Introducing Rell Lo and Knuckles

US rappers Rell Lo and Knuckles are working on new EP The Campaign.

The pair met in Lawton, Oklahoma, last year and soon started making tracks together before launching the single Still Working - produced by Young Shun.

More music and mixtapes have created a buzz about the duo, who tell the tales of their lives through their music.

Knuckles - born Steven Nuckolls - fell in love with rap music at the age of eight thanks to Fat Boys' Coming Back Hard Again and wrote his first rap at 13.

He served five years in prison writing songs about his life and his stay in prison. While in clink, he also had seven poems published and was nominated by the International Society Of Poetry for Poet Of The Year. 

Meanwhile Rell Lo - real name Jarrell Lusby - discovered rap through Tupac aged five. He wrote his first rap at eight with cousin Alvin and went on to make a mixtape in 2007 with childhood pal Vonte in a group called Tha Prospects.

He continued to write music after the death of his little brother Octavious Johnson. 

You can find out more about the pair at facebook.com/steven.nuckolls, twitter.com/knucklesrap, reverbnation.com/knucklesrap, soundcloud.com/knucklesrap, twitter.com/westsiderelllo, reverbnation.com/relllo and soundcloud.com/rell-lo-2

Learn how to place music on itunes at ReverbNation.com

Aftermidnight Q&A

Your name: 

Ashkan Karimi.

Where are you from? 

We're all originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma - I have been one to move around and I moved away but eventually ended up back here, home.

Name of band:

Aftermidnight.

Who else is in your band? 

Ben Blount, Austin Donoho and Patrick O'Meilia.

How would you describe yourselves? 

We all like to have fun, and play music of course. On a more personal level, I kind of tend to reflect and observe a lot what goes on around me...I'm a people watcher, but then again I write most of the lyrics to our music - it all tends to come from me observing what's going on around. I met Austin a while back and as we have continued to get to know each other I've discovered between him and Ben that they're the energy of the band...they know how to have fun and joke around...It's good, it keeps things light, keeps me form getting too deep or being serious all the time. Patrick is our newest member, he's a good friend of us all that we have known for a while. We're both similar in the fact that we're thinkers and kinda dig deeper than the surface level of things. He's a super practical guy, good about keeping our focus on what the next step is which is good cause we can get so caught up on the big picture we forget what's next to get there...Outside of that..We all love to play music. It's something that resonates with us, we all seem to get a healing or 'therapy' out of it, we have a ton of fun at shows!

Who are your main influences musically?

Our musical influences are pretty wide. The four of us are all so different in our musical upbringing but one thing we can all agree on is the classic, older music that we all tend to have our roots in. Some of the older bands we like are Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The Police, U2....and then kinda moving into the newer bands we're into Radiohead, Mutemath, Switchfoot, Coldplay, Civil Twilight, The Rocketboys, Jeff Buckley, Kings Of Leon, and lately been really digging some of the more electronic/rock bands like James Blake, Walk The Moon, Alt-J, Boat Club, Metronomy...however that is always changing.

What do you hope to achieve in music?

I think it's all somewhat different for the four of us personally, but we all agree that we want to create great music that everyone likes to listen to. We all want to play big shows, and make a career out of it. It's something that we all take seriously as a profession while at the same time having fun with it too. We are really about creating music that is relatable to the listener and music that could even help listeners through hard and tough times. Times seem to get tougher as life goes on and we all have to learn to grow above it, so if we can even encourage people to hold on and push through whatever it is their dealing with we would consider that a success.

Personally I'm big into also getting people a cause to help people in poverty stricken areas around the world, and providing ways out of the mess they're in. My family is from Iran and seeing the limited amount of rights both women and the men have there while I'm here in America living 'the life' really pushes me to give back and currently have been working on different solutions to help aid them...as unpopular as that may be for an American to do since the majority of culture in America is kinda against Iran...I just think if I have a level of freedom that I could use to help others who have very limited freedoms than it should be used.

What has been the highlight of your career so far, and why?

