Declaration of Independence

by Jennifer Retter
Green River Ordinance has steadily evolved from kids playing gigs in Fort Worth to a mature band releasing its latest album Under Fire. When arrangements didn’t work out with an old label, Green River Ordinance decided to release Under Fire themselves.
Guitarist Jamey Ice gives us the inside scoop. To learn more about how the band got its start or to find the tour schedule, visit greenriverordinance.com.
 

Why did you choose to independently release Under Fire? Being on a label has a lot of benefits, but at the same time, you give up a whole lot. Every time someone bought our last album, the record label got the money. We had been touring nonstop for three years, and then the label wanted us to write and record our sophomore album in a period of three months.
 

Is that an unreasonable amount of time to be expected to create an album?
We were really hesitant to do that because we knew the songs wouldn’t be up to par. They wanted us to have other people write or co-write our songs, too, and that’s just not our thing.
 

Why did you want to play in a band as your career, and when did you know it? Who doesn’t want to do that? I’ve been in Green River Ordinance since I was 15, so I don’t really know what life is like not in the band. We always played together and in college we started to get more popular, then we started traveling. It just made sense. We’ve been blessed and fortunate enough to be able to call music a job.