Rising Stars: Meet Got the Life of Tampa, FL

Today we’d like to introduce you to Got the Life.

Hi Got the Life, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Many of us all played in separate prog metal and hard rock bands across the Tampa Bay area through the 2010’s, many times playing the same bills together. We had all crossed each other’s path dozens of times and became friendly with one another.

Covid did a number on many of the bands with line-up changes, decimated touring schedules, and full blown break ups.

Our singer, Angelo Rivera, who was the lead singer of the international touring Tool tribute band; Schism, was one of said stories and found his relationship with his fellow band mates souring in the face of dwindling crowds and shortened touring schedules. He eventually parted ways with Schism with a new vision in mind, a Tampa Bay super group. A collective of the savvy, talented, and business focused individuals he had crossed paths with through his own personal journey.

His first set of phone calls would be to the bass player/guitarist duo (Chris Alaimo and Jonathan Maas) from Virginia Rose Band, who was a local female fronted progressive metal band out of neighboring St. Petersburg, FL. One for the sheer aggressive power the duo brought on stage and musical energy, but also for the business savviness of the running a successful touring group behind the scenes.

The second set of phone calls was to drummer and guitarist duo (Danny Cruz and JP Caro) from Disturbed tribute; Inside the Fire to fill out the roster.

The five potential band mates all sat down for a round of drinks and dinner and discussed the vision for a tribute group that couldn’t be matched, not only in musical prowess, but in stage presence, production quality, and unwavering business focused success.

After creating the business blueprint on how they would be founded were settled, there was just one more major element to determine. Who would these five hungry and capable musicians go on stage and emulate?

That is when Angelo pulled out his phone and went to his Spotify playlist. Everyone leaned in, listening in anticipation as to what this grand vision was going to come to head with. What they heard was a set of barely audible tings…tangs…clicks… coming from a drum stick faintly hitting a ride cymbal in quarterly succession. That is when the dissonant guitar came in and stabbed the immediately recognizable triad chord to begin the crescendo that would ultimately lead to Jonathan Davis’ signature “Are you READY!?” that preceded the brutal styling of Korn’s first ever single “Blind”

Collectively the band was all in as they knew their styles would compliment the entire package superbly. The band knew what sort of meteoric rise Korn’s success would give them as they have become very popular with younger generations on top of the now parents that never forgot where they came from.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Yes, the road isn’t always a straight line though. In our first 4 shows, we went from playing metal bars in front of 200 at most to selling out OCC Roadhouse and Jannus Live at 2000 capacity in just 3 short months. With that sort of success so quickly, you turn a few heads and get the attention of everyone in the scene.

We were still establishing many of our foundational elements such as starting an LLC and putting final touches on production and we already had dozens of agencies and very successful bands reach out to us wanting us to sign exclusivity deals.

The tribute scene, as we have learned, can be very cutthroat and there is definitely a sort of turf war happening internally.

One of our major struggles was navigating that tightrope, not wanting to upset anyone else in the business while also blazing our own trail and doing things our way.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
We are a Korn tribute band based out of the Tampa Bay Florida region. Obviously we specialize in large scale entertainment and touring.

What we would say is our proudest development is how fast we rose to success, and it certainly was not by accident. The time difference between our first show and selling out major large scale venues was 3 months. All of us have played in very successful bands before, but it is safe to say none of us have seen the success come quite that quickly.

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
The industry is consistently evolving, but ironically the more it changes, the more it stays the same. Since we are primarily on the touring and live show element of the industry, its the same as it was 30 years ago in the sense that you still have to create relationships with bands, club owners, booking agents, managers etc.

Now technology has certainly played a part in alleviating a lot of the busy work, and thankfully we are all savvy enough where we can integrate AI into much of the administrative elements, but when it comes down to it, playing live shows is a very human experience. People pay money to see real humans play real instruments, and there is something very visceral about that experience.

As much as technology evolves, the live element of music will widely go untouched by it, and in that regard we are thankful, because it may be the last respite for true music lovers to know that they are getting something human, something real where they don’t have to question whether this guitar part was created using AI, or that drum part was programmed to embellish something the drummer can’t do himself.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://gotthelifeatributetokorn.bandzoogle.com/home
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/korntribute_gotthelife/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61579365027925

Image Credits
Chuck Daniel Photography