By Terri Simons - contributing writer

PA ~Who are the members of RWS and what is your musical background?

Chris Rodler : The core of RWS is my brother Brett on drums and myself on guitar and bass. Mike Ohm is our session guitar player and he's responsible for the solos that you hear on the CD. Brett and I are self taught for the most part but we both had a few years of lessons early in our musical careers. Mike Ohm is a graduate of G.I.T., the guitar school in Hollywood, California.


PA ~ Have you been in other bands?

Chris Rodler : I've been in a ton of bands over the years. Of course when you first start playing that is the first thing that you want to do, join a band. I've been in a lot of cover bands over the years. As far as bands performing original music, I have been in quite a few of those too but a lot of them have a few members in common so they are not considered completely different bands by a lot of people. I've been involved in all of the bands with CDs released on the PMM label like RH Factor, Leger de Main, Andeavor, Gratto, Mythologic and Razor Wire Shrine.

PA ~ Who / what are some of your musical inspirations?

Chris Rodler : It is kind of funny to think about how many artists have helped inspire you over the years. I mean my earliest influences would include AC / DC, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and other hard rock bands of that time. After that, progressive rock and shredding guitar players were a big influence on me. Bands like Marillion, Rush and Yes along with Yngwie Malmsteen, Tony MacAlpine and Alan Holdsworth were all very big for me. Somewhere along the way, early thrash and prog metal had a large impact too. Slayer, Metallica, Anthrax and Megadeth along with Dream Theater and Fates Warning all spent a lot of time in my walkman. Jazz / rock / fusion played a big role in my development too. Bands like Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jean Luc-Ponty, Al DiMeola and Return to Forever were all pretty important.

PA ~ How did you become interested in music?

Chris Rodler : It was just a natural thing I guess. I was really into baseball when I was young and for whatever reason when I was about 13 I developed an interest in music and guitar in particular. After I got one to play, that is all I did with my time, practice guitar. Musically it was probably AC / DC's live album, "If  You Want Blood", that really got to me into guitar playing specifically. I remember playing that album so many times and just wondering how Angus made those glorious sounds.

PA ~ Do you perform outside of your hometown?

Chris Rodler : Well, in the cover bands that I am involved with we certainly play out of town, sure. But with the original acts on the PMM label are unable to perform at this point because we simply can not find the players needed to put a show on right now. We've been searching since 1993 for additional musicians to get involved in our bands but we've come up empty time and time again. The last band that I performed original music out with was Andeavor where I was the keyboard player. We did play a show or two in Cleveland with a band called Antithesis around 1999 and we did a large show in Baltimore called the Powermad Festival in that same year. Other than that not so much.

PA ~ What has the highlight of your career been?

Chris Rodler : That's a tough question to find an answer to. I mean, no single event sticks out for me really. I'd say just the fact that we're still doing this after so many years and still love to do it is kind of a highlight. Every CD has its own success stories and each one has "highlights" I guess. Most recently we signed a deal with an independent record label called Lone Wolf Music to release our Razor Wire Shrine CD so that is pretty exciting for us. Also, getting interviews in high profile magazines or getting positive reviews from journalists are nice achievements. Every little triumph we have with PMM is a highlight I guess.

PA ~ What are some musical goals you hope to accomplish in the future?

Chris Rodler : Musical goals and career goals are not the same thing, so musically, Brett and I are always looking to write music that is original sounding and musically challenging to perform and record. I have no aspirations at becoming the "best" guitar player or whatever but originality is definitely a motivating factor to keep writing and releasing music. I would like to bring more attention to the art of playing rhythm guitar. Lead guitar is great, and I love many of the players that express themselves that way but to me, I am hooked on the almighty riff. So, bringing attention to that aspect of writing is important to me. I'd like to achieve an original guitar style that listeners recognize as my own. We'd also like to get out and perform the RWS material live.

PA ~ What are your other interests outside of music?

Chris Rodler : To be honest, there aren't that many. Music and music related activities take up most of my time. I do enjoy keeping in decent physical shape and I exercise a few hours a day. I am a Law and Order junkie so I watch quite a bit of that to relax. I enjoy spending time with my wife at the end of the day and we have three cats that provide a lot of entertainment. And I do watch a lot of baseball in the summer and still enjoy that as a past-time too. But, when all is said and done, it is pretty tough to take my mind off of music. If I am not writing or recording music, I am probably listening to music or reading a music magazine of some sort. And I am in the broadcasting industry so I am listening to music for my job too. You get the idea:)

PA ~ Is there a prog scene in the area of Erie, PA?

Chris Rodler : This takes one word, No.

PA ~ What prog websites do you recommend?

Chris Rodler : There are so many great web sites devoted to progressive rock. My favorites are ghostland.com, prog4you.com, progressiveears.com and progressiveworld.com If you hit those four you can find the rest just by going to their link pages.

PA ~ How many younger people seem interested in this genre?

Chris Rodler : The typical prog listener seems to be a bit older, 30-60 I guess, but judging from recent event attendance and the increasing popularity of certain bands I'd say that the interest in progressive music by a college age audience is growing. That is what we need to keep it all going of course so that is great to see. Also, there is a strong musician audience for prog music simply due to the musical complexity inherent to the genre. It is interesting to listen to for the musician's ear.

PA ~ What cd's do you have available, and how can one find out more about RWS?

Chris Rodler : We have several CDs available and you can find out more about all of them at our website at www.pmm-music.net  You can also buy most of our music from great prog friendly retailers like Laser's Edge, Kinesis, ZNR Records or Synphonic Records.

PA ~ Tell us about PMM.

Chris Rodler : PMM is Progressive Music Management and I formed this indie label to release my projects in 1994. Since then, we have released quite a few records and try to get involved in helping other progressive musicians we run into. We have a pretty good reputation in the prog scene for releasing quality records and we generally have the respect from the other companies working in the genre. For now, the label is just concentrating on releasing the CDs that I am involved with musically but at some point is would be great to branch out and sign other interesting bands. The main goal at this point for PMM is to secure licensing deals for our upcoming releases.