We were lucky to catch up with Alec Whitaker recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Alec, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

In the time I’ve had being in RALLY I’ve spent a lot of time on everything it needs whether it’s the music, the merch, the advertising, the branding, performing, you name it. I would say also that I’ve spent equal time in the very beginning coming up with a name for the band. I remember I wanted this group to make music that maybe not everyone would enjoy per se, but could relate to. I remember playing around with youthful sounding words or events we might’ve experienced in school. Names like “freshman dorm” and “pep rally” came to mind and for a while I really liked the name “pep rally”. My mates didn’t however and thank god they said something. Looking back, it sounded too on the nose and would narrow down our audience. My mates suggested we just be “Rally” but I felt like there were already too many “Rally’s” out there. So, to separate ourselves we decided to do it in all-caps lettering: RALLY.
I know. So different. But having it in all caps definitely helped and it just popped more with our designs and overall look.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a frontman of my band RALLY, which is an indie-rock group based out of Salt Lake City Utah. I got my start in the music industry not by playing open mics or bars per se but by talking to people who shared a love for live music and the stories behind their favorite bands. I went to concerts a lot and I met a lot of cool people who shared similar musical interests as me and eventually some of those people would turn to be my bandmates. We wrote a few songs and we knew they were good and wanted to perform them in front of our friends and family so we started looking for places to play. We got lucky enough to join in on a new band showcase at velour and I still remember playing that show and wanting to immediately go back and play again. So we kept playing and more and more people started to catch on and follow us at every show and what’s amazing is that I still think we can grow as a band ourselves and expand our audience even further with every song we put out.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

We went on our very first tour in March of this year and it was the experience of a lifetime. We worked very hard to promote the shows we’d play, but ultimately we were all in the mindset that this could very well be a net loss for us. Surprisingly, our kickoff show was the difference maker in making sure we didn’t lose money, and the tour started off very promising. We went from Fort Collins CO, to Albuquerque NM to Mesa AZ and it was only when we landed in San Diego that things started to get hairy. The venue we had booked months ago told us they booked someone else, and so we were out all our travel expenses just to get there. It wasn’t all bad though because our next show was in Vegas which wasn’t too too far of a drive. We headed out, and along the way, I-15 was closed so we were rerouted and me, not knowing the route didn’t know where it would take us or when we’d see the next gas station. Next thing you know, we’re out of gas stranded in the Mojave desert. We barely had enough signal to get a tow truck out who brought us to the state line. The tow cost us 750 dollars, and we only had to go 20 minutes more to reach the next gas station. It was brutal emotionally and financially. Fortunately we had some very generous fans in Vegas who bought tons of our merch and tipped us pretty well so by some miracle we were able to break even on the tour. Other than the fact that we had people backing us it was our diligence in playing the show that night that got us back on top and I think it said a lot about our group and how resilient we are.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I think there are a variety of individual experiences which are very personal that helped bring our music to light and by extension built our reputation as a band. I won’t delve into those but I will say that showing vulnerability in your art and product is a great way to create relatability and get people to become more attached to your brand. Music is a highly emotional medium and I think that by really diving into subject matter that encompasses the human experience whether it’s mental health, heart break, dating, loneliness, etc.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @rallytheband
• Facebook: @rallytheband
• Twitter: @rallytheband

Image Credits
Bronson Cornilles