POWER TRIP Is Still Kind Of A Reunion Band

Power Trip played their first show since the tragic passing of vocalist Riley Gale in 2020 on December 1, 2023 at the Mohawk in Austin, TX. Power Trip is currently fronted by Fugitive vocalist Seth Gilmore and has played a handful of shows since then (plus a few upcoming ones).

Alongside Power Trip is guitarist Blake Ibanez‘s new band Fugitive, who so far have an EP named Maniac and a 7″ named Blast Furnace b/w Standoff to their name. So how is Ibanez balancing the two bands? In an interview with Sh!t Talk Reviews, Ibanez said Power Trip is largely a celebration of their Gale-fronted music and that the shows are simply a chance for people to see the band again (or for the first time).

“In terms of Power Trip, I had no… really no desire to reform the band if we couldn’t do it the way we wanted to do it,” said Ibanez. “With people that we want to work with. We come from a scene, so it’s like, we’re not going to just hold YouTube auditions for a guy that sounds like Riley and like, bring him in. It’s going to be someone that’s a friend of ours that’s from our world, that’s from our scene. I just think the way it worked out, it had been long enough since Power Trip had been played.

“It’s not about filling any shoes. I think people need to understand that. We’re not even really a full-time band. We’re just playing some shows. It’s really just about playing the songs again and honoring what we did and celebrating the songs and doing it a different way. I think we realized that getting someone that sounds just like him would have been really weird and really, I think not the right thing to do because that’s not right.

“I think Seth is in the same family tree vocally, but he’s got his own sound and his own delivery. I think he sings the songs a little bit differently, in a way that I think is is more him he’s his own person.”

Ibanez later noted that Power Trip “still kind of a reunion band,” but noted that there is music that could potentially (maybe, possibly) surface at some point.

“Power Trip is still kind of a reunion band. I think the only objective we have right now is to play all the songs for people that either never saw us or want to see us again. It’s been a long time. There’s a lot of music that I spend a lot of time writing and a lot of songs that one day we may take a crack at. Maybe.”

Ibanez continued: “I don’t want people to think that like ‘okay, we got Power Trip back on stage so I’m just gonna ditch this other thing.’ I respect what we did in Power Trip and I don’t know if it’s time to write music under that name again, you know? I think we can perform the songs and celebrate them with fans all over the place and have a good time. Maybe down the line… there is music that may or may not… we might decide to do something with it. Maybe not. I don’t. I just don’t think now is the time. It may may never be the time.”

These comments are pretty in line with what Power Trip drummer Chris Ulsh had to say in a recent interview with Metal Hammer. In that interview, he said: “I think it’s the latter [that Power Trip will be taking things a bit slower]. I think we’ll just assess after the shows and make some moves, although I wish I had more to tell you. Blake and I have a ton of music that we’ve been working on, there’s plenty of stuff there. We just haven’t even really gotten there mentally, because we want to get these shows past us first.

“There’s a ton of people that have never seen Power Trip before, that found out about the band on the internet or Spotify or whatever. And since so much time has passed, I think the most important thing to us is just playing the old songs again for people. Then after that we can start thinking about maybe getting something new out there.”