{"version":"https:\/\/jsonfeed.org\/version\/1","title":"Small Town Titans","home_page_url":"https:\/\/www.939waby.com\/blogs\/small-town-titans\/","feed_url":"https:\/\/www.939waby.com\/blogs\/small-town-titans\/json","items":[{"id":"o186-1971-68c2f3c540f21","url":"https:\/\/www.939waby.com\/blogs\/small-town-titans\/post\/a-conversation-with-small-town-titans-by-joey-boots\/","title":"A conversation with Small Town Titans by Joey Boots","date_published":"2025-09-11T16:07:00+00:00","summary":"This Monday, Empire Underground will have a thunderous roar emitting down Columbia Street and onto North Pearl. The powerful viral band Small Town Titans strolls through town. I got to have a chat with Jonny Ross, drummer from the band about what brought the band together, how they have worked on their sound and how they have gained fans through a strange time to be in a band. With their influences ranging from your classic rock heavy weights and\u00a0modern day\u00a0hard hitters, their unique sound produces a great live show.\u00a0Come down\u00a0and check out the\u00a0Small Town\u00a0Titans Monday September 15th","content_html":"<p>This Monday, Empire Underground will have a thunderous roar emitting down Columbia Street and onto North Pearl. The powerful viral band Small Town Titans strolls through town. I got to have a chat with Jonny Ross, drummer from the band about what brought the band together, how they have worked on their sound and how they have gained fans through a strange time to be in a band. With their influences ranging from your classic rock heavy weights and&nbsp;modern day&nbsp;hard hitters, their unique sound produces a great live show.&nbsp;Come down&nbsp;and check out the&nbsp;Small Town&nbsp;Titans Monday September 15th<\/p>\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Who is the best band or artist you have seen live?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p>There have been a handful over the years. If I had to pick one, seeing&nbsp;Aerosmith&nbsp;blew me away. The band has hits for days, AND they are a jam band live.<\/p>\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>You&rsquo;re a power trio with three standout voices&nbsp;and&nbsp;your sound is truly unique. How&nbsp;long have you&nbsp;been together,&nbsp;and how did you meet?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p>Hey, thanks for the kind words! We met in school at Lebanon Valley College a few&nbsp;years before the band was formed. We were music business majors. We became&nbsp;fast friends, and I really love that that happened first.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<p>We also realized there was&nbsp;definitely a high level of work ethic we had with anything we were doing together&nbsp;in school. We just gelled.<\/p>\n\n<p>When we decided to actually give being in a band&nbsp;a go,&nbsp;we just knew we weren&rsquo;t going to half-ass it. The band formed in May 4, 2011, and here we still are!<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%;\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/W0lcyloZ_lQ?rel=0\" style=\"top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; border: 0;\" allowfullscreen scrolling=\"no\" allow=\"accelerometer *; clipboard-write *; encrypted-media *; gyroscope *; picture-in-picture *; web-share *;\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n<p><strong>The first I heard of&nbsp;Small Town&nbsp;Titans, as I am sure many others did, was through&nbsp;your mind blowing&nbsp;Youtube&nbsp;video of &ldquo;You&rsquo;re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch&rdquo;. With over 1.3 million combined followers on your socials, you&rsquo;ve clearly mastered&nbsp;online self-promotion. How did you maneuver this unorthodox way of gaining&nbsp;popularity?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p>Flying by the seat of our pants! We immediately did everything we could to&nbsp;capitalize on that song&rsquo;s success. I remember us signing literally thousands of&nbsp;CDs that we were giving away for free. We just wanted people to have the music. We would get together once a week for hours just to sign CDs!<\/p>\n\n<p>As we saw that the song was going viral, we could see that things were going to&nbsp;change for us. More opportunities we&rsquo;re going to be within our reach. We&nbsp;definitely learned quickly not to sweat the small stuff. You just have to stay open&nbsp;minded, surround yourself with the right team, and take everything as it comes. I&nbsp;can&rsquo;t stress enough the power of collaboration a band should have off the stage,&nbsp;especially when you&rsquo;re all in it together tackling new things.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%;\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BPMN_p2mYio?rel=0\" style=\"top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; border: 0;\" allowfullscreen scrolling=\"no\" allow=\"accelerometer *; clipboard-write *; encrypted-media *; gyroscope *; picture-in-picture *; web-share *;\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n<p><strong>What can fans coming to the show expect when you get on stage?