Issue One - The Weekend Riot

for Costa's endangered vocals, the duo would have never realized that
perhaps the screamo route wasn’t for them. “Johnny’s got a pretty voice,
let’s go the pretty route.” The pretty route being a more pop vibe where
both vocals were at play – Wiegner was solely the guitarist in the previous
bands – and create an uplifting, happy atmosphere that’s a little bitter,
but as Wiegner says: “You need to get a little bitter, to get a little better.”
Costa offers a visual representation to symbolize their music. “I’m picturing
just a beautiful summer seascape, but you know the water’s not totally
blue. It’s kind of grey blue, but it’s hopeful. Our music is very hopeful.”
“Honestly, starting was the biggest challenge.” Costa says as he goes
in depth about the formation of The Weekend Riot. “It’s so hard to actually
get up and start doing a band, and for us, we went through phases of
being like a pop punk band, phases of being a boy band for a second and
we were just trying to figure out how we wanted to present ourselves to
the world. It’s one thing to figure out what you want to do, and it’s another
to put it into motion and make it happen.” The Weekend Riot knew what
they wanted to be and what they wanted to do, but they understood that
they had to do what they were best at. “Luckily before we went public,
we tried out a bunch of different styles and different things, and failed at
some things,” laughs Wiegner. “And it’s so hard because you want people
to care, and that’s why we began doing YouTube covers to give the people
what they wanted but then after a few, we’d slide an original in there and
see what happens. It ended up being the best thing and best decision we
could have ever made.”
The Weekend Riot’s weekly YouTube update of #RiotMonday proved
to be a success for the duo – it was their way of giving back to their fans
as well as allowing exposure for the duo, which proved successful when
one of their videos became viral.