Singer-guitarists Carson Groves and Hyrum Russon were just 11 when they formed Riff Wood with drummer Asher “Shredder” Winegar. Five years on the Utah-born trio have toured North America and the UK, and eagerly await the release of their contagious, riff-soaked second album Butterfly in Black and White.
Their debut, Tough Luck, featured the catchy anthem Blur that’s been streamed almost four million times to date. It grabbed the attention of three-time Grammy winner Rob Cavallo – producer behind blockbuster records by Green Day, Linkin Park and many more.
Fascinated by Riff Wood’s youth and depth of talent, Cavallo reached out through a DM, which understandably left the band completely “starstruck.” In summer 2025 he produced Butterfly in Black and White.
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“His son Joey found us on TikTok, and sent one of our videos to Rob’s wife, Kim,” Groves says. “She showed it to Rob, but at first he was like, ‘I don’t know.’ Then he started listening to a little more and he was like, ‘Oh wow!’”
“[For our part] we were already massive fans of Rob because we grew up massive fans of Green Day. We knew all the Green Day lore and how Rob was working with Green Day – we were just starstruck. It felt like such a great fit.”
As a result, the recording process was fast and effective. “All the songs were already written when we went to Rob’s studio in LA,” Russon recalls. “We’d sent demos to him, with no click track, nothing. When we got there he was like, ‘Alright, this will be the tempo of the song.’ We thought, ‘That was one take! Shouldn’t we figure this out a little more?’”
Cavallo argued that the best sound is achieved through how you feel in the moment of writing. Groves notes: “He’s a big believer in raw sound – if you nitpick a track too much, it’s not genuine.”
You might assume Riff Wood had been playing for some years before they formed. But Groves says they discovered the ins and outs of their instruments alongside one another. “I think it’s one of the important things about our band.”
Russon adds: “I didn’t grow up listening to rock. I didn’t listen to any music as a kid. After we met and started the band, I found those first influences. We kept listening to new bands, which made us want to try new things. I was fed so much that I hadn’t known before, so all this stuff was flowing out of me.”
Groves and Russon both play through a Blackstar HT Stage 60 MK III. Armed with his Yamaha Revstar, the majority of Groves’ distortion comes directly from his Blackstar. For a bigger sound he uses an Ibanez Tube Screamer and a Big Muff. He switches to a Yamaha TransAcoustic for mellower tracks.
Russon’s go-to guitar is a Reverend Bob Balch signature with a Floyd Rose, whereas his distortion is all pedals – a Boss Blues Driver and an EHX Big Muff for fuzz. “The other electric guitar I use is a Custom Strat,” he says. “I went to a local guitar shop and saw it on the wall. It was beautiful.
“One of the workers there builds custom guitars. It’s a green Fender Stratocaster with a mirror pickguard and Seymour Duncan pickups. I also use a TransAcoustic, but it’s a different color.”
Butterfly in Black and White is packed with punches of punk and stomping licks across its 12 tracks, as heard in Run It, which experiments with clever time signatures and a monstrous tone. Just don’t ask them to name the source of that tone.
“Rob’s the master of that,” Russon says. “There’s this pedal… we thought Rob called it Nuclear Destruction – it’s crazy distortion. It’s not actually called that, but it’s something similar.”
Safe to say, there’s no slowing down for Riff Wood as they ascend the stratosphere. Next stop? “Stadiums would be nice,” Russon says. “We’ve seen how our music has connected with people so far, and we want to see that with more people.”
“One of the greatest feelings of all time is being on stage and hearing the crowd sing back a song that was once personal to you,” Groves says. “It’s such a beautiful thing. I can’t even imagine how that would feel with 60,000 people.”
