How do you recover from the death of a beloved vocalist? It’s a question many bands have had to face, and fewer have managed to satisfyingly answer. So when Power Trip frontman Riley Gale passed away in August 2020 it was immense blow to a band who’d only just begun to really hit their stride.
In the wake of Riley’s passing, the band were nominated for a Grammy for Best Metal Performance for a live rendition of Executioner’s Tax – surely one of the best pure-blooded metal songs of the 21st Century – but for a while it looked like that might be it.
But now, Power Trip are back, with new music to boot. Almost three years since they returned to playing live, with Fugitive vocalist Seth Gilman now on vocals, the Texan thrashers have released two new singles in Precinct 3 and Scavenger. In an exclusive interview with Metal Hammer, they admit this is just the beginning for a full-scale comeback in 2027, when they’ll release a new record. Hammer caught up with guitarist Blake Ibanez to talk about the new songs, how they approached their comeback and why they still think of Riley Gale in everything they do.
It’s incredibly exciting to be speaking about new Power Trip music again.
“Obviously it’s a long time coming! We haven’t put out new music in almost 10 years, so it’s been a really long time since we put anything out. We’re really excited though, we worked really hard on this new music and put everything we had into it. The whole time we’ve been doing it, it’s felt like Power Trip.”
Did you approach the songs in the same way as before?
“It gives us the same feeling we had working on the other albums, though obviously it does feel different because we’re missing one of our creative partners who’d been so instrumental in everything we did. But you know, I learned so much working with Riley and its helped me so much as a songwriter to have been in a band with him.
Starting another band a few years ago [Fugitive] with Seth [Gilmore, new Power Trip vocalist] and the chemistry I’ve got with [Chris] Ulsh on drums, it all just felt natural. We’ve picked up where we left off – it always felt like there was unfinished business we had to attend to.”
This is just a taste of what’s to come.
Blake Ibanez
There’s a story you shared a while back that you actually recorded “an album’s worth of stuff” with another vocalist but it didn’t work out…
“Yeah. There was music we’ve left behind in the past, some of that got reworked and re-recorded, and I’m just really happy that happened. When everything went south [after Riley’s passing] we wanted a sense of closure, but also to one day be able to realise those ideas in the right way. We’re the kind of guys where, if we couldn’t write good songs, we just wouldn’t play music. If we weren’t doing something that felt right to us, we also wouldn’t do it. So reforming the band and putting stuff out under the name, it was like, ‘We’ll only do this if we do it right.’
We recorded a bunch of stuff that we’d written around 2019/2020, but it didn’t come together. We’re really fortunate to be in the circumstances we’re in, that one of my great friends, Seth Gilmore, has been in our orbit for years. He’s been sitting right next to me the whole time I’ve been in a band, you know? I didn’t really even think about [him joining] because we were so close.”
What made Seth the right guy for the job?
“Right from the first songs we wrote together [in Fugitive], you could tell we’d got chemistry, but it was like, to get to where we are now has taken years of writing together. So then when its like, ‘Let’s make a Power Trip record’ the answer becomes, ‘Well, of course.’ It’s come together naturally. That doesn’t mean it’s not hard to write songs – especially in this day and age – but I feel really good about what we’ve done and there’s a lot of new music in the pipeline. This is just a taste of what’s to come.”
It’s taken almost six years since Riley’s passing to put out recorded output again. I guess you must’ve had those “Do we even want to do this?” conversations?
“It’s not easy. Every decision we’ve made has been thought out. It was kind of between me and Ulsh to be like, ‘Can we write songs?’ In the back of my mind I think I knew we’d eventually figure it out, but without a singer you can’t do anything.
All I know is how to write music. The only way I can get out of this and feel better about everything with this loss would be to write some music. It makes the loss feel less… immeasurable, I guess. I’m still mourning the loss of my friend, my bandmate and I just want to be with all my friends and do what we did for so long. I’ve been playing in bands since I was 15, 16 years old. The only way out of all that was to write music.”
Any time I write, I think about what Riley would say or do.
Blake Ibanez
Were you surprised by the amount of love the band – and Riley – got in the wake of his passing?
“I wouldn’t say ‘Surprised’. I could tell people thought highly of us in our world, and Riley was always a great frontman and so recognisable. It showed just how large our community had grown though and even now, the hardcore scene we came from has grown so much more popular.
All that was brewing back then and it was amazing to see all the love Riley got, though as you’re going through hell its like, ‘This is nice but I wish it wasn’t happening’. We just wanted to do what we had been doing. But we all miss him – it didn’t feel real when everything happened, it was like a blur. It took a long time to come to terms with everything.
I’ll always give credit to Riley for all the stuff we did together and everything he taught me about songwriting. I’m so thankful we got to spend the years we did together and every time we write a new song, I think about him. Any time I write anything, I think about what he’d say or what he’d do. That’s the yard stick for how I write. I hope we capture that same spirit and make people happy. We want to keep waving the banner and keep his name alive.”
There must also be a sense of, “We don’t want the last chapter of this band to be the death of our friend?”
“That is exactly how we feel. ‘Death… that’s gonna be it?’ We put out our last record and it wasn’t even three years later that Riley passed away. Those songs he’d helped us write, with these amazing lyrics, I don’t want that to be it. We should play those songs, otherwise there’s gonna be generations who’ll never have heard of us and that’s just sad. It’s not a good way to finish the story.
When doing this, its like, ‘This sounds like us, but it’s a new and different thing.’ People will appreciate that I don’t think any of these songs is just a retread of the past. We’re very careful not to just do what we’ve done before, repeat ourselves and say the same things. We wanted to keep things moving. If you liked our band in the past, I think you’ll like this.”
Precinct 3 and Scavenger are available to stream now. Power Trip’s new album is expected in 2027.
