The move of a Carbondale, Illinois band out to Los Angeles didn’t go as well as they had hoped. Rock quintet Revis was used to playing packed shows before the move, but when they got to L.A., they found themselves playing shows for the bartender.

“I think you have to play for 18 years in L.A. to get a following,” guitarist Nathaniel Cox tells andPOP. “Nobody cares if you’re a band that moved out to L.A.”

When they moved to L.A., they all crammed into a rented one-room bedroom, but were evicted on September 11, 2001.

“We played too much Lynard Skynard on the front porch,” says Cox, laughing as he recalls the band’s brief stay in the room. “Everyone once in a while, the landlord would come over and we’d be over there mid-day having a few beers, not that we’re alcoholics or anything.” He was fed up with their hanging around that he kicked them out. The next day, they found a loft.

On top of that, they had a manager who didn’t do much to help their careers.

“We’d talk to him on the phone maybe once every three weeks and he’d blow us off,” he says.

They eventually got a new manager, John Zagata, and recorded the band’s first demo, which Zagata disbursed throughout the industry. They had some interest from labels like Epic and Columbia, performed a showcase for them, and chose to sign a record deal with Epic because they are “almost like family.”

Revis’ album, “Places for Breathing,” comes out Tuesday in Canada, and has already been released in the U.S.

Don Gilmore, who has worked with Linkin Park and Trust Company, produced the album. He heard about Revis through their lawyer and came to a showcase to watch them perform four songs.

“He said, ‘I can make you guys sound huge. I’ll take you to that next level.’ His albums sound so huge and that’s what we wanted to do with these songs.”

Cox feels that the songs on Revis’ album are distinguishable from each other. “Overall it’s just a good melodic overtone with heavy, almost classic rock guitar rips. I think a lot of bands somehow tend to sound the same throughout. I think the songs [on our album] are consistently good throughout the album.”

Revis is already being compared to bands like Pearl Jam, who they are currently opening up for in North America, and Creed. Cox welcomes the criticism, but obviously disagrees.

“We write what feels right and we play what feels right to us. I don’t think we get a lot of influence from all these other bands people will compare us to. We do our own thing. If all these bands weren’t here today, we would be doing it the same.”

And why the name Revis? “Revis is the last name of one of our guitar techs. We had to lose our old name [Orco] because of legal problems. We went through like 10,000 names trying to think of one and one day our drummer Dave [Piribauer] said, ‘Revis’ last name is pretty cool.’ Everyone passed it off but it came back and we all thought of it and Revis did sound pretty cool.”

After the Pearl Jam tour, Revis will hook up with current chart toppers Evanescence.






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