Please list all of your band members and their roles in the band.

Reach The Shore is composed of :

· Antonio Rendina - Guitar

· Chris Kuhn - Singer

· Damaso Jaivenois - Guitar

· Gil Dieu - Drums

· Thibaud Piron - Bass Guitar

· Sebastien Kuhn - Sound Engineer Studio & Live

For starters, what bands were you guys a part of prior to Reach The Shore? How long has the band been around?

We started Reach The Shore early 2012 and we just released our second album ‘Hikaya’ in March 2017 ! We all had several bands before Reach The Shore except for Gil, the drummer. He is Thibaud’s brother and it’s his first band.

· Thibaud's former bands : Plethora (Alternative Rock) - Forget About Yesterday (Metalcore/Hardcore) - Arkham Disease (Deathcore) - When Blood Burns (Metalcore)

· Antonio's former bands : Planey (deathcore) - Forget About Yesterday - When Blood Burns

· Chris's former bands : Suasion (metalcore)

· Damaso’s former bands : Blast Segment (metal/hardcore) - Forget About Yesterday

· Gil’s former bands : his cellar

As you can see, we all met in other bands before Reach The Shore, except for Chris who joined the band after his creation. At the beginning we were writing instrumental songs without lyrics until we found a singer in 2013, who also was in a previous band with most of us before.

We released our first song "Nothing To Do Here" in 2014. This is where it all began and where we started to attract attention in the Belgian metalcore scene!

What’s the origin of that name and have you changed the band’s name before?

Reach The Shore was our first choice for the band’s name. To us, Reach The Shore means “to achieve our goals” or in other words, reaching the end of a journey.

The spirit of the road we take is as important as the goal itself. We’ve known since the beginning that we needed to work very hard to achieve our goals.

Who writes your songs? What are the main themes or topics for most of your songs and do you think these topics will change over time?

Damaso writes the songs. He’s usually the guy who comes up with the ideas. Then Gil writes his drum parts based on the approach Damaso explains to him. And finally the whole band help him finish the songs.

Usually, the theme is about everyday life or a way of thinking. We are really open minded and we like to question everything. It’s important for us to open discussion and dialogue around certain topics.

We did wrote a one-off song once called "SAFE" after the tragic events that occurred in Paris and in Brussels. It's a call to people who are not able to live their life in such a situation of crisis. Life goes on and we need to stand up against terrorism and brutality.

What bands are currently inspiring the music that you’re making?

Our influences are really different and complementary in the band. Indeed, we all love progressive stuff like Porcupine Tree - Dream Theater or even most recently The Afterimage - Erra - Northlane. We have also some influence from electronic music and rap. For Thibaud, it’s more like Linkin Park - Metallica - Queen - Guns n’ Roses. Gil is a huge fan of Texas In July (rip), Erra and Polaris. These are the kind of bands that put out a monstrous amount of energy in their music and they inspire a lot of his drum parts.

Was there a particular band/artist or concert that inspired you to start a band?

Every show inspires us to make music and to keep doing what we do, so I guess this is also what inspired us to start a band.

Now I don’t know if there is one in particular, but Gil remembers August Burns Red playing in Brussels. It was insane, their intro, their playing, their energy. Everything was so awesome. And you can only be more and more motivated to play music when you see such an excellent band with a such excellent performance play in front of you!

What do you do to prepare for a show? Any flexing, exercises, etc …

Our singer Chris usually warms up his voice through funny sessions of bizarre warm up exercises and he usually steps aside to rap and scream.

Gil at the drums uses a towel and a chair. As the drummer, he has the most physical job in the band and it's really needed. He need to warm up his hands, legs and neck. He then plays a "air drum cover" of any song from Thy Art Is Murder.

Tony usually plays on his favorite guitar.

And finally, Thibaud & Damaso warm up by drinking some beers before the show, ah!

What has been the biggest highlight of the band’s career so far?

We won a first price to play a Belgian Festival called Miner Fest. We had the chance to share the stage with bands like Being As An Ocean, Stick To Your Guns, Carcer City and many more.

Almost every show for us is a highlight moment for us. Our preferred part of being a band is playing shows! We recently played a sold-out release show for our album Hikaya in one of the biggest venue in Brussels, at Ancienne Belgique (AB). We were glad to play our new songs in front of a insanely motivated crowd singing our songs! Those moments comfort us in our career as a band because it's not always easy.

If you could tour with any bands, past or present, who would they be and why?

The dream for any band would be to play the last US Vans Warped Tour. Unfortunately, we now know that it is not going to happen!

We’d say that a tour with Northlane, Erra, Invent Animate, The Afterimage and Reach The Shore would be the biggest accomplishment of our lives.

For Gil : Erra, Northlane, Polaris & Silent Planet.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

Our conceptual album Hikaya (which means “fable, story”) was released in early 2017 and we made great efforts to release a music video to illustrate each of the songs. These music videos bring the whole album to life and depict what we cannot through words alone. If you watch them, you could say that they are like any other music videos, but dig a bit deeper and you’ll see the kind of story that we wanted to share. You can watch it on YouTube, listen to it Spotify!

You can find everything on our website: https://www.reachtheshore.com/

Thank you very much!