Stadium rock lives on Cinder Road

For many involved in the entertainment business, the quiet city of Buffalo is little more than a quick stop on the way to Canada.

Arena rockers Cinder Road make their first appearance in the Queen City on Sunday as they continue their tour with the bluesy heavy metal-heads of Tesla.

While the rock band is an opening act, they pack enough punch and rock concert excitement to carry the torch alone.

Lead singer and founding member Mike Ruocco spoke with The Spectrum to travel down Cinder Road and find out what it's like being part of "toughest business in the world."

The Spectrum: With your hectic tour schedule, how do you try and keep each performance a little different?

Mike Ruocco: "Well, what's cool about touring is that each and every audience is a completely different experience. Even though we might keep the set-list the same because we are restricted by time, you have a completely different vibe off of one audience than you get off the next. The crowd is the sixth member of the band."

S: The band's music sounds like it has come from many different backgrounds, what are your major influences?

MR: "Well, personally I'm a huge Def Leppard, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi and Whitesnake fan. Arena rock is like my cup of tea. When we went in to do this record I wanted to create an album something similar to Hysteria by Def Leppard. Unfortunately, so many records these days kind of all sound the same. It's like, you've got that single but then you have 10 or 11 other tracks that sound exactly like it. I think we did a really good job with our record of diversifying the entire album."

S: How did you guys come up with the title of the debut album, Superhuman?

MR: "I was recording the record in LA and I happen to be on the phone with my dad just catching up. In just airing some of my frustration to my dad I said, 'You know what, you have to be superhuman to survive in this business.' With that it just clicked, and then we wrote the song and named the album after it. There really is no one that is superhuman. It's kind of an aspiration that we have that can never come to fruition, but we keep trying."

S: With the music business growing larger everyday, how do you feel about Cinder Road's career as of right now?

MR: "We feel very lucky to be where we are, in that we have a major record deal and we have an album in stores. We also have two songs on the radio and have been on some great tours."

S: New bands are always compared to other artists, how does this affect the newcomers?

MR: "I think some bands out there get pissed off when people compare them to other artists, but at the end of the day none of us are reinventing the wheel, I don't care how cool you think you are. We are all just playing music and the greats, like The Beatles, Beach Boys, Elvis and Led Zeppelin. There's not going to be another one of those bands.

S: So it doesn't bother you to be compared to bands like Nickelback?

MR: "Take a look at a band like Nickelback, and I really respect those guys because they have delivered hit album after hit album after hit album. They are like everybody's favorite band to hate on but who's laughing all the way to the bank when you're still selling out arenas."

S: Buffalo radio doesn't play any Cinder Road songs, but how are the airwaves elsewhere?

MR: "Albany plays the sh*t out of it. Yeah Buffalo, I don't think you guys have jumped on it yet. You know, there's a handful of places that haven't played it either but we're going to keep touring, keep making music, and we're going to keep trying to make fans and hopefully the rest of the world will pay attention."

Tickets for Sunday's show at Club Infinity can be purchased for $25 from Tickets.com and the show starts at 7:00 p.m. For more information on Cinder Road check out the band's MySpace page or their Web site, cinderroadmusic.com.