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p>We&rsquo;re loud and full of energy for sure! Haha! I love hearing from people that we&nbsp;sound bigger than we should for a&nbsp;three-piece&nbsp;rock band. We&rsquo;re also quite&nbsp;old school&nbsp;in a way. I don&rsquo;t even play to a metronome, and there&rsquo;s no backing tracks&nbsp;of any kind. We literally play our&nbsp;instruments&nbsp;and sing. Having the natural&nbsp;energy from performing that way is really fun for us.<\/p>\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Who do you draw influence from musically?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p>We&rsquo;re definitely hitting &ldquo;divorced dad rock&rdquo; territory with what we grew up with I&nbsp;believe. Haha. Lots of grunge, too. Phil&rsquo;s a big Soundgarden and Audioslave guy.<\/p>\n\n<p>I love my fair share of bands that were dominating the space in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n\n<p>Nickelback is a big one for me, plus&nbsp;modern-daybands holding it down right now&nbsp;like The Struts and Mammoth. There&rsquo;s also definitely a love for the classics too.<\/p>\n\n<p>Sabbath, Zeppelin, Queen, all the GOATs. Oh, and can&rsquo;t forget about the Foo&nbsp;Fighters!<\/p>\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>I love the &ldquo;Will it Riff&rdquo; videos, how did that concept come about, and what has&nbsp;been the best thing that Riffs?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p>We were brainstorming about something new and different we could do on social&nbsp;media, and one of those ideas became &ldquo;Will It Riff?&rdquo;. We tried it out, and the very&nbsp;first one exploded. We were a bit blown away again&nbsp;haha. The best thing that riffs? Hmm&hellip;good question. I get a kick out of finding the&nbsp;most absurd stuff now. We just did a soap containing&nbsp;actual&nbsp;used SydneySweeney bathwater. Yeah&hellip;<\/p>\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Besides Albany, where else are you excited to play on this tour?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p>We can&rsquo;t wait to play at Empire Underground for the first time! Some other big&nbsp;firsts for us on this tour are The Machine Shop in Flint, MI, and the increasingly&nbsp;massive Louder Than Life in Louisville, KY!<\/p>\n\n<p><img alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/mmo.aiircdn.com\/186\/68c2f28bbb03e.jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n\n<p><strong>One of my favorite covers of yours is&nbsp;Hunger Strike&nbsp;with Matt James, selfish&nbsp;request here, hook up with the boys in Blacktop Mojo and come on back to&nbsp;Albany!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p>Thank you! They came through our neck of the woods and we were able to play a&nbsp;show together. We hit it off with those boys immediately. As soon as I heard that&nbsp;band and Matt, I knew we would get along. I had an idea one day to cover thatsong with the two of them, and Matt was into it immediately. It was pretty&nbsp;painless. We&rsquo;re really happy with how that turned out.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%;\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wX6vxYcw03s?rel=0\" style=\"top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; border: 0;\" allowfullscreen scrolling=\"no\" allow=\"accelerometer *; clipboard-write *; encrypted-media *; gyroscope *; picture-in-picture *; web-share *;\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n<p><br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>What does the future look like for Small Town Titans?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p>I wish I had a direct answer for you&nbsp;haha. We are definitely itching to get back on&nbsp;the road and get the bug again. And&nbsp;of course&nbsp;there&rsquo;s some great material we&rsquo;ve&nbsp;been working on for years! Plus,there&rsquo;s this third side of the coin now with&nbsp;making content.&nbsp;We certainly aren&rsquo;t done. Sorry for the shameless plug for the&nbsp;new single!<\/p>\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<p><strong>Thanks for taking the time to talk with WABY and we will see you Monday September 15th&nbsp;at Empire Underground.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p>My pleasure! Thanks for the questions and let&rsquo;s definitely hang at Empire!<\/p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/smalltowntitans.com\/\">https:\/\/smalltowntitans.com<\/a><\/p>","image":"https:\/\/mmo.aiircdn.com\/186\/68c2f38ea934b.jpg","author":{"name":"Joey Boots"},"_mobile_inapp_url":"https:\/\/www.939waby.com\/_app_pages\/stations\/5262\/blogs\/posts\/82166"}]}