Review Fix Exclusive: Marina City Talks EPs and Future

Review Fix chats with the members of Marina City, who discuss their pair of new EPs, creative process, origin and goals for the future.

About the Band:

Dubbed by multi-platinum record producer John Feldmann* as a mix “between Fall Out Boy and Avenged Sevenfold” Marina City has introduced their rapidly growing audience to a genre they didn’t even know they craved: Aggressive Pop Rock. Fusing heavy instrumentals with keys and catchy three-part harmonies, the band knows how to stand out above the rest. They have been named one of the “Top 10 Independent Bands You Need to Know” by MTV & Altmusic, the “Band You Need to See” by Alternative Press for both Warped Tour and Riot Fest 2016, and were declared The 2016 Band Of The Year by Chicago Nightlife Awards . On The Request Magazine writes: “(Marina City) have brought a very real, intense rock flavor to vocals that could easily appear in today’s top 40… they are showing the world what real music in popular culture could and should sound like.”

Review Fix: How did the band get together?

Ryan Argast: I was a solo act signed to a production deal. Eric, Brian, and Matt were all part of my backing band including the original lead guitarist and bassist of Marina City. When I was done being a solo act and I didn’t need to resign my contract I wanted to do something different and start over. We became Marina City. A couple months in the project a childhood friend Aaron joined for bass and we met Todor through playing shows with his previous band.

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like for these EPs?

Aaron Heiy: For Lost Doesn’t Mean alone we really wanted to do a re-imagined E.P. Making these songs acoustic but still full band at the same time. We wanted to be as creative as possible to do something different that no one else has done and put every different style of music into these. It’s considered an acoustic E.P but we still have drums and electric guitar in most of them. We completely re-wrote all of our songs to have a different feel for this project. We will be playing most of them on the BadXChannels tour this fall/winter.

Review Fix: What’s your standout song on the new EPs? How was it written?

Argast: The stand out song was probably “Your Song” due to it being a brand new song from the EP. We wrote it while writing our last EP, “Wanderlust.” We just didn’t want to have too many slow songs on the EP at the time so we saved it in our back pocket. Realistically it is probably a 2 and half year song. We remember it flowing really naturally when writing it. Felt like it wrote itself.

Review Fix: What are your goals for 2017?

Argast: Our goal is to break away from being considered a local band and become a regular national touring act. We’ve been touring a lot and been able to do great things but we hope to be taken seriously to booking agents, labels, and managers that we can bring a lot to the table.

Review Fix: What makes these EPs special?

Eric Somers-Urrea: We had the opportunity to try something that’s very unique and different than a typical EP. We’ve known for a long time we wanted to write an acoustic EP but we wanted to challenge ourselves as much as possible to make it something more. So we decided to take the recording process on the road and record the EP in front of a live in-studio audience and in 5 different recording studios across the Midwest. It was tough to pull off but the result is something we’re very proud of.

Review Fix: How do you want your music to affect people?

Brian Johnson: We want everyone to know there are no limits to what you can do in a band, at your job, and in life in general. Just surround yourself with happy, positive and encouraging people and you can accomplish anything and live your dream. Just GO FOR IT. If you have faith and believe in yourself, you cannot be stopped.

I just want the world to be a better place because Marina City exists.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Argast: We have been writing a bunch of new songs so we hope to start recording them after this BadXChannels tour for an early 2017 release.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13819 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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