LIVE: AWOLNATION at KROQ’s Red Bull Soundstage (LA)

Tuesday, March 10 in Los Angeles just over 250 KROQ listeners won the chance to see AWOLNATION return, playing their new material for the first time in front of an audience.  The Red Bull Soundspace filled out quick while fans and pess sampled the new Red Bull flavors on hand, getting us charged for the show.  A Q&A went by quickly and jumped straight to the action, a 6 song set of 3 new and 3 past hits.
 
It’s been almost 4 years to the exact day that the debut album, Megalithic Symphony, from Aaron Bruno (aka AWOLNATION) was released on Red Bull Records.  The project propelled quickly as the single “Sail” went on to be a modern day classic, cementing its roots in Rock radio forever and selling over 6 million copies along the way.  “It was an absolute dream come true, and to hear any of these songs on the station I grew up listening to, KROQ, was huge,” Bruno stated during the Q&A session.  “Kill Your Heroes” and “It’s Not Your Fault” followed, also becoming permanent radio recurrents making Aaron possibly the first Rock success story in the download era.
 
The follow up LP, Run, will be released next Tuesday, March 17^th.  A man of many ideas, it took the writer/multi-instrumentalist/front man an extended period of time to find the right path for the project.  “When I came up with ‘Run’ that’s when I felt like the album was really coming together… The rest kind of fell into place after that song was written.”  The set began with the title track, “Run”, a worthy companion to “Sail”, a dense track that set the tone for what was to come.  The set continued to switch from new to old (“Kill Your Heroes”) to new again with the first single off of Run, “Hollow Moon (Bad Wolf)”.  The song begins with slow Dubstep drum patterns and distorted guitars before transitioning to a poppy repetitive dance track during the hook, transition once again to a head bang inducing 3^rd movement at the end.  A blend worthy of sharing both KROQ and KIIS FM’s airwaves, It’s a  brilliant tightrope walk to watch as Bruno lightly bounces back and force dropping Top 40 worthy melodies and jumping straight to screaming “Mother fucker I’ll be back from the dead soon!” with the ferocity of Punk singer.  This occurs to be the secret sauce as “It’s Not Your Fault” does the reverse with its pop verse and heavy hook.  Easily digestible tracks with enough edge to remain credible.  Bruno is indeed a master at his craft in the studio with the showmanship of a veteran (he had 2 previous groups, Under The Influence Of Giants and Hometown Heroes).  After debuting “Windows” the set closed with everyone’s favorite, “Sail”, before sending us off into the beautiful Los Angeles afternoon sun with another free Red Bull, limited edition poster and our brag worthy story about what we just got to see.
Purchase AWOLNATION Run on March 17th, 2015
words: Dominic Painter
photo credit: Gabriel Olsen