Faithless Saints » Band Promo + Live Performance » Irican Productions in Portland

Going a few years back in time, this session with the band Faithless Saints holds a special place in my memory. Since they’ve released a lot of new music lately, it seems like good timing to feature them on the photo blog this week. Erik and Bobbo (Robert) are two of my oldest friends still making really awesome music together. I have so many good memories of seeing them play live over the past two decades.

When they were just babies in their first band, Thirty-Six Drive, they played the most adorable punk rock shows in Dallas, Oregon. In those days, I wanted to grow up to be in concert production, so I would organize all kinds of little shows around the small town for my friend’s bands to play: the old Ugo’s Pizza Parlor on Main Street, the Morrison high school gymnasium, the Dallas Civic Center (haha!), Guthrie Park, and other make-shift concert venues now lost to my memory. If Bobbo and Erik weren’t playing the show themselves, I could always count on them to at least show up and be in the crowd, supporting the other local bands.

Fast forward to today, and they’re both involved in the Portland, Oregon music scene. Bobbo also has his own recording studio, performance space, and production company: Irican Productions. He records, mixes, and produces all their own music, as well as many other bands and musicians.

From the Faithless Saints website: “Formed out of the remains of their previous bands Thirty-Six Drive and Rebel Fly, life-long best friends Robert Rios and Erik Benton formed Faithless Saints in 2006 with the goal of doing what they love, making music together. After a few years living in many different city’s and with several different drummers and second guitarist. Robert and Erik settled in Portland, Oregon in 2008, where they found guitarist Drew Tran and drummer Jake Mastrud. The Saints can occasionally be found playing up and down West Coast with their sacrilegious mixture of punk, rock, ska, metal, and hardcore.”

I even have the Faithless Saints to thank for reuniting with my sweetheart husband, Evan, who I’d been friends with since we were 16, but had lost touch with over the years. The first night I lived in Portland, in 2014, they invited me to their show at (now closed) Slabtown. I was happy to see old friends and hear their music, but was surprised and overjoyed to see Erik’s brother Evan. We reconnected after many years, talking long into the night about conspiracy theories and nutrition, and the rest was history. Now Erik is not just an old friend, but my brother-in-law.

So where does the photography come into play? I’m sort of surprised that we hadn’t worked together prior to this session in 2016, but better late than never! Faithless Saints wanted to create some promo pieces for the band, as well as document some live performance footage, and they graciously asked me to be their photographer. So the guys hosted a house party at Irican Productions, with the intention of recording a live album and live music video, alongside their good friends’ band Secnd Best. ‘Live at Irican Productions: Secnd Best and Faithless Saints’ is available on their various music sites, and the video footage is also available for streaming on YouTube. You can find Faithless Saints music on Bandcamp, Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Music.

The moral of the story is: Support your musician friends! Buy their music (and actually listen to it!), buy their merch (and actually wear it!), and most importantly, buy tickets and go watch them play live shows.

Faithless Saints promo portraits, in their natural environment: the Irican Productions recording studio.

The live performance: Here’s a few shots from the Secnd Best set.

And here’s Faithless Saints’ set. It’s been such a treat to witness their music evolution and growth over the years!

Bonus Photos: Most of my old Dallas, Oregon concert memorabilia is in a storage container that I likely won’t see again for many years. But I do have this little gem, back from the era when I always had disposable wind-up cameras: Erik Benton, Bobbo Rios, KT Schultz, and Mike McGuffey, outside one of the Ugo’s pizza parlor shows, in Dallas, Oregon, 2002. Friends Will Gibbons and John Auchterlonie are in the background.

Erik, me, and Bobbo in Portland, Oregon, 2014. Love and miss you kids!

Faithless Saints » Band Promo + Live Performance » Irican Productions in Portland

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