Matthew Morgis

Not many bands this day in age can have the skyrocketing career of Williamsport-based Candlelight Red. With the music industry declining in almost every aspect, bands need to work 10 times harder just to keep their name known even to a small amount of people. With that said, it’s almost refreshing to hear that that in just a short time, these quick-rising hard rockers have opened for legendary Kiss, and in a few short days will be adding Disturbed, Avenged Sevenfold, Halestorm, Stone Sour, and Hellyeah to that list when the band plays on the Jagermeister side stage at the Rockstar Energy Uproar Festival this Friday at Toyota Pavilion at Montage Mountain. The band has also shared stages with acts like Staind, Lacuna Coil, Three Days Grace, Stone Sour — which is on the Uproar main stage — and Clutch.

Candlelight Red is made up of vocalist Ryan Hoke, guitarist Jeremy Edge, bassist Adam Zimmer and drummer Josh Hetrick. Zimmer and Hetick left the band Stept On — which headlined shows opened by Breaking Benjamin and Halestorm — to join forces with Edge. After finding Hoke to round the band out on vocals, Candlelight Red started making waves in the Pennsylvania music scene and earned a sponsorship from Jagermeister.

“Being in other bands for years, I think we learned a lot from our mistakes,” Edge said in a recent phone conversation with the Weekender. “I think we’re able to do things a little more quickly than some other bands because we know what we’re doing a little better than we did before.”

Candlelight Red recently won a contest run by Kiss and Guitar Center which puts an unsigned bands on stage for 20 minutes at each of Kiss’ 22 summer tour stops. Candlelight Red took the stage before Kiss on July 29 in Pittsburgh.

“It was probably the most relaxed experience we’ve ever had,” Edge said. “The crew was very nice to us. They actually gave us time to sound check. We could even hear ourselves on stage, because the engineers actually cared about us. It was really cool, because they made us feel so comfortable.”

The short sets that bands are allowed during these major shows don’t upset the group, either. The guys have recorded only a four-song EP, and after the summer shows are done, they’ll meet with a producer and start recording a full-length album. The four-song EP the band has been riding so far has been working. Candlelight Red has been on a few different radio stations across the state, including in the State College, Hershey and Philadelphia markets.

“There’s about five or six stations that have started playing us,” Edge said. “It started on like Sunday showcases for local bands, then we started getting calls and e-mails from friends and fans that said, ‘Hey, I heard you Wednesday coming from work on this station.’ And all we could really say was, ‘What?!’ Those types of things are just unexpected. We really didn’t think we’d get that type of response.”

The radio play and opening performances have brought attention to a few record labels. According to Edge, labels have been contacting clubs and stations inquiring about the band and doing “background checks” on the group. And although the band has only been together since last August and working hard every step of the way, Edge still throws some of the success up to luck. As for Friday, he encourages fans to get out to the show early and check out not only Candlelight Red, but all of the bands on the bill.