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Washington (live) - From the debut album "Soul Tide" 

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There’s a good chance that you’ve seen the three members of Ringo Star playing guitar somewhere in East Lansing.

Drawing inspiration from the many natural recesses of MSU’s campus and the city, band members Chad Golda, Dylan Rogers and Mike McConeghy form a trio that touches on many different sounds to comprise a sort of psychedelic folk.

Golda, an MSU telecommunication, information studies and media senior, plays the drums and bass while Rogers and McConeghy, both former MSU students, play guitar, with Rogers also on synthesizer. The trio shares vocal duties.

After releasing their first record, “Soul Tide,” for Rack & Ruin Records on July 31, the band has been playing live shows, both on stage and around the city of East Lansing.

Most recently, they played during Welcome Week in the alleyway by their house on Lexington Avenue for students who happened to pass by.

State News How did you three meet?

Dylan Rogers We all lived in the dorms together at Mayo Hall. The first night we all met, we were just kind of exchanging music that we had all done. I showed them some music I had done in high school and they showed me what they had been working on.

Chad Golda It was like magic happened (laughing).

DR Magic happened and we played music all night. I think when you’re with your best friends all the time, nothing but good things happen.

SN On your band’s Web site, it says that you try to work nature and humanity into your music. How do you guys try and do that?

CG Nature, just by trying to make sounds like you’re outdoors, like you’re running through a field. That’s why I like piping the crickets in because when you’re playing that live, everyone’s just like, “Ohh.” I think the humanity comes more from the lyrics.

DR I think everybody goes through the kinds of things that we write about, you know, heartbreak and weariness of living in cities full of kids.

CG We used to live on the Red Cedar River, and we’d just wake up and look at that every single day, and that just felt really inspiring.

SN How did you end up getting signed by Rack & Ruin Records?

CG They contacted me. We don’t have a MySpace, we didn’t want to have a MySpace, we’re not trying to get out of the digital realm because we like it and it’s all free. I posted up on a couple message boards and the owner, Dean, e-mailed me saying he heard our stuff and thought it would be cool for us to put an album together.

SN Where can people find your music?

CG Rackandruinrecords.com and I made our Web site off the personal MSU space, so you can search for us there.

- lansinglowdown.com

On a découvert il n’y pas si longtemps tous les bienfaits du netlabel Rack and Ruin records et on a pu apprécier notamment toute la diversité et la richesse de son catalogue. Une diversité qui s’exprime ici encore avec un album de folk music, genre pas si souvent que ça représenté sur la scène net audio pour que l’on n’y s’intéresse pas d’un peu plus près… Et en plus ça tombe bien car c’est très bien !
Colocataire et partageant certains idée sur la musique et le vie en général, Chad Golda, Mike McConeghy et Dylan Rogers décident très vite de se mettre à composer ensemble et a aller tester leurs chansons auprès du public notamment dans les allées de l’université du Michigan. Résultat sort en juillet 2008 une collection de folk-songs inspirés sous le nom de Ringo Star. Et très franchement c’est du top niveau. Will Oldam et Bill Callahan n’ont qu’à bien se tenir et Devandra Banhart peut aller se recoiffer car ces trois là ont des arguments et valent très largement le détour malgré la pochette de l’album un peu ratée.

- netlabelsrevue.blogspot.com