Rausch

"Talented dude, interesting music…!" tweeted then-Guns N' Roses guitarist Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, upon hearing self-titled debut album of RAUSCH. Little did he know the road traveled to get just that far...

After devoting the better part of his early years to the piano, namesake frontman Doug Rausch earned his Ithaca College music degree & plunged straight into self-imposed exile. Disillusioned by how mainstream music had all but completely plateaued by the early 2000’s – culminating in an eye-opening stint at Sony Music Studios - he found himself in a decade-long campaign chasing a long-held musical vision of his own. Aside from select live engagements - including an invitation from Dream Theater's Jordan Rudess to perform at the first KEYFEST - all else was sacrificed.

Early on, the first member to join was Philadelphia bassist Joe Fine. Meeting at his family’s sandwich shop, a particularly generous offering of hot peppers made quite the impression on Rausch; he's been on board ever since. Then came a fortuitous encounter in NYC with virtuoso guitarist Gary Wehrkamp (Shadow Gallery, Outside the Wall). Even more unifying than the bond created over their mutual love for all things augmented-major-7, however, was a lifeblood running equally through the veins of all three: the musical influence of Queen.

In late 2009, the adventurous-yet-song-driven debut album (RAUSCH) - mixed by engineer-extraordinaire Rich Mouser (Chris Cornell, Neal Morse/Spock's Beard) - was finally released. Leadoff single "No Fair" hit the top 10 on New Music Weekly’s small-market radio charts, & the haunting "Ode to Pain" earned an honorable-mention nod from the 2010 International Songwriting Competition (ISC). Grammy-nominated producer David Ivory (The Roots, Halestorm) "discovered" the band, opening yet another door…

Applauding their ambition, Ivory’s assertion that "‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ wasn’t until Queen’s fourth album" was as much a caution as it was a compliment. Via subsequent collaboration with Ivory, RAUSCH gained a hard-fought rite of passage, learning to flex a “commercial” muscle that would prove not mutually exclusive from the artistic one. In pursuit of uniting the best of both worlds, Doug briefly stepped away from the piano completely; first Ivory-produced track "Good Day" instead came through his guitar. To hold fans over, it was released as a standalone single in 2014 (with accompanying video directed by musical contemporaries in NYC's Jolly), and with that the band bought some much-needed time to put the final touches on some stubborn 10-minute “epics” that would ultimately round out the next full album.

It was more than musical perfectionism alone, however, that contributed to yet another "prolonged period of monogamy between music & creator." From as early as 2012, having barely broken ground on the debut's follow-up (and still hopeful to avoid "[GN'R's] Chinese Democracy Syndrome" twice in a row), RAUSCH’s battles against the darkest side of Murphy's Law were no laughing matter. Surgeries were required; relationships were sacrificed; and, in real life Spinal Tap fashion, musicians mysteriously vanished. When the band finally pulled its collective head back above water - aided in no small way by newcomer Chris Ruffini on drums – they had time-traveled all the way to the doorstep of 2018.

At long last, RAUSCH releases second full-length album BOOK II. Heavy-hitting contributions come from the likes of Mark Zonder (Fates Warning), Ryo Okumoto (Spock's Beard), and second Shadow Gallery mainstay, guitarist Brendt Allman. Picking up where the debut left off, it remains painfully vulnerable & autobiographical of the band's trials & tribulations along the way. Things are "even more deep and dark" this time, observes the returning Rich Mouser who (along with Bumblefoot) applauds the "Queen-on-steroids" diversity running throughout. Lead-off single "Greener Grass" is adventurous and catchy; "Irked" at times flirts with jazz; "The End" is a nearly 10-minute atmospheric musical tapestry picking right up where Pink Floyd left off; the head-splitting "Speechless" shows the band clashing with Metallica-sized demons; and joining "Good Day" is 2nd Ivory-produced track "Swansong" which, by notable contrast, offers a glimpse of something completely unexplored up until now: optimism.