The Rock the Campus Tour kicked off on the UA main stage on the mall at noon on Feb. 6. This four day tour started at the UA and will make its way to Arizona State University and University of California-Irvine and will end at Cal State-Long Beach. The tour, which benefits the 100 Club of Arizona and California, features Society Falls, Divided Minds and Static Friction.
All three bands are under the record label Green Kite Records. Kerry Oliver owns the four-year-old label and believes in the hard work of the bands she has signed.
A portion of the proceeds from the tour go to the 100 Club, which benefits public safety officers who are injured or killed on duty.
Oliver is still heartened by the 19 fallen firefighters killed in a tragic wildfire in Yarnell, Arizona in 2013.
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“The co-owner (of the 100 Club) said they still need help past this, so we’ve dedicated ourselves to help them,” Oliver said.
Josh Peters of Divided Minds is a cancer survivor and wants to give back any way he can.
“I’m supporting the 100 club just to help everyone out, that’s what the label is about,” said Peters.
Oliver isn’t only dedicated to helping people in the community, she wants to see her artists grow and make it big. She said she wants them to come back and help other artists down the road.
“We want to better music and better society,” she said. “We make our musicians promise to come back and help another band. We look for musicians that work really hard.”
The artists are happy to be on a label that promotes positivity and hard work.
Paul Lapitsky of Static Friction has been with the label for two years now and is still happy to be a part of the experience.
“Green Kite, to me, is an artist development rather than a label,” he said. “They’re teaching these younger kids not to make the same mistakes that I’ve made. Not being able to be on tour and being financially stable, talking to the right people and knowing how to protect yourself in a business situation. It’s a blessing.”
Green Kite Records promotes positivity in their artists. They support their artists and give constructive advice to shape the music.
Peters said he loves the label because they’re always honest with him.
Brenda Cabral, the lead singer of Society Falls, likes that the label is straight forward with her. She said it helps to motivate her.
Lapitsky said he just wants to have a good time making music. He wants everyone else to have a good time and make good music too.
“Memories, that’s all I really care about,” Lapitsky said.
Stage presence is most important to the artists. Each band has their own style on stage.
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“My favorite part of performing is sharing the music,” Cabral said. “When someone comes up to me and relates to the music is a huge honor to us. It’s off the hook. It’s really important we try to keep it positive at all times. We make sure to always have a stage presence. That’s the goal of every show.”
The label looks for hardworking artists and they recruit from all genres. They have an old-school approach when it comes to scouting.
“We research old fashion, our scouts take one to two months to dissect a band,” Oliver said. “We look for great songwriters, the rest of it we can fix. Our bands are in all different stages of growth and its awesome to work with forward thinking artists.”
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