of Nightmare Logic dates, and their older material now easily available to the gen pop, Revolver sat down with frontman Riley Gale to ask about the last few months, Power Trip's growth as a band and what's next.
OPENING FIRE … IT'S BASICALLY ALL OF YOUR ODDS AND ENDS OUTSIDE OF SOUTHERN LORD BUNDLED TOGETHER. ARE YOU BRINGING THESE SONGS OUT OF RETIREMENT?
There was a point where some of the band members were just like, "No, we can't play that. We're fucking tired of it." But the thing is after hammering it home, I was like, "We gotta make our fans happy and you can't be stubborn-ass man that won't play old stuff." We're obviously not there yet, but I I was also like, "Do you really expect Metallica to ever retire 'Battery'?" So yeah, old fans can expect to see some of this material on our upcoming tour — we're going to bust at least one old song out.
But yeah, we've stayed away from most of this stuff except a few things. "Hammer of Doubt" came out in maybe 2012, and that kind of stayed in the rotation. But we haven't done anything with the earlier stuff except maybe the two songs off the Lockin' Out 7-inch. Like "Divine Apprehension" and "Suffer No Fool." So we're going to try and do stuff from every album on this headline tour. [Drummer Chris] Ulsh was just saying to me that he really want to play some of these older songs because "that's one of the reasons I joined the band."
SO YOU'VE GONE OUT WITH ALL OF THESE BIG BANDS LATELY INCLUDING YOUR RECENT STINTS WITH TRIVIUM, OBITUARY, CANNIBAL CORPSE, ANTHRAX ... WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU LEARNED FROM PLAYING WITH VETERANS LIKE THAT.
Man, it's like ... as opposed to going to a hardcore show where you can kind of get up there and be yourself, with those bigger bands you have to grab their attention and put on a show. So I learned a lot about working a crowd and hamming it up and still having fun doing it. So in Europe on the Napalm Death tour, like, right after Trump got elected, people would be like, "Oh, so you guys voted for Donald Trump?" And I'm like, "No, we didn't fucking vote for Donald Trump. He has nothing to do with Texas." After a while I started saying, "You know, we're from Dallas, Texas. You know what Dallas did to the President?" And then somebody says, "You shoot them." And then I'd say, "No, we suck their dicks bone dry." [Laughs]
So working a crowd and giving them "an actual show" has been the biggest thing that we've learned for sure. One time we're in Norfolk, which my friend Mark Shubert tells me, I guess, is a big military base. He was like, "You should give a shout out to the troops." And I was like, "Really? I'm gonna sound like such an insincere asshole" or whatever. But I decided to do it and I mean the crowd was just like, just like, "Yeahhhh!!!" just beaming.
YOUR UPCOMING HEADLINING TOUR SHOULD BE VERY INTERESTING IN THAT YOU'LL BE PLAYING WITH HARDCORE BANDS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A LONG TIME.
It's gonna be really interesting to see what kind of mixture shows up to these shows, how many metal fans are going to be attending and sort of be displaced. Or what they're going to think of Sheer Mag or Red Death or Fury, anything like that. I think it's a great tour to see what we can get away with, as I guess we are a more popular band now. You know?
Don't get me wrong, I loved those past few tours and could watch Obituary or Cannibal Corpse every night, but we're excited to do something different on this tour. If people are bold enough to consider us America's most promising crossover band, then Red Death is a close second, in my opinion. I think that Inevitable Darkness is just a beast of a record. I think Fury is going to win over a lot of new fans. And Sheer Mag is just a good rock & roll band, plus it's great to mix it up. So I think there's something for everyone to check out and that's why we book ended it that way.
WHAT DO YOU HAVE PLANNED AFTER THIS?
So this digital package comes on Friday and the vinyl will come out eventually. We've got a single in the tank for Adult Swim that we're just kind of finishing up. We got an Outburst cover that's going to appear on their collection, but we're really going to just take it easy after that tour. We basically have been gone for about 12 of the past 16 months. So that's kind of the end of the cycle. We have a few odds and ends here and there in the U.K., South America and Australia. But for the most part we are all going to take some time away. We're really going to need some time away from each other.
Power Trip tour dates:
Fri-Apr-27 Jacksonville,FL Welcome to Rockville
Sat-Apr-28 Ft. Lauderdale,FL Fort Rock
Mon-Apr-30 Atlanta,GA Masquerade - Hell
Tue-May-01 Birmingham,AL Saturn
Wed-May-02 Nashville,TN Third Man Records
Fri-May-04 Charlotte,NC Carolina Rebellion
Sat-May-05 Richmond,VA Broadberry
Sun-May-06 Pittsburgh,PA Spirit
Mon-May-07 Philadelphia,PA Union Transfer
Tue-May-08 Washington,DC Black Cat
Wed-May-09 Brooklyn,NY Elsewhere
Thu-May-10 Brooklyn,NY Elsewhere ***SOLD OUT***
Fri-May-11 Boston,MA Paradise Rock Club
Sat-May-12 Syracuse,NY Lost Horizon
Sun-May-13 Toronto,ON Lee's Palace
Tue-May-15 Detroit,MI El Club
Wed-May-16 Chicago,IL Reggie's Rock Club
May-18-20 Columbus,OH Rock on The Range
Sat-May-19 Chicago,IL The Empty Bottle *SOLD OUT*
Sun-May-20 Minneapolis,MN Fine Line
Mon-May-21 Winnipeg,MB The Park Theatre
Wed-May-23 Saskatoon,SK Louis' Pub
Thu-May-24 Edmonton,AB The Starlite Room
Fri-May-25 Calgary,AB Dicken's Pub
Sun-May-27 Vancouver,BC Modified Ghosts
Mon-May-28 Seattle,WA Neumos
Tue-May-29 Portland,OR Hawthorne Theatre
Thu-May-31 San Francisco,CA Great American Music Hall
Fri-Jun-01 San Jose,CA The Ritz
Sat-Jun-02 Los Angeles,CA The Regent
Sun-Jun-03 San Diego,CA Soma
Mon-Jun-04 Mesa,AZ Club Red
Tue-Jun-05 Albuquerque,NM Launchpad
Thu-Jun-07 Austin,TX Mohawk
Jul 28 - 29 Montreal, QC Heavy Montreal
Sept 6 - 8 Cave-In-Rock, IL Full Terror Assault
4/27 w/ Ozzy Osbourne, Godsmack, Trivium and more
4/28 w/ Ozzy Osbourne, Godsmack, Hatebreed, Underoath, and more
05/04 w/ Alice in Chains, Andrew W.K., Turnstile and more
5/18-20 w/ Tool, Code Orange, Turnstile and more
4/30-5/02, 5/05-5/16, 5/19-6/01, 6/03-04 w/ Sheer Mag, Fury, Red Death
5/09 w/ Sheer Mag, Outburst, Krimewatch
6/02, 6/05-07 w/ Sheer Mag, Red Death
