Riki and the Rants make their mark

With the Melbourne music scene more competitive than ever, local band Riki and the Rants (RATR) has learnt to make the most of their media skills.

The band, which formed merely a year ago, recently featured in Beat Magazine and Channel 31‘s music show 1700.

These successes culminated in gracing the cover of MX, and marked an eventful and exciting past year for the band.

Bassist/Guitarist Same Cummins. Photo: Bruce Lindsay

While much of the credit can be given to their highly energetic and larger-than-life pop music, bassist/guitarist Sam Cummins tells how studying Media at RMIT has given the band a diverse skill set suitable to the music industry.

“I think that doing a media degree lends itself nicely to playing music. You can make music videos, you can help with content production and online social media. There is a really nice synergy that happens, it’s a nice blend,” he says.

Guitarist/bassist Ian Ngo, who met Sam through their Media course, says it’s provided them with the understanding to utilise today’s technology, particularly with their writing process and developing the foundation for a new song.

“Sam and I have an interesting thing [when writing music]…where we film it on our macs and we email it to each other, and if we like it we pursue it a bit further and flesh it out and get ideas. Then when it forms we present it to the rest of the band,” he says.

Guitarist/Bassist Ian Ngo. Photo: Bruce Lindsay

The Bachelor of Communication (Media) course at RMIT provides students with the opportunity to develop a multi-faceted and transferable skill-set through practical and theoretical learning.

As Course Coordinator, Ms Rachel Wilson indicates, students learn to harness and communicate with different audiences, which is a valuable attribute for up-and-coming bands to have.

“I think [for a band] its about thinking more holistically about a career, and thinking about how to reach audiences in innovative ways, and not just assuming that being a musical genius will somehow open doors…you need to find audiences and you need to nurture those audiences,” she stated.

As active Facebook users and with a range of music videos on YouTube, RATR have used the Internet to expand and connect with their fans.

“Its about tapping into young people and it comes back to the internet…There is an online hipness and credibility that’s attached to a lot of websites and people and bloggers and its about trying to harness that,” Says Sam.