Gothic Theatre
River
Beneath the ground there flows a river. Far below the barren buzz of things that speak of time and money, flows a ceaseless river. Quite content to be below the funny way they walk and talk their time and money dance. Waiting for the chance to spring above them and be heard, waiting for the word.
1998 The Beginning
It was at the end our senior year of high school that we began getting together in our first practice space, my parents basement, for long improvisational explorations. These would eventually lead to ideas and songs that would years later be recorded on our first release under the name ‘River’. It was a time of change for all of us… the end of high school, the beginning of… well, we didn’t know really. All we really knew was that we wanted to play music and develop as artists together. We’d play college parties and weddings and whatever we could get our hands on, slowly working on our repertoire and piecing together our sound.
1999-2003 The College Years
Shortly after locking down our lineup (Ryan Fechter on bass, Scott Weidner on drums, myself- Joel Van Horne on guitar/vocals, and Jason Schulten on guitar), I was accepted into the music program at the University of Colorado at Denver. Scott went to Colorado State in Ft. Collins for a degree in finance, Ryan began studying bass, also at UCD, and Jason briefly explored classical guitar at both CU Boulder and UCD. Things became more and more serious as music became the center of our lives and our friendship. It was during this period that River’s first two releases were put out independently: “Before The Storm” (an EP with 3 songs including “Alliterate” which we still play live) and our first full-length self-titled, “River”. We played a lot in the Denver area and began playing the surrounding college towns of Boulder, Evergreen, and Ft. Collins, slowly gaining a local following and evolving as a group.
2004 River Hits the Road
In the spring of 2004, we bought a van and booked our first major tour, hitting many cities in the western U.S. It was a milestone for us considering that we really had no idea what we were doing, save that we just needed to get out there and play our music. Smaller clubs in smaller towns led to the beginning of a new direction for us, playing all acoustic sets, made up of acoustic versions of old material and covering bluegrass and folk traditionals. I spent a month in Europe leading up to the tour, traveling on the trains alone with a guitar and a small backpack, penning many of the songs that we would soon record after the tour. During the late summer and fall months of 2004 we spent several weeks recording the music that would become our latest release “The Sky Above, The Earth Below”. We had split into two bands: acoustic River, and electric River, so we decided that we would explore both avenues resulting in the twin-disc concept.
2005 Big Changes
We released “The Sky Above, The Earth Below” in February and embarked on a two-month tour, hitting nearly every state west of Colorado. The following summer, coming as a big surprise, Jason announced his resignation to take a different path and as a result, River became a trio. This triggered a rapid change in the group, forcing us to switch gears and quickly come up with new material that was more trio-oriented, but happily, we didn’t miss a beat. A month later we toured the Northwest again and had the best tour of our career. The next big change came when we began looking for a fourth member, specifically, a piano player. We felt that it had to be a perfect fit… someone that could compliment the group on all levels, and in a short time, like it was almost fated in some way, we found him.
2006 The Present and Future
Chris Hatton is the newest member of River…a gifted keyboardist studying at CU Boulder with roots in jazz and classical. The future of the band looks brighter than ever and we have already caught a glimpse of the possibilities… it has been a long and exciting trip for all of us, but really, we feel it has only just begun…
-Joel Van Horne
