Good News Tucson - A Family Values Publication

Need To Breathe
Provides Fresh Music at Club Congress

On Wednesday, August 6th at 8 p.m. Needtobreathe will take the stage at Club Congress. The band features a great blend of “southern rock” and blues. Needtobreathe features Bear Rinehart on vocals, guitar and piano, Bo Rinehart on guitar and backing vocals, Seth Bolt on bass and backing vocals, and Joe Stillwell on drums.

Here’s what drummer Joe Stillwell has to say about the band:

How did Needtobreathe get its start?
We got started in our freshman year of college. We had grown up in the same town almost all our lives, but it wasn't until Bear and I roomed together at school that we really got serious about doing music together. A couple years later Bo and Seth joined, and we've been going at it hard ever since.

How would you define your music?
I would say it's just good, honest rock music. I think that labeling music ultimately puts a ceiling on a band's creativity. Sure there are certain defining things that make up our sound, but as soon as we start to call ourselves a certain type of band, our creative options start to get limited. There's a clear southern tinge to what we do because that's who we are. That's where we come from. But I heard someone say once that calling something "Southern Rock" is basically like calling it "Rock Rock," cause rock n roll came from the South anyway.

How has your sound grown or progressed since your first album?
I think we trusted ourselves a lot more on "The Heat" than we did on "Daylight." Because "Daylight" was our first major-label record, we put a lot of stock in what other people were telling us about the music. We figured they'd been there before, they must know what's best, right? On "The Heat" we started to figure out that we really do know what's best for our music. We didn't avoid taking chances for the sake of a "sound."

We've learned lately that you have to do what's best for each song, and it will come out sounding like NEEDTOBREATHE because we're the ones who created it.

Needtobreathe is reaching a broad audience of listeners. Have you been surprised at all by the reception of your music by secular and non-secular crowds?
It doesn't really surprise us, that much. The magnitude of the success has been a pleasant surprise, but our music has always reached people from secular and non-secular backgrounds. From the very beginning of our band, we would play a show in a dirty rock club one night and a Christian event the next night. We've always felt like what we do is relevant to both sides. We try not to make music thinking about who would want to listen to it. If you make honest music, the people who get what you do are going to connect with it.
Where are you going from here? We're going all over the country. The only time we ever stop touring is when we go in to make a record. We've got a couple nice tours lined up for the fall, so we'll be out playing shows pretty much constantly.Where do you hope your music takes you?As far as it possibly can. We learned pretty quickly that the music business is anything but predictable. We just want to have a long career making music and doing what we love for a living, and hopefully our fans get as much out of it along the way as we do.

Learn more about the band and their music at www.needtobreathe.net.

To purchase tickets for the concert, visit www.extremefaithproductions.com.