Anthony Raneri

By Jackie Cular

Anthony Raneri, lead singer of Bayside, sets out on his own on a solo tour to support his EP, “New Cathedrals.”

TheCuttingEdgeCulture: “What inspired you to make a solo record? It’s very different from your work with Bayside.”

Anthony Raneri: As you said it’s very different from the Bayside stuff; I have a very eclectic taste in music. I am really in to country music, I’m really in to ska and reggae and tons and tons of different music. And a lot of times I do kind of incorporate that in to the Bayside stuff, I think that’s what gives us of a little different sound. But I also want to explore writing straight country songs and straight reggae songs and kind of whatever, and I have been for years i always have but nobody has heard stuff like that. There’s stuff like that just sitting on my hard drive, or on four track cassette tapes that nobody has ever heard before. I figured people might like it. I wrote the song ‘Please Don’t Leave’ seven years ago because it was just sitting around and nobody had heard it before. And I wrote another song like about two or three weeks before I went to record so that has ranged from over the course of seven years.”

TCEC: “What would you attribute your new sound to in relation to your many influences in music?”

AR: “I didn't really want to have any boundaries with the record the thing with Bayside. I mean I love how Bayside sounds everybody in the band does and I think our fans do .too. I do want to be one of those bands that got us into different kinds of music by incorporating that in to our sound. I feel like I still love rock music, I love punk music and I also love to make it and I don't think that I ever want to mess with that formula we have. So anyways, those songs are the best of what we had and I didn't want to pigeon hole my solo career as a country artist or that I am a singer song writer or reggae artist. Whatever I thought was a good song I put on there.”

TCEC: “The message on the EP sounds more positive, is there a personal message there?”

AR: “I try to write a lot of songs that are a little more hopeful and positive I aim for that but I also do just write whatever is happening in my life at the time. I could look at any of the Bayside records and it puts me in the place I was at that time. I do try to always have a hopeful outlook on everything no matter how horrible it may seem. I always to try and have light at the end. That’s how I feel in my life, like I always try to look at the light that’s at the end. I try to incorporate that in to all the songs. “

TCEC: “What can we look forward to tonight in listening to all the new songs from your EP?”

 AR: “I try to please making music and playing shows are two different things. It’s tto different aspects of my job--making music , I’m going to do what I want and I will always try and stay conscious of making everything Ii do good. If it’s good then people are going to like it, so that’s that. But when it comes to playing shows I really kind of feed off of the crowd and try to give them what I think they are there for. So for these new shows, I love to play all my solo songs, I’m really excited about it. I know that people want Bayside songs as well, so what I do is that I’m doing about half the sets as bayside songs, and 25 percent EP songs, and the other 25 percent are covers.” [Raneri played “Rainbow Connection” by Kermit the Frog.]

TCEC: “The title of the tour [Where’s the band?] spurns the question--what’s the rest of Bayside up to?”

AR: “We knew a head of time that we were all going to have the first six months off of the year, so there were some things that people had put on the back burner that we were waiting for a nice big chunk of time to dive in to. I watched the solo career and kind of like sitting around in like some way or another for a long time and now I finally had the time to really go and give it a shot and Nick is in the middle of launching a clothing company, and now he's taking the time to kind of prep all that because we’re gonna get on Warped Tour this summer and that will essentially be the launch of his clothing company. And Jack just started getting guitar lessons so he's working on that now which he's really excited about. And Chris is apprenticing to be a barber; because that’s something he's always wanted to do. So in these six months we had off he would go to the barber shop every day and hang out with a master barber and get his license. I’ve been touring full time since I was eighteen, so there has been a lot of things in the twelve years that have come up in which I would have liked to do but couldn't. Once the summer comes and Bayside does Warped Tour and I also do [a solo set], it kick starts Bayside again.”

TCEC: “Fill in this sentence for me, life without music?”

AR: “…Is not worth living.”

Bayside will be doing a full set at Vans Warped Tour; Anthony Raneri will also be doing an acoustic set on a smaller stage. He is also currently embarking on a second solo tour to support “New Cathedrals.”