Run With It

Run With It is a rising alternative band. Fans of Paper Route, X Ambassadors and Imagine Dragons will love this powerhouse trio. Their EP How To Start a Fire recently debuted at #66 on The iTunes Alternative Charts. Their touring throughout the US and consistent Social Media engagement is now earning them the reputation of being one of the hardest working bands on the scene. With that hard work and immense help from their fans they have taken it even a step further recently playing overseas in Doha, Qatar for the troops at El Udeid Air Force Base.

TPM: As a touring band you travel a lot. What are some of your favorite places you’ve visited?

RWI: Playing in Doha, Qatar was probably the most unique for us. Doha is one of the wealthiest nations in the world and when you arrive you are overwhelmed with lights and the energy of the people everywhere. Then we quickly found ourselves surrounded by desert as we made our way to the El Udeid Air Force Base to meet and play for some of the soldiers who are still fighting for our freedoms that we enjoy. It was incredibly humbling to be receive with such love and thanks from the soldiers. Something I will never forget. State side we've been out to New York and Boston a bit and love the energy and history that is contained in their streets. Denver has been a place where the people are just really amazing and accepting and you can't beat waking up to mountain views. I feel I could go on and on. I would say each place we've been too has it's own unique allure.

TPM: I know you’ve been mostly touring across the US by van. So, of course you listen to tons of music while you’re driving. Can each of you give your top five current road trip songs?

RWI: Interestingly enough we spend a lot of time in silence in the van. When your job is music sometimes a podcast or a book is a nice rest for your ears. But, when we do listen to music it's typically whole albums all the way through. Recently we've been on a rap kick. As a band we are enamored with Kendrick Lamars new Album - Damn and Logic's new Album - Everybody. There's also been a lot of Kayne recently.

TPM: Do you have any crazy stories from the road you would like to share?

RWI: There are so many. The time we almost stayed in a backwoods murder house and got away. The time I stopped our van from being towed by physically jumping on the tow truck. And then the time we found our our drummer actually is a anime character. But one great one is when a fan from social media saved our tour. Social media is a big thing for us and we have a lot of fans across the world that we have never met but they are highly engaged with us. On one of our tours we were coming from Amarillo, TX on our way to a show in Arkansas but our van broke down in Oklahoma City. So here we are stranded in Oklahoma with a gig to get to the next day and not a whole lot of cash to get things rolling. We put out on twitter if anyone knew a good mech anic in the area. That's when a fan we met through periscope messaged us on twitter. She asked a few questions. After my reply she sent me a phone number and said call my husband he thinks he knows what's wrong and wants to help. Of course I called and found out they lived 30 minutes away from where we were. They brought the whole family along and helped fix our van in a Walmart parking lot in the middle of the night. There were dance parties, a lot of laughter, the changing of a wheel hub assembly and within a few hours they had us back on the road. It was great to meet fans in real life and to see how much they believed in us.

TPM: When’s your next tour going to be and what can your fans expect to see at your shows?

RWI: In support of our new EP we are currently working on booking the next tour. The plan is to go throughout the US. We have a lot of cool things in the works but we can't release it just yet. So stay tuned on our social media @runwithitband for everything. As far as our show - it has grown significantly. We've poured our heart into crafting our recent show with the new music from our latest release. Fans have been so excited by our energy and our engagement and the new songs. Our goal is to make each show an experience with us and the audience in it together. It's been fun watching that happen.

TPM: How has traveling as a band changed you?

RWI: Traveling/touring stretches you. It forces you to adapt quickly to new people and new environments. For us it's being in a different place working with different promoters or venue owners and meeting different fans everyday. This has helped us grow in understanding people different then us. Our dynamic of being in a band and constantly being with the same two people every waking minute also grows you. It has forced us to understand ourselves even better. For me (Miguel) personally I've seen how much I've become an introvert as I get older and being in a extroverted business. Recognizing that about myself has given me the courage to find times where I can just be alone - even if being alone means putting on headphones in the van and not talking to my band mates for a few hours. I realized real quick that if I didn't do that I felt horrible and then started taking that out on my band mates. No one wants that.

TPM: On top of touring and playing local gigs in Kansas City. You also have a YouTube web series called Art Can Change The World. Can you tell us a little bit more about this?

RWI: Art can change the world is the whole idea behind our band. We strive to create artistic experiences that can inspire others. So the video series is a chance for us to highlight other artists or arts industry professionals. We do interviews to hear their stories about how art has impacted them and how they've seen art impact others. It's been an amazing journey for us to hear so many inspiring stories and meet so many awesome people through it. The YouTube channel is not up to date but our Facebook page has all of the episodes on there. We will do a total of 51 episodes this year.

TPM: What advice would you give to someone who’s thinking about touring with their band?

RWI:

1. Know why you are doing it. What is your goal for the tour? What is the ultimate goal for your band? The hardships you will face on the road and being away from your loved ones will not be worth it if you don't have the driving sense of why you are doing what you do. I (Miguel) have a family that I have to leave behind to do it. That makes things hard. But, we all know why I'm doing it so that allows us to weather the hard things we face.

2. Find ways to cut expenses. We actually cook most of our meals now on the road. It's healthier and more cost effective. We crash on couches or use Airbnb or convince the venue to provide a hotel.

3. Find ways to make money on the road. College shows and even street performance in select cities have been avenues we've used to make sure money keeps flowing. Any day off we have on the road we find a way to do street performance and meet new fans and make a little bit more money to keep us moving.

4. Eat healthy. We didn't at first and started feeling horrible. If you want to do this for the long haul find ways to eat healthy on a budget.