Rains Frontman on Pressure of Playing Before Hatebreed

Indiana rock band Rains got the chance of a lifetime to be a part of the ‘Share the Welt’ tour this year with Five Finger Death Punch, All That Remains and Hatebreed. Singer Jeff Rains explains that even though it’s a great experience, in the beginning it was quite overwhelming.

“It was really scary at first, you’ve heard our single, it’s not nearly as heavy as the rest of the bands. The only reason we had agreed to the tour at first was because we thought we were gonna be before Rev Theory so we thought that’ll be a good buffer between us and Hatebreed,” says Rains.

“Then all of a sudden, last minute they’re like, “Oh, by the way Rev Theory isn’t on any of it,” and we had already accepted the tour. So I’m like, 'Holy crap, we’re opening up for Hatebreed. [Laughs] This could be bad.' The first night we were scared s--tless pretty much, it’s a huge tour, everything was thrown together, we had two rehearsals with two new band members but within a week, everybody’s a big family now. “

He goes on to say, “We’ve learned a lot and grown a lot, if you would’ve seen the first show to today, it’s a huge, huge change. We spent the past five years doing the smaller club tours, we didn’t really know how to play in an arena or anything like that or how to control the crowd. It took a few shows to work out those kinks but now I think it’s really running smooth, we know how to work a crowd which is cool, it’s a very good feeling and it’s fun to have that confidence on stage because I never had that before, we just kind of went out there and winged it, so it’s really exciting now.”

The ‘Share the Welt’ tour is almost over. To see Rains and the rest of this talented lineup, go here for a list of remaining dates. Stay tuned for our full interview with Rains frontman Jeff Rains.