by Maddie Hayes
Hailing from Columbus, Ohio, the four-piece rock and roll outfit, House of Heroes played an energetic show on Wednesday, April 20, in the HUB Multi-Purpose Room at Whitworth University. The band is comprised of Tim Skipper on main vocals and guitar, Colin Rigsby on drums and vocals, Jared Rigsby on guitar and vocals and Eric Newcomer on bass and vocals.
The band played at Whitworth as part of a short string of tour dates here on the West Coast, continuing on to Pullman and eventually Kalispell, Montana to play at an Easter morning service after this show. Some of the band members in House of Heroes decided to make up names for the tour. Newcomer came up with the “Make It While To Go To The Northwest Tour,” Skipper dubbed it “The Northwest Getaway Tour,” and Colin Rigsby offered up “The Northwest Awesome Tour.”
Skipper considers the band to be modern rock and roll music with a lot of classic rock influence.
“It’s kind of like Celine Dion with rock and roll,” Jared Rigsby said.
Some of the band’s biggest influences are The Beatles, Queen and Led Zeppelin.
“I love the Foo Fighters, love what they’re doing these days, kind of keeping the rock flag flying high,” Skipper said. “We love punk rock back in the day, like The Clash, and MxPx. And then we also love ‘90s music like the Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Ace of Base.”
Seeing their live show, it’s easy to hear their influences in their music, but not in a copy cat way. Their multiple-part harmonies channeled that of Queen, but their rock sound added a different flavor to that style.
House of Heroes put on a fantastic live show. They played a good mix of fast songs, slow songs, dance-y songs and even covered “Can’t Buy Me Love,” by The Beatles, which spurred some dancing in the crowd.
One of the best things about the show was their interaction with the audience. Often times, a band will get up on stage, play their songs without much conversation between and leave the stage without really connecting to the crowd. This was most definitely not the case with House of Heroes. All of the band members were conversational with the crowd, telling little anecdotes and making jokes between songs.
At one point, Skipper and Jared Rigsby asked the crowd what our school mascot is, which of course, is the pirates. All of the band members then proceeded to make pirate puns for the rest of the show. Some of the better ones were by Colin and Jared Rigsby. “Listen for the hook!” Jared Rigsby exclaimed at the start of a song. “This is a haaaaaard rock show,” Colin Rigsby said before the beginning of another. Colin Rigsby attempted to make some “booty” jokes, before realizing that none of them were very appropriate for a crowd.
Crowd participation was an important part of the show, as House of Heroes encouraged audience members to sing along and clap to the beat. At one point, Skipper even took advantage of his cord-less mic, grabbing it and jumping off the stage into the crowd during the middle of a song.
“When you have those shows that just everything clicks and the crowd’s way into it, you feed off their energy, and they feed off yours … there’s nothing like it,” Skipper said.
Jared Rigsby believes there is another reason to enjoy touring as much as they do.
“The best part is probably meeting the people that listen to your music, and knowing that people actually do,” Jared Rigsby said.
The name House of Heroes has no real meaning behind it. The band went for months without a name, and ended up just settling on House of Heroes one day. But Skipper decided to make up a more interesting story.
“We actually wanted to call ourselves House of Herpes, but it was a typo. The “O” and the “P” are right next to each other,” Skipper said.
House of Heroes released an album in August 2010, titled “Suburba.” It debuted at No. 48 on the Billboard top 200. Clearly, the fans are into it.
“It’s been a really positive response,” Skipper said. “It’s just, more people need to hear it. You know what I mean?”
It also debuted at No. 2 on the Christian Billboard charts, but the band members don’t consider House of Heroes to be a Christian band.
“Our personal take on it is that it’s a little ridiculous to create a genre called ‘Christian Music,’” Skipper said. “As far as our personal beliefs go, we do believe in God and we believe that Jesus is the son of God, but as far as a genre of music, it’s just silly.”
The future is bright for House of Heroes, as they continue on in their rock and roll journey.
“We’re starting to write a new record. We want to keep playing music, and in order to do that, we need to just keep getting better, and people need to keep coming to see us and buying T-shirts.”
Comprised of a bunch of jokers, the guys in House of Heroes have another goal for the next two years, that they made up on their way to Spokane.
“We found out that Kenny Chesney travels with 40 semi-trucks,” Skipper said. “So, within the next two years, we’re gonna have ten.”