Rival Summers
Interview and Words by Annette Hansen
When Leo Bautista started a project called Rival Summers at the age of 15, he was just a kid with a story to share and music as his means to share it. He never could have dreamed the journey he was going to take with Rival Summers. Sitting in his car on a Friday afternoon, Bautista reflects on what exactly Rival Summers has meant to him for the last eight years.
“I get really sappy thinking about all this,” Bautista relays.
While in many ways Rival Summers is Bautista’s job and making music is what he loves, in the years that have followed since the project’s birth, he’s found that what he does as Rival Summers means so much more that making a living creating music.
“Rival Summers is my outlet and my vehicle and it’s an extension of who I am,” he says.
In the beginning, Bautista created Rival Summers as his own solo project, but over the years, the pop outfit from Michigan saw a number of members suit up and move on. Most recently, the project worked as a duo featuring Bautista and drummer Sam Ridgell. On June 6, Bautista announced on the band’s blog that Ridgell would be leaving Rival Summers. Bautista would be going it alone once again.
“[Ridgell] got offered this amazing opportunity,” Bautista explains. “That was definitely a difficult situation with the decision he had to make after being in this band for four years.”
Though Bautista feels the loss of his bandmate and friend, he doesn’t see this move as a setback for his future.
“It’s a full circle thing,” he says. “It feels like after the last four years with trying a lot of different things and having a lot of different people in and out of this band, with Rival Summers being my solo project again, there’s a lot of freedom.”
While this wasn’t Bautista’s first go as a solo artist, he couldn’t help but find himself a bit disillusioned at the prospect of taking on the project all on his own. At first, the unknown was a bit daunting.
“I was just really, honestly scared of what this would look like, and if I could really do a good job going it alone again,” Bautista describes. “Initially, I was super scared and unsure of how I was supposed to do it, but at this point now, I’m so excited. The uncertainty isn’t scary anymore. It’s a lot more inspiring.”
Prior to Ridgell’s departure from Rival Summers, the duo released their third full-length album, Undeniable. The album was released after being funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign last fall. With this album, the two decided to step away from their home in Detroit and record in California with producer Jesse Barrera. The album was not only a triumph for the band in numbers with the campaign, but also with the message they were hoping to share with these songs.
“We spent three weeks at [Barrera’s] home studio immersed in the whole project from like 10 AM to whenever we decided to finish it, usually around like midnight or so, every day except for Sundays,” Bautista explains. “It really pushed the songwriting and the musicianship.”
And it was the songwriting with Undeniable that Bautista says he wanted to hone in the most.
“When you look at all our other records and the EPs in the middle, the majority of those songs are written about relationships and mostly about just girls,” he laughs.
For him, this new album needed to be so much more.
“With Undeniable, it was important that we wrote songs that were going a lot deeper into the heart of things,” he says. “The track ‘Undeniable’ talks about understanding what your dreams are, what your purpose is and holding onto that tight with a stubborn grip and not letting go even though everybody else doesn’t understand.”
Even now months later, after so much has changed for Rival Summers, Bautista finds himself continuously inspired by the record. In many ways, the message Bautista wanted to send with Undeniable is a reflection of what he is going through as he enters into the next phase of Rival Summers.
“This record, Undeniable, is a record that I really needed to write,” Bautista expresses, “It was a record that I needed to write to tell myself that everything is going to be alright. That no matter what, I know who I am and I know where I’m going. I know what it is that I am meant to do.”
Despite all the ups, downs and changes that Bautista has faced as Rival Summers, it’s that core belief in what this project means to him and the purpose it gives him that drives him forward. On this Friday afternoon, Bautista excitedly reexamines what Rival Summers has meant to him and why it still matters so much.
“Rival Summers is an extension,” he says. “I feel like the only way that art is impactful and the only way that art is important is if it’s an extension of who you are.”