I would say the more recent shows we have played. We had the opportunity over the past year to play two different shows where we were able to open for some major musical influences, both Civil Twilight and The Rocketboys! It was a lot of fun both playing before them and getting to chat with them afterwards, and pretty awesome to see some dreams come true. We recently got to represent our city by playing Tulsa's first annual Center Of The Universe Festival which was pretty epic and we're looking forward to playing it again in the future!

And what’s the moment you want to forget?

As a whole we would all have to say every awkward moment we have had on stage in-between songs due to having to tune my guitar. I was playing a guitar for a while that just wouldn't hold a tune and was constantly having to tune up after each song...kinda ridiculous.

If you had to choose just one of your songs to represent your music, what would it be and why?

So hard to say but one song that kind of set us on a course towards the sound we're producing sonically right now would have to be our songCurrents. Since then we have written music that is different but that song in particular seems to resonate with us all...it's kinda of like coming home. Another song we would probably say would be our song Scales which is more of a straight forward rock song.

Where can we listen to it?

You can listen to both of them on soundcloud : https://soundcloud.com/aftermidnightam

Where can we find out more about your music?

As far as us and our music goes you can find more info on our website, facebook, twitter and iTunes! Also if you signup for our e-news you can get a free download of one of our tracks you can do so right here -> http://bit.ly/10ro685

official site: http://weareaftermidnight.com

facebook: http://facebook.com/aftermidnightam

twitter: http://twitter.com/aftermidnightam

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/ep-ep/id524003818

Anything else you’d like to say that I forgot to ask?

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. Also be on the lookout for new songs! We're currently working in the studio on our newest music and we're stoked about it. It's something we've been looking forward to doing for awhile and now that we're working on it we're already getting excited about what is coming out of our time in the studio! Be on the lookout and be sure to connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. 

Chaotic Resemblance Q&A

Your name: 
Travis McConnell (lead vocal, guitar).

Where are you from?  
Poteau, Oklahoma, USA.

Name of band: 
Chaotic Resemblance.

Who else is in your band? 
Logan Ellis (lead guitar, vocals), Zack Foster (drums, vocals), Donnie SiXx (bass).

How would you describe yourselves? 
As someone God Created to take His Message to the world through rock. I am very real and transparent and I’m not perfect and I want people to know no one is. We try to bring a message of hope to the world; everybody goes through bad times in their life, whether it’s divorce, death, losing your house, job etc... Or even some sort of abuse. Everyone needs hope. I guess you can say I’m a messenger of hope and my vehicle in which to do that is rock.

Who are your main influences musically?  
It’s a wide variety. I would have to say Elvis, Bon Jovi, Stryper, The Gaither vocal band and so many more.

What do you hope to achieve in music? 
To take the message of hope to everyone in the world and, of course, rock their faces off.

What has been the highlight of your career so far, and why? 
To play to 20 to 40-year-olds in a bar that 99 per cent of Christians would never go and then the next week play to 800, 40 to 80-year-old pastors and missionaries where 75 per cent of the world wouldn’t go. The highlight was to see my music touch people from ages 20 to 80.

And what’s the moment you want to forget? 
How many Christians have quit the band because they didn’t want to play in bars, or their pastors told them if they did they couldn’t play at their church any more? And that’s crazy. The people at the bars are exactly who Jesus would be hanging out with.

If you could choose one of your songs as an advert for your music, what would it be and why?

I just couldn’t do that. My songs are like my children; I can’t pick one over the other but we are recording some new songs in Nashville during December and I really feel like I have a couple of special song that we just wrote.

Where can we listen to it? 
Chaotic Resemblance at Reverbnation is going to have just about everything and we are working on our website chaoticresemblace.com

Where can we find out more about your music? 
Facebook, Twitter, chaoticresemblance.com is coming very soon. iTunes, youtube, sound cloud, CD Baby, myspace just about everywhere but I think out best link is reverbnation.  Email revrock@clnk.com

Anything else you’d like to say about your band that I forgot to ask? 
Here’s one. Would you come to the UK?  Absolutely, that is one of our main goals we would love to come play there and do a tour through every pub that likes classic rock.