Good Tiger is a musical 'supergroup' comprised of vocalist Elliot Coleman from Tesseract, guitarists Derya 'Dez' Nagle and Joaquin Ardiles from The Safety Fire, drummer Alex Rüdinger from The Faceless, and bassist Morgan Sinclair who has previously toured as a guitarist for several amazing bands. They've been on tour with I The Mighty and Hail The Sun since the end of October and, just about a week before the end of the tour, their van broke down in the middle of Illinois. Rather than just end the run of shows right then and there, Dez Nagle decided to continue on the tour alone, playing the lead guitar parts over backing tracks of the rest of the band. The other bands in the lineup came together and made room for Dez to finish out the tour traveling with them. This tour dynamic is seriously admirable, and Good Tiger's dedication to bringing their music to their fans is unparalleled.

I sat down with Dez after his set to discuss his experiences on the tour this far, as well as some of Good Tiger's new music.

The members of Good Tiger all come from pretty different musical backgrounds. Was it a pretty natural transition for you guys to develop this new sound?

"I think ultimately myself and Elliot are going to be the two that really directed where the band was going. Obviously, everyone brings in their own 'Flavor Flav,' as it were, and that affects it. But, Elliot's voice and distinctive singing style, regardless of what band you put him in, that's going to tell you what the band is going to be like, essentially. It wasn't planned in any kind of way. It was just a case of, 'I like your voice, you like my songwriting style.' That was kind of, like, the starting point. Everyone else, definitely on the second album, are bringing more of their own voices into it, to what I would now consider Good Tiger to be as an entity."

You're nearing the end of this tour with I The Mighty and Hail The sun, right?

"Two more shows, yeah."

What's it been like to tour with them?

"It's been awesome. We knew the Hail The Sun guys coming in to the tour, so we knew we were going to be hanging out with friends for a good time."

Did you know I The Mighty before?

"No, not at all, but the Hail The Sun guys had said how nice they were, and they weren't lying. They're some of the nicest people we've toured with. It's been an absolute pleasure, and without [both of these bands] I definitely wouldn't be here right now, playing this show by myself. It's been awesome."

The crowd response to you playing solo tonight was pretty positive, how has it been over the past few shows?

"Yeah, honestly, I can't complain. Everyone has been extremely warm and understanding of the situation. I, obviously, feel bad for people who have taken their time and their money to come out to these shows. I'm not in any way trying to disappoint anyone. So, the fact that people are into it, even current fans or people who weren't fans but have found us along the way, I'm glad that i'm here and i'm doing this. I appreciate the fact that they gave me the chance in the first place."

You just released three new singles, Grip Shoes, Blueshift, and The Devil Thinks I'm Sinking. What kinds of reactions have you been getting to those?

"We just released the third single yesterday. [The response has] been incredible. It's interesting to see what our fans, and new fans, are coming and saying in terms of that material, how they enjoy it and whatnot. They're all quite different, like, Blueshift I think has a more electronic, should I say like Mars Volta prog-iness about it. The Devil Thinks I'm Sinking has kind of more of a raw aggressive emotion? I don't know, It's kind of a difficult thing really, to describe my own music. It's hard to completely detach from it. But, yeah each song has its own character. I think on the album as a whole you'll definitely see that. More so, that each song fits within like a larger picture. Not, like, in a concept kind of way, but just how it flows from one track to another."

When should we be expecting the new album?

"The album is going to be released February 9th. We will undoubtedly be releasing some snippets and studio stuff over the next weeks."

Check out the new music video for Grip Shoes here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSleQSJyaWY