ARTISTS
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One part Seattle, one part Bay Area and one part Northeast, the group came together in Los Angeles in 2007 and honed their skills playing the local college scene before heading up and down the West Coast, booking, producing, and headlining their own gigs. After recording some demos with Jerry Harrison--a former member of the Talking Heads and Modern Lovers--2AM Club played a now-legendary four-month residency they called "Tiny Porno" at the Derby in L.A., and word quickly spread that it was the place to be: "We wanted to create an environment that wasn't like the typical L.A. promotional circuit," says Sauce. "We wanted something raw, sweaty, dark, and disgusting. It turned into a huge thing."
2AM Club's shows never fail to explode with energy, heightened by the hyperactive musical tango between Tyler and Marc's vocals, and the way that the band--named for a beloved Bay Area bar known for being a welcoming chill spot for a random assortment of locals--honor their moniker by making their shows an all-inclusive, unpretentious good time for all who attend.
"Our idea has always been to try to break down the fourth wall," says Tyler. "A lot of bands play for the audience while the audience just stands there. We wanted a different dynamic. Everybody's in the room and we're all listening to music, we should be experiencing it together. The Tiny Porno shows were crucial because they exploded with that kind of crazy energy."
With a buzz like that, it was only a matter of time before the labels came knocking, and 2AM Club signed with RCA Records in September 2008. Since then, they've relocated to NYC, where they've been sequestered in the studio with seasoned producers Sam Hollander and Dave Katz (Boys Like Girls, Katy Perry, Gym Class Heroes), recording tracks for their debut album. With live crowd-pleasers such as "Flashing Room" (a thumping, ode to sex that's a bit more than casual, featuring soaring 80s-esque synths, sly rock riffs, and a sky-high chorus), "Hurricane" (a seductive slow jam that unspools into panoramic pop), and "Let Me Down Easy" (which sounds like what might happen if Eminem body-slammed New Edition) already in the bag, expect rip-roaring rock riffs, punchy new wave-inflected synths, ass-shaking hip-hop beats, clever wordplay (exhibit a: "she left her cares on the bedpost, next to her lipstick and her Mentos"), and a dash of good old Motown-style soul. In other words, expect a record full of unique and entirely creative cuts that span a vast musical landscape.
While there may be touches of everyone from Prince to Maroon 5 to Justin Timberlake to D'Angelo in their DNA, the interplay between Marc's smooth singing voice and Tyler's effortless staccato flow makes 2AM Club sound completely fresh. They also lay strong emphasis on solid songwriting (an effort that involves the whole band), giving them a lyrical and melodic sophistication that's rarely seen in groups so young. 2AM Club's songs may be predominantly about sex and girls, nights out and lights out, but they're also inventive, intelligent, and shot through with real sentiment because they're written about things that are actually happening in the band member's lives.
"Pop music has been made for so long, a lot of it has obviously become cliché and hackneyed," says Tyler. "We're hoping that if we can make it a little bit smarter, we can take it somewhere new and cool and exciting. It comes down to a bigger idea of love and conflict and greatness and bullshit. I think most people can identify with that, but then on another level it's also just super dumb drunk party music--you can take from it what you will."
"I think we've all always wanted to be saying something with music," adds Marc. "That's why we started out in poetry slams and doing hip-hop. We may be making music that's more pop now, which has this overarching feeling of being catchy and melodic and cheeky, but we're hoping you can listen to it 20 times and still be taking something new away from it on a deeper level."
"In other words," says Matt, "we're hoping the album will be something you can play at a party, but that you'll also want to play after the party when you get home."
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"To find a talent as exceptional as Adam Lambert is a rare and special event," says Simon Fuller, Creator and Executive Producer of American Idol and Founder & CEO of 19 Entertainment. "I am thrilled that 'American Idol' was the platform for the world to discover this brilliant young man. He is unique and unforgettable and a certain star of tomorrow."
"There are no longer any rules in terms of where the world's next superstars may come from," says Barry Weiss, Chairman & CEO RCA/JIVE Label Group. "We are thrilled to be getting involved with Adam Lambert as we all at RCA Records believe he is one of those rare, future global stars."
"I'm thrilled that we've come to a creative and collaborative partnership and look forward to developing a really exciting album," says Lambert. "We are 100% on the same page and are all anxiously awaiting the start of the recordings. It's going to be ridiculous! Get Ready!!!"
27 year old Lambert, who hails originally from San Diego, CA, had 4 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart earlier this summer. With his masterful interpretation of "Mad World" leading the way, he also charted with "No Boundaries", "A Change Is Gonna Come" and "One."
Lambert, will be recording his album over the summer while on the road with the American Idol's Live tour. The tour kicks off July 5th in Portland, OR and culminates on September 15th in Manchester, NH.
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Biography
One of the most accomplished performers of the last decade, Christina Aguilera has sold well over 25 million albums worldwide and cultivated a fan base that crosses generational, racial and gender lines. Now, segueing from the audacious sexuality of her second studio album, Stripped, the chameleon-like performer pays tribute to the music that has inspired her with the August 15th release of Back To Basics (RCA Records).
A modern take on vintage jazz, soul and blues from the 1920s, '30s, '40s and beyond, her third studio album is wildly inventive, whose throwback style creates a sound that's gritty and raw. The album reunites her with producer Linda Perry and offers new collaborations with producers such as DJ Premier. The upbeat first single, "Ain't No Other Man," will be world-premiered on the MTV Movie Awards on June 8 prior to its debut on June 12.
"This is a concept album that follows a bold vision," explains Aguilera. "The touchstones are Billie Holiday, Otis Redding, Etta James and Ella Fitzgerald - what I used to call my 'fun music' when I was a little girl."
The double album, Back To Basics utilizes an orchestra, choir, string quartet and jazz horns, as well as techniques that, according to GQ, "blends a vintage-soul sound with state-of-the-art beatsmanship to form a throwback/hip-hop showcase for her outsize voice." "I Got Trouble" incorporates a scratchy blues feel, while "Candy Man" recalls the tight harmonies of all-girl groups from the '30s and '40s "Save Me From Myself" is an emotionally naked, raw-sounding song dedicated to her husband. "Thank You," dedicated to her fans, features DJ Premier splicing bits of "Genie In A Bottle" with fan voicemail messages. Also sure to appeal to Aguilera fans is the risque song "Nasty Naughty Boy" (which has a '20s burlesque feel) and the sassy club track "Still Dirrty."
Aguilera's backstory is well-known. A native of Staten Island, the pre-teen began performing in local talent shows while growing up in Pennsylvania. In 1992, after appearing on "Star Search,"
She joined the cast of the Disney Channel's "The New Mickey Mouse Club." In 1998 Aguilera's song "Reflection" for Disney's Mulan led to a record deal with RCA and the release of her self-titled debut album in Summer, 1999. The album quickly hit #1 on the strength of its first dance/pop single, "Genie In A Bottle" (which dominated the charts for five weeks) and other chart toppers including "What A Girl Wants." It was a feat she would repeat the following year with Mi Reflejo, the smash Spanish-language version of her debut, followed by her hit holiday release, My Kind Of Christmas.
In 2001 Aguilera joined forces with Pink, Mya and Lil' Kim on the smash "Lady Marmalade" single and video. That eye-popping slice of ear candy kept her front and center in the international spotlight even as she began, slowly and steadily, to lay the groundwork for her second album, Stripped. Released in October 2002, it sealed her status as an international superstar while transforming her previous squeaky-clean image into a fully sexualized woman with lots on her mind. Along with the superheated funk of the album's provocative debut single, "Dirrty," came such standout tracks as "Beautiful," "Can't Hold Us Down" and "Make Over."
Earning her first of three Grammy Awards in 2000 for Best New Artist, her subsequent trophies came in 2001 for "Lady Marmalade" (Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals) and in 2003 for "Beautiful" (Best Female Pop Vocal Performance). Among countless other honors, she is also the recipient of a 2001 Latin Grammy Award for Mi Reflejo (Best Female Pop Vocal Album), a 2000 Billboard Music Award for Female Artist of the Year, and two 2004 Rolling Stone Music Awards (Best Female Performer, Readers' Pick; and Best Tour, Readers' Pick, "Justified and Stripped"). Voted Sexiest Teen Idol in a VH1 poll, Aguilera's beauty and charisma have also led Teen People to list her among its "25 Hottest Stars Under 25" and Maxim to crown her Best International Female Singer (2000), one of the Sexiest Women of the Year (2003) and #1 on their "Hot 100" List (2003).
Today, while devoting the lion's share of her time to recording and touring, the 25-year-old is active in a range of philanthropy. A major contributor to the fight against AIDS, Aguilera has participated in the "What's Going On?" cover project for AIDS Project Los Angeles' Artists Against AIDS. In 2004 she became the new face for MAC cosmetic company and spokesperson for the MAC AIDS Fund. More recently she became involved in awareness campaigns with YouthAIDS and ALDO. She also sponsors and is actively involved in the Women's Center and Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh for battered women and children.
For more information, please visit www.christinaaguilera.com.
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With her fourth album, All I Ever Wanted, Clarkson demonstrates her eagerness to continue branching out, and to push her music in new and unexpected directions. Though she has sold over twenty million records around the world; landed eight singles in the Top Ten; and won Grammys, MTV Video Music Awards, American Music Awards, and even been nominated for a CMA Award, she maintains that she's far more interested in challenging herself than in repeating herself.
Clarkson's enthusiasm is instantly apparent, even infectious, as she races to talk about each of the new songs. "A lot of it has a soulful, '70s rock vibe," she says, "and then some is more club/dance stuff-"'If I Can't Have You' is like the Killers-meets-the Eurythmics." But she also shows her softer, more emotional side with "If No One Will Listen" and her own composition, "Cry," which she says is "basically a country song with pop production, incredibly sad but still strong."
Clarkson points to the album's first single, the unforgettably titled "My Life Would Suck Without You" (produced by pop wizards Dr. Luke and Max Martin and written by the two with Claude Kelly) as an example of her need to personalize and connect with all of her material. "They write great catchy, sassy songs," she says. "But it became a very different song from how it started. We changed the point of view, and other things throughout, because we had to make it more Kelly Clarkson. And Luke and Max love that, because it's a challenge for them to make a song really work for me."
The album's defiant track "I Do Not Hook Up" comes courtesy of Katy Perry. "I've been a fan of hers since before 'I Kissed a Girl,'" says Clarkson. "And when I heard that song, it really felt like something I could have written myself."
She laughs as she describes "I Want You" and its surprising theme. "First, it's not a boy-bashing song, so that's already different for me," she says. "Plus, I wrote it, so that makes it even weirder!"
The range of All I Ever Wanted shouldn't come as a shock, though, considering the wild ride that Texas-born Kelly Clarkson has lived. She was, of course, catapulted into the spotlight in 2002 as the very first American Idol winner. ("Our show was so different from how it is now," she says. "Now there's all this pressure, all these comparisons, but we were just a bunch of kids that wanted to make music-"it was almost like performing in bars for ten people, like I used to.") Her superstardom was secured with Breakaway in 2005. That album sold over ten million copies, spun off five Top Ten hits, and stayed on the charts for two full years.
But the platinum-selling follow-up, 2007's My December, arrived surrounded by widespread rumors and speculation. Clarkson, for one, still doesn't know what the fuss was all about. "Really, it was a very positive experience," she says. "Mostly I learned about how people can twist things-"I've never met one artist that agreed with their label about every single thing, but people made such a big deal out of it. The label saw that I wanted to push the envelope, they let me make the record I wanted to make, and now I can make another one."
So when it came time to choose songs for All I Ever Wanted, Clarkson knew what she was looking for. "Ninety-nine per cent of the time, I'm a lyrics girl," she says. "I like the more melodic, formula stuff because I grew up loving pop music, but most of the time I'm totally about the lyrics and the message of the song.
"I could always sing all of these styles," she continues, "but I think only now am I getting more comfortable with the people I work with, and people are getting more comfortable with me, getting to know me and what I like."
She says that working with producers Sam Watters and Louis Biancaniello on "Whyyouwannabringmedown," which she describes as having "kind of a punk-British Invasion sound," was the album's turning point. "I sang that song through I don't know how many times, just because I was having so much fun," she says. "It was new and it was fresh and it didn’t sound like anything on the radio. And after that, I went to my manager and said that I wanted to make a really fun, feisty album, and just wanted to go all the way with every song."
Clarkson penned about half of the album, but it's hard to pin down her work as representing any single style. "My writing is all over the place," she says. "I do love writing sad, depressing songs-"that's definitely fun for me. But I'm very much a writer of whatever I'm going through, what I see in my life. And I'm 26, so I change every day!"
Mostly, she's excited to get back on the road and take the songs of All I Ever Wanted onto the stage. "Even when I'm recording, I'm always thinking about how I'm going to do a song live, what I'll be able to bring to it. I make records for touring-"it's my favorite part of what I do."
Through the highs and lows, the triumphs and controversies, Kelly Clarkson has retained, even strengthened, her love for all styles of music. With All I Ever Wanted, she's able to fully reveal how far that love extends. "This time, I wanted to show the extremes of what I can do," she says. "That's what keeps me interested, and keeps the audience interested.
"I never want to make just one sound," says Kelly Clarkson. "The worst thing to me is when all the songs on an album sound the same. If you have that choice, why wouldn't you want to bring out all the different sides and colors of your personality?"
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"A lot of the lyrics are about how leaps of faith can set us free or tie us down, and realizing that we often find heartache when we run from something and redemption when we run toward something," singer Chris Daughtry says.
The title comes from a line in "September," a song Chris wrote with guitarist Josh Steely. Loaded with evocative phrases, the bittersweet ballad draws on Chris' experiences growing up with his brother in a tiny North Carolina town. "Every time I hear that song it takes me back to my summers in Lasker," he says. "I loved growing up there, but I knew I'd have leave to make something of my life."
LEAVE THIS TOWN is the first album to feature Chris with bandmates Joey Barnes (drums/piano), Josh Paul (bass), and guitarists Josh Steely and Brian Craddock. Together, they deliver a dozen inspired performances held together by anthemic hooks, impassioned vocals, and lyrics laced with a wisdom found through searching horizons and rearviews. A work of remarkable creativity and range, the album smoothly shifts gears from powerful arena-rock ("No Surprise," "Ghost of Me"), to hushed ballads ("September"), and emotional mid-tempo rockers ("Life After You," "Learn My Lesson"). The album also includes the country-influenced "Tennessee Line," a track Chris wrote with Craddock that features vocal harmonies by country-music superstar Vince Gill.
That mix of sounds is reflective of the different personalities who joined Daughtry in 2006, shortly after the singer recorded his debut. It was instant chemistry, Chris says of his bandmates. "From the very first show, it felt like I'd known these guys all my life."
Early on, the band focused on establishing its own identity by taking creative license with the original arrangements from the debut and recasting them in their own image. "To bond as a band, we really needed to own those songs, which meant letting our personalities come through," Barnes says. "To Chris' credit, he gave us the freedom to be ourselves, which is what brought us to together as a band."
When the marathon tour ended in 2008, Daughtry had graduated from playing clubs to opening arenas and had charted three #1 singles, while the album became the biggest-selling rock release two years in a row and the fastest-selling rock debut in Soundscan history. Eager to keep the album's runaway success in perspective, and determined to surpass its high-water mark, Chris buried himself in work, spending months collaborating with rock's savviest songsmiths.
Chris re-teams with two songwriting partners from his debut on LEAVE THIS TOWN, penning "Learn My Lesson" with Mitch Allan of SR-71, and "Ghost of Me" with Hinder producer Brian Howes. Returning producer Howard Benson (All-American Rejects, My Chemical Romance) says the key to Chris' success as songwriter is his ability to remain grounded. "Not only is he in touch with who he is and where he comes from, but he also has the courage to write about it, which is all you can ask of any artist. He's a humble, hard-working guy who just happens to be in a successful band."
LEAVE THIS TOWN also includes stellar contributions from Nickelback's Chad Kroeger. Chris met Chad a few years ago. The two became fast friends and even toured together. Excited to collaborate, Chris traveled to Chad's Vancouver studio where they wrote "Life After You" and "No Surprise," the first single from LEAVE THIS TOWN. "Chad has amazing instincts as a songwriter," Chris says. "I liked bouncing ideas back and forth with him because he was quick to pick up on where I wanted to go, but he was also able to inspire me to try different directions."
During the session, Chris says a random musical aside led to a surprising collaboration. "I was singing a line and ended with a little R&B twist. Chad looked at me funny and I said, 'I guess it's just the Richard Marx in me coming out.'" Longtime friends, Chad called Richard, who joined the session the following day. "I was in shock," Chris recalls. "I'm such a huge fan. I even sang his song 'Now and Forever' for my wife when we were dating."
The two quickly hit it off, writing "On the Inside" (bonus track), which is a hard-rocking song Marx started on the flight to Vancouver. The song's chorus" "You can move to another town/Hide where you're sure you won't be found/But you'll still be the same on the inside" - dovetails with the album's concept of finding yourself. The lyrics work on two levels, Chris says. "The obvious interpretation is that you can never outrun your problems. But you could also see this song as a message of unconditional love to someone who's trying to change."
The search for better days continues with "Long Way" (bonus track), a song Chris wrote with Jason Wade of Lifehouse. In it, the road becomes a metaphor for an inward journey that leads to self-awareness. "When I wrote the line, 'There's no direction where I stand/Just dead end signs and wasted land,' I was thinking about how sometimes you have to truly get lost before you can really find yourself.
With all these songs about how where we've been determines where we're going, it's fitting that LEAVE THIS TOWN captures the band at a crossroads. "Not to take anything away from the debut, but this record really feels like my first," Chris says. "It's the sound of a new beginning."
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When this most recent season of "American Idol" began, Cook wasn't on anyone's radar to win the whole thing - including his own. "I like that I 'snuck up' on people," he says. "During those early shows, when there were 24 people, I knew I didn't have to be one of the best, but I didn't want to be one of the worst. So it was fun for me because there wasn't a lot of pressure and I could find my own footing."
Cook won fans with his unique renditions of songs like Lionel Richie's "Hello," Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" and the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby." He explains, "When I began, I told vocal coach Debra Byrd I wanted the season to be like a set list, so people would feel like they were at one of my concerts."
Cook's musical journey began early. He grew up watching his father play guitar. But David's first instrument of choice was the violin. "I tried that first because there was a girl in the school orchestra I thought was pretty." When he was in seventh grade, his dad bought him a Fender Stratocaster. "I was bad at it because I never took a lesson. Gradually I got better."
He was exposed to many different genres of music. "My parents had eclectic record collections. My mom liked Kenny Rogers and my dad was more into Boston, Kansas and Dire Straits. The first cassette tape I ever bought was by Kris Kross. I was into Boyz II Men for a while. When I was 13, someone played me the song 'Closer' by Nine Inch Nails and once I got past the audacity of the lyrics, I really enjoyed the song. So I backtracked through rock, which got me to where I am now."
David formed a band in high school with a friend and appeared in three musicals: "West Side Story," "Singin' in the Rain" and "The Music Man." He also loved sports and played baseball throughout high school. Ultimately his love for music brought his attention back to his band. David enrolled at Central Missouri State, changed the name of the band from Redeye to Axiom to Axium and had some local success.
As he was completing his studies, David had to choose between working as a graphic designer in Kansas City or moving to Tulsa to play rhythm guitar and sing backing vocals for a band called the Midwest Kings. "Of course, I moved to Tulsa," he says. That's where he lives today, although home is officially Blue Springs, Missouri. The Cook family relocated there after David was born in Houston on Dec. 20, 1982.
With his friends chipping in financially, David recorded "Analog Heart." The album sold well regionally and won an URBY award from Urban Tulsa Weekly for Best Independent Album. David was in the early stages of recording a second album when his younger brother Andrew asked him to accompany him to Omaha and lend moral support while he tried out for "American Idol." David was reluctant, but his brother and mother did their best to persuade him. He recalls, "At the last minute I decided to do it. Andrew and I were in the same group of four for the first audition and he didn't make the cut. It was very awkward. I turned to him and said, 'Is this something you want me to do? Because if you don't, I won't.' And his response was, 'If you don't, I'll beat your ass.' So it's entirely his and my mother's fault that this happened to me, and I'm very grateful."
We all know how the story went from there. Simon, Randy and Paula sent David to Hollywood, where he made it into the top 24. Then he was in the top 12, the top 10, the top five and the top two, all without ever being in the dreaded "bottom three." Then, on May 21 at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, Ryan Seacrest pronounced David Cook the winner of this season of "American Idol."
It's all come with lessons learned, according to Cook. "The whole process has given me a brand-new lease on life in that I am more sure of who I am now that ever before. I've learned that when I'm singing live on stage to embrace that moment and if doesn't work, it's OK, move on."
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Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions A Hurricane Relief Benefit
100% of Winston's Artist Royalties
To Be Donated To Hurricane Relief Organizations
George Winston, best known for his melodic rural folk piano style, has made no secret of the debt his playing owes to the musicians of New Orleans. Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions A Hurricane Relief Benefit was inspired by Winston's desire to support the Gulf Coast after the recent hurricane related devastation. This beautiful and vast region has a mystique all its own and he has been to it many times, from Corpus Christi, to Galveston, to Lake Charles, to New Orleans, to Gulfport/Biloxi/Bay St. Louis, to Mobile, to Pensacola, to Panama City, to the Tampa Bay, to Ft. Myers, to Naples.
Winston cites the pianists of New Orleans as the biggest influences on his own piano playing. He will donate all of his artist royalties from the album to organizations involved in helping those on the Gulf Coast and in New Orleans to rebuild and return organizations such as Common Ground (www.commongroundrelief.org), ACORN (www.acorn.org), and others. He has also donated all the proceeds of his September and October 2005 concerts to the same causes. In unity with the artist, RCA Records will be donating the bulk of its net profits to benefit musicians in the New Orleans area.
Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions features six Winston compositions inspired by the Gulf Coast as well as pieces written by or influenced by six of the greatest New Orleans pianists: Henry Butler, James Booker, Professor Longhair, Dr. John, Allen Toussaint, and Jon Cleary. "Much of my work on the piano is studying the musical languages of the great New Orleans R&B pianists," Winston says. "Especially Professor Longhair, the founder of the New Orleans R&B piano scene in the late 1940s who inspired so many; James Booker, whose language most influences the way I think of playing; and Henry Butler, who is the pianist I have studied the most since 1985. I'm also indebted to New Orleans pianists Dr. John, Jon Cleary, and the eminent composer/pianist Allen Toussaint."
James Booker's Pixie lives up to its title with a treatment that features syncopated phrases in the right hand and Booker's trademark left hand with a moving bass line and partial chords. "James Booker was the first one to take R&B, soul music, the Blues, New Orleans music, and more, to make a solo piano style which encompassed seven different ways of playing," Winston says.
Henry Butler's complex composition The Breaks is full of dramatic chords and flurries. Says Winston: "Henry is the pianist I have been studying the most since I first heard him in 1985. In my view he's taken R&B piano to its pinnacle, and he is the only pianist I know of who plays the deep Blues and R&B and mainstream jazz. You need to see him live to fully experience his music."
Creole Moon, a pensive version of the title tune from Dr. John's 2001 album, is full of emotions that residents of The Crescent City might have felt in the aftermath of the storm.
Winston's own compositions for Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions run the gamut from uptempo to melancholy. New Orleans Shall Rise Again, delivered in a style that is inspired by Allen Toussaint, James Booker, and Dr. John, is an ode to The City and its music, a buoyant salute to the rhythms of jazz, blues, and R&B that also tips its musical hat to Henry Butler, and Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton.
Pixie #3 [Gŏbajie] borrows its form from James Booker's Pixie, but is delivered in a more stately tempo, marked by dancing rippling runs on the high keys. "Gŏbajie was a kitty who loved music," Winston explains. "She would listen attentively to live playing or recordings; whenever the music stopped she would respond by singing."
Stevenson is an emotional piece for a friend lost as a result of the hurricane. Says Winston: "This is dedicated to my dear late friend, New Orleans filmmaker Stevenson J. Palfi (1952-2005), who made the wonderful film Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together about Professor Longhair, Allen Toussaint, and Isidore "Tuts" Washington."
The centerpiece of Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions is Winston's epic arrangement of When the Saints Go Marching In, one of the oldest traditional New Orleans songs. The arrangement starts at a deliberately ominous tempo inspired by Dr. John, before breaking into the song's familiar celebratory melody and variations inspired by James Booker. The festivities are interrupted when Winston's left hand moves up an octave, inspired by Henry Butler, before returning to the melody. At the end of the tune he breaks into a stride piano section before ending with two hand rolls inspired by the South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim (aka Dollar Brand).
The album closes gently with Blues for Fess, Beloved, a eulogy for Professor Longhair that leaves each note hanging in the air reverberating, thoughts offered to fallen friends and a region and a city struggling to get back on its feet.
Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions A Hurricane Relief Benefit follows on the heels of Winston's 2001 album Remembrance-A Memorial Benefit, a six song album of piano, guitar, and harmonica solos. All the artist's proceeds from that CD are being donated to benefit those affected by 9/11. He is currently touring to support Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions and working on his next recording, Beloved-The Music of Professor Longhair.
With a tour schedule that includes more than 110 shows a year - solo piano concerts, solo guitar concerts, solo harmonica concerts, and solo piano dances, Winston is driven by a deep rooted realization that his craft is still evolving, and by his desire to bring music to life through live performances, musical interpretation of other composers' works, and the recording and production of albums of many of those who have influenced and inspired him. Constantly traveling, he draws inspiration from the places and people he encounters.
George Winston was born in 1949 and grew up mainly in Montana, and he also spent his later formative years in Mississippi and Florida. His favorite music was instrumental rock and R&B - artists like Floyd Cramer, The Ventures, Booker T & The MG's, the late jazz organist Jimmy Smith, and many more. "I was always an avid listener, especially to instrumental music and especially organists," Winston recalls. "In 1967, when I heard The Doors, I started playing organ. I studied chord structures, music theory, and recordings of organists, especially the great jazz organist Jimmy Smith. In 1971 when I heard the 1920s and 1930s recordings of the great stride pianist Thomas 'Fats' Waller, I switched to solo piano."
"I play three styles: New Orleans R&B piano, and the majority of songs I play are in this style; stride piano, which was the main way of playing that I worked on after hearing Fats Waller and Teddy Wilson; and third, folk piano, the style that I came up with in 1971 which is influenced and inspired by instrumental R&B and rock, North American folk music, and even more by the sounds of the piano itself. Many of the songs on my albums are in this melodic folk style, and it has a rural sensibility, the opposite of the urban sensibility of the R&B piano and the stride piano. My approach is North American and I basically treat the piano as an Afro-American tuned drum, as well as using the natural overtones that the piano has."
In 1972 Winston recorded his first solo piano album Ballads & Blues 1972 for the late guitarist John Fahey's Takoma Records. "I would not be doing anything that I am doing now - solo piano albums, solo instrumental concerts, and recording the great solo Hawaiian Slack Key guitarists on my own label - without John's influence and inspiration," Winston states. "He is certainly the only person in the world who would have recorded a solo piano album of me in 1972." Since 1980 George has released ten more solo piano albums: Autumn (1980), Winter Into Spring (1982), December (1982), Summer (1991), Forest (1994), Linus & Lucy-The Music Of Vince Guaraldi (1996), Plains (1999), Night Divides The Day The Music Of The Doors (2002), Montana-A Love Story (2004), and Gulf Coast Blues & Impressions-A Hurricane Relief Benefit (2006).
In 1984 George also recorded the solo piano soundtrack for the children's story The Velveteen Rabbit with narration by Meryl Streep. In 1988 he recorded the solo piano soundtrack for the Peanuts animation This is America Charlie Brown: The Birth of the Constitution, playing mainly the late Vince Guaraldi's pieces. In 1995 he worked with George Levenson of Informed Democracy on three projects: a solo guitar soundtrack for Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes with narration by Liv Ullmann; and two soundtracks with piano, guitar, and harmonica solos for Pumpkin Circle with narration by Danny Glover, and Bread Comes To Life with narration by Lily Tomlin.
In 1983 Winston founded Dancing Cat Records to record the Masters of the Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar, the finger style guitar tradition unique to the Islands, which began around 1830 (and predated the steel guitar by about sixty years). As of 2006, thirty six titles have been issued in the ongoing Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Masters Series, recordings that have introduced many of the Slack Key guitarists to a global audience.
George Winston is a Steinway piano artist.
www.georgewinston.com
www.dancingcat.com
www.windham.com
Roger Widynowski
VP, Of Publicity
310-449-2638 rogerw@sonybmg.com
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(written & inspired by fans via Twitter)
"Imogen is an eccentric, innovative musician who blends aspects of the world around her into a beautiful universe of song." @Jack, founder Twitter
A Grammy nominated multi-instrumentalist, who began writing music by her 13th birthday (and broke America by her 28th), an innovative singer-songwriter with a quirky and inspirational character, a tech savvy musician with an eccentric sense of style and uniquely graceful music, Imogen Heap is a profoundly English artist whose songs transcend time and place to conjure captivating digital dreamscapes of love, loss and hopefulness.
Imogen's distinct, eclectronic-style, a brilliant kaleidoscopic symphony of voices, beats, sounds and emotions - mixing beautiful lyrics with breathtaking melodies, traditional instrumentation with computers, to create a sound that's folk-hued and digital and sparks the imagination - has won her over 350,000 friends on MySpace and more than 250,000 followers on Twitter. Fans include Brian Eno, Jeff Beck and Scrubs star Zach Braff, while US chat show hosts David Letterman, Jay Leno, Carson Daly and Hollywood mega blogger, Perez Hilton, have all championed her ability, musically and physically, to transfix. Imogen is, in all senses, an EXPERIENCE.
Age 5, she crept downstairs in the middle of the night, carved her name in BIG letters on the grand piano lid and swore it wasn't her. Age 12 she learned how to layer sound with an Atari and sequencing software. Age 18 she signed her first record contract and age 20 she released her debut album, iMegaphone.
An anagram of her name, iMegaphone mixed angst with vulnerability, quirky noise with sombre reflection, to be refreshing and intriguing. An aurally delicious blend of emotive piano, understated technology and haunting melodies, it was a promising experiment in turning emotions into something tangible. Produced by David Kahne, Eurythmic Dave Stewart and Bjork/Madonna collaborator Guy Sigsworth it attracted a loyal following and her first film credit; single "Come Here Boy" featured in Rupert Penry-Jones's Virtual Sexuality.
2002 saw a new side to Imogen as she embarked on a short collaborative journey with Guy Sigsworth, forming electronica duo Frou Frou. Their album, Details, shifted from the darker iMegaphone to an airy, dream-pop landscape. Laden with skipping beats, cool synth layers, and stunning attention to detail, its glittering melancholy was punctuated with beautifully intricate and poetic lyrics. Together Imogen & Guy were able to take computer music and bring from it real sensuality and emotion. Frou Frou toured Europe and America, and became an underground hit after Scrubs star Zach Braff used "Let Go" in his film Garden State. The duo also recorded a version of Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out For A Hero" for the closing credits of Shrek 2.
With new confidence and determined to have complete creative control, Imogen remortgaged her flat to fund her second solo album. Working almost entirely alone, Speak For Yourself took Imogen exactly a year to write and produce. It was released in 2005 on her own Megaphonic label. An album of extreme joy, desperate sadness and a little bit of wondering what it would be like to be a stalker, it's Imogen laying bare her soul over 12 tracks. Stunningly original and creative, incorporating everything from piano to blips and boops, carpet tubes, passing trains and a frying pan, a shimmering vehicle of electro and lustrous orchestra, the album delivered huge pop hooks, atmospheric soundscapes and lyrics to make you consider the intricacies of your own life. Therapy on a disc, a journal read aloud and set to music, this time Imogen took all she'd learnt musically and lyrically to a whole new dimension.
Utilizing the internet to market Speak For Yourself, Imogen pioneered a new Artist/Audience relationship. She was one of the first artists to bring her music to a new audience via MySpace, iTunes, YouTube and her blog. The inclusion of sparse vocoder/harmonizer song "Hide & Seek" in the season 2 finale of hit TV show The O.C. was an another jump start for Imogen's career, sending the song to #8 on the US iTunes Hot 100 Songs and to #1 on iTunes UK. "Hide & Seek"'s rise led to licensing deals with Sony BMG on both sides of the Atlantic, ensuring the album got the full release and promotion it deserved.
Electrifying performances on David Letterman, Jay Leno and Carson Daly cemented Imogen's US success. Unique sets at Sundance and Coachella, and extensive touring, established her as an unparalleled live experience. No two gigs are alike. Treading a fine line between chaos and brilliance, live she's technology meets edge of the seat spontaneity in a one woman show. With fairy lights, a MacBook Pro, clear Perspex piano, Keytar and a mbira, she sends shivers down the spine, looping sounds and hitting switches, and bringing it all together into one of the most intimate and intoxicating shows imaginable. New and exciting every time, she doesn't just play music, live she IS music.
In 2005 and 2006 Imogen became songstress of choice for US film and TV. "Goodnight And Go", "Speeding Cars" and her cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" were all used in The O.C. She Heap-ified children's nursery rhyme "I'm A Lonely Little Petunia In An Onion Patch" for an episode of HBO's Six Feet Under, covered the Classics IV song "Spooky" for Reese Witherspoon film Just Like Heaven and wrote, performed, recorded and produced "Can't Take It In" for The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe .
From English eccentric to celebrated artist, Imogen was nominated for Best New Artist and Best Song Written For Motion Picture for "Cant Take It In" at the 49th Grammy Awards in 2007 and caused quite a stir on the red carpet when she turned up wearing a lily pond themed dress complete with Gary The Grammy Frog.
After touring Speak For Yourself across Europe and America, Imogen was eager to get back to recording and start work on her third solo album, Ellipse. For inspiration, she set out on a writing trip which took her to Maui, Tasmania, China and Japan. The album's first song, "Wait It Out", was started sitting at a piano in a house in Maui, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, in March 2007. When she came back to England, Imogen took on her childhood family home and fittingly transformed the room she used to play in as a child into her studio.
From the writing trip to building the studio, recording to mixing, tweaking to re-tweaking, Imogen kept fans regularly updated on the album's progress via Twitter, MySpace and YouTube. Partly out of love for her fans, partly to maintain her sanity, she pioneered a new kind of creative process, one that's open, inclusive and asks fans to participate. From bursts of late night craziness via 12seconds.tv, to little snippets of songs in her 40+ YouTube posts, the always upbeat Ms Heap video-blogged the hell out the recording. An artist who has gone above and beyond just making an album, redoing, fixing, ripping apart and piecing together the picture perfect record, she worked herself into near madness, documenting and sharing all the tantrums. Amazingly accessible and down to earth for such a luminary, Imogen truly understands the relationship with her fans as a human one, rather than one married to business. She even encourages fans to be creative, writing her press biog and helping her design album artwork. The Twitter biography itself defines Imogen's innovative, fresh and fun approach to everything she does.
If the vBlogs heightened expectation, the first new track to emerge, "Not Now But Soon", assured fans wouldn't be disappointed. First airing on hit US show Heroes, it once again confirmed her ability to transport to another level, pushing boundaries with raw beats and ethereal melodies. Imogen also found time during recording to remix former Sneaker Pimp Chris Corner's IAMX single "Spit It Out", giving it a slinky new outlook and re-record "Hide & Seek" for Rupert Hine's Songs For Tibet charity project . She contributed to Brian Eno's Plague Songs album, collaborated with Nitin Sawhney on "Bring It Home", played at the wedding of The O.C. creator Josh Schwartz, co-wrote and produced a track for Mika's second album and donated an unfinished track, "The Song That Never Was", to the Twitter charity event Twestival" fans donated to download Imogen's vocals and add their own music; there are now more than 400 versions of the song.
A multi-instrumentalist with what seems to be limitless creative ability, the culmination of eccentric style and a sound which is unlike anything else, Imogen's an artist who isn't afraid to experiment, either with her music or with her relationship with her fans. Her new album once again seduces you into a world where fantasy and reality meet in an atmospheric dream state, to be the musical soulmate of both Casablanca and Bladerunner. It's organic electronica. Hauntingly beautiful computer music. Avant-garde. Otherworldly. Comforting. Tantalising. Heaven on a disc.
"Imogen Heap is my sweet religion! Her music makes me shine. And if you don't like her, I will put you in a headlock!" @Perezhilton
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Despite his puberty-screwed voice, Dave became the de facto vocalist since "I was the only one willing to sing, but I was so bad" and the group hit the stage at their local winter carnival in early 1999 for their first-ever gig armed with a hundred cover songs and thirty originals. "I remember re-writing lyrics to songs I liked at the time, just for fun," Dave, 24, explains of his passion for rock. "
The trio grabbed their moniker from the title of an early track nobody particularly liked ("We needed a name for a gig, and we really never got around to changing it," says Kyle) and began their recording career at home on a four-track. By high school, they'd picked up a manager, and around the time Anders hit 15, the band started hitting the bar scene. "I have especially fond memories of opening up for amateur strip nights at a club called the Zoo," 20-year-old Anders recalls.
"We realized we've been playing in this band for most of our lives and we've only ever played with each other… no member changes. The musical chemistry and genetic pre-disposition to like the same music makes our band special. As a 3-piece, there's nowhere to hide so we perfected our technique and learned to fill out our sound," Anders explains.
After amassing a strong local following - but without ever recording a note in a studio - major labels came knocking, and in the summer of 2005 the guys spent a week in New York City showing off their live skills. J Records was impressed and Inward Eye quit their grocery store jobs back home and began the exciting (and sometimes arduous) process of writing songs for their first real recordings.
The result of their labors is the Inward Eye EP, which is stocked with powerful anthems that crackle with bratty energy and recall the swinging riffs, shouted chants, and raw-nerve rock of their favorite bands. The band recorded at their producer Arnold Lanni's (Simple Plan, Finger Eleven, Our Lady Peace) house-studio in Temecula, California, logging ungodly long trips in their van as they continued to criss-cross the continent on tour. They even got a chance to open for their beloved The Who in October '06, leading to a string of dates with their heroes as the legendary band took a strong liking to them. "I got to eat the best food at catering and watch 'Baba O'Riley' three times," gushes David.
But back in the studio, they were working overtime. Opener "Shame" started as a straight-up guitar riff and evolved into a snotty shuffle with yelped vocals. "It was too high for me to sing in a regular voice," explains Dave. "It sounded like the theme to Psycho. We were like, that can be kind of a hook. Lyrically, I felt like there was a lot of problems around me, and a lack of justice." "We're twentysomethings being thrown into the adult world and realizing this is kind of a screwed-up place," Kyle adds of the songs' overarching theme of disillusionment. "We're kind of learning to be wary. I think a lot of our lyrics are about a new awareness of our surroundings as young men growing up in a scary world."
Now audiences across the globe are getting a chance to hear Inward Eye's tunes - and witness their super-charged live gigs. Fresh off a whirlwind tour of the UK, the trio is gearing up for next year's festival circuit, a return spring trip to the UK, and putting the finishing touches on their debut full-length. For this trio, brotherhood always comes first. "We are a true band. There is not one decision that is made by one person, it has to go through all of us, right down to notes I sing or a drum beat Anders plays," Dave explains. They have one last policy, too: "We can't repeat our road stories or people are going to go to jail."
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Stardate: Summer 2006. As these words are being written, Kasabian are jetlagged, but happy. Three days ago, they returned from Mexico City, where a disused supermarket full of saucer-eyed devotees treated them like returning heroes. "They even sang along to the keyboards in Processed Beats," exclaims Serge Pizzorno. And then when we did the new stuff. It was" Pizzorno is rarely lost for words. When he is though, here's Tom Meighan to pick up the baton "legendary. I've never felt a force like it."
Can a record be legendary before it has even come out? You might think you know Kasabian. After all, the dissolute Glimmer Twins of the post-Britpop firmament made no secret of their sources on that eponymous first album. A couple of years after Meighan and Pizzorno met in Leicester, aged 11, it was 1993 and Oasis were making the rock'n'roll dream seem like a goal attainable to a generation of schoolkids. Recorded at the now-mythical farm where they arrived for a party and never got around to leaving, Kasabian's eponymous debut bypassed most critics and connected dramatically with an audience that recognised them as one of their own just as Oasis had done with Meighan and Pizzorno in 1993.
'Kasabian' went double platinum plus in the UK and the band were the undisputed victors of last year's festivals, putting in bristling performances at Coachella, Glastonbury, Reading/Leeds, Lollapalozza and T In The Park. If a debut album is all about showing your influences, this is the point where Kasabian truly show us who they are. The first thing you'll notice about Empire is that no other band in the world could have created it. The confidence is perhaps understandable given the lack of fanfare with which they managed to quickly rise to 700,000 in UK sales and be hallmarked as "show-stealers" by the LA Times. But the scale of its vision though is something else entirely.
Asked a while back to describe the album's eponymous opener, Meighan's instant response was, "Marc Bolan smoking crack with Dr Who." "No other band apart from Radiohead would have the balls to put in a tempo change like that," adds Pizzorno. Under the circumstances, you decide it's impolite to tell him that Radiohead didn't get actually around to it until their third album. This time around the demonic amyl throb of Serge's electronic soundscapes feed into the very core of Kasabian's music. The flood of ideas is unstoppable. Propelled along by handclaps and Ian Matthews' inspired Studio 54 style drum fills, the filthy analogue glambience of Shoot The Runner is inescapable. Last Trip, appropriately, comes on like a postcard from the furthermost outpost of a 4am bender Meighan's brittle, anxious exhortations leading the way over an arrangement which recalls a beefier version of Suicide's primitive electro-pulse. Three songs in and Empire already sounds like an index of rock'n'roll possibilities.
"Did you like the strings?" smiles Meighan, running a hand through his newly acquired facial fur. He's talking about Sunrise, the point at which you realize Kasabian have, well set the controls for the heart of the sun. "It's hard to talk about that song without sounding arrogant. But it sounds royal. Do you know what I mean? Proud." Pizzorno elaborates. "It's just going that extra mile. The point about the strings is that they're not just there to fill out the sound. It's already huge by that point." It's not the first raga rock paean to lysergic love, you tell him, but at the same time it's hard to recall a rock'n'roll song on which Indian strings have deployed so sharply. "They're actually Moroccan ra players," he smiles, "Indian strings? It's been done, mate."
Where to from here? Just as Screamadelica and Dig Your Own Hole key chapters in Kasabian's back pages took you on a journey that was tantamount to an out-of-body experience, nothing can quite prepare you for the direction in which Empire heads. While much of Kasabian was forged in the crucible of an uncertain wider world, Empire is a more personal record. A memoir of two extreme years on the road in which the only constant was the friendships that created the band in the first place. A postcard from an unreal world. Placed right in the middle of it all is Aponea two minutes of misfiring jackhammer beats and febrile babble which, at a stroke turn the cocksure swagger of the previous songs outside in. "Aponea," explains Pizzorno, "is when you lose your breath in your sleep. And you panic." Venturing deeper into (if you will) the K-hole. By My Side and Stuntman are the first songs to suggest that even in the darkest hour, it might just be love that will pull you back. And so halfway through Stuntman, the familiar swagger of yore tentatively returns sleek, metronomic, sexy as fuck, haemorrhaging white noise until, by the end, that's all there is.
When it comes to taking the credit for their music, Kasabian rarely need to be encouraged. In this case though, they're swift to acknowledge the invaluable input of producer Jim Abbiss who, according to Meighan, "was very good at dealing with situations in the studio." Was that necessary? One imagines that when a double act like Meighan and Pizzorno disagree, they must really disagree. "Actually, we bicker," says Meighan, "But it's only ever when we're drunk. You know that Hot Chocolate song, It Started With A Kiss? Well, with us, it ends with a kiss, but starts with a bottle. But Jim kept our heads clear, so that there was no anxiety, like 'what the fuck are we gonna do next?'"
Presumably that explains why the bulk of Empire took just five weeks to record, with Kasabian writing new material right up to the wire. Coming right at the end of a record described by Meighan as "full of heart", British Legion and The Doberman seem to sum up the prevailing spirit, the latter featuring Morricone-esque brass and Chris Edwards' dynamic and hypnotic bass lines. When you've returned from the mellee punching the air to old and new faves like Processed Beats and Shoot The Runner, British Legion might insidiously end up being your favourite Kasabian song. When Pizzorno yes, Pizzorno this time sings, "She brings the light that catches me again" over delicately picked acoustic guitar, it sets off a Mexican wave of goosebumps. The first take is the take you hear. By the time a sparse rhythm ushers in the "we're gonna make it through" coda, it's hard not to anticipate pinky-yellow festival sunsets and 30,000 backing vocalists walking it home.
Pete Paphides
2006
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Kesha never did hear from Prince, but the incident speaks volumes about this 22-year-old newcomer's firecracker personality and determination. "I've always known I wanted to be a performer," she says. "There's video of me at age five, naked and covered in body paint, saying, 'I'm going to be a rock star and there's no way anyone is going to stop me!' It's my calling. If I don't go for it, I'm going to feel like a tool when I'm 50."
Luckily, Kesha won't have to find out what regret feels like. She is currently at work writing and recording her debut album with executive producer Dr. Luke, who has scored No. 1 smashes for Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson, Avril Lavigne, and Flo Rida. After falling for her playful half-sung/half-rapped vocal delivery on a rough demo, Luke brought Kesha to RCA Records, which signed her in February 2009. The album -- which will also feature Kesha's collaborations with veteran hitmaker Max Martin (Pink, Kelly Clarkson, Britney Spears) and in-demand songwriter/producer Benny Blanco (Katy Perry, 3OH!3, Spank Rock) -- is shaping up to be an edgy collection of hard-hitting electro-pop songs, made all the more irresistible by their high-octane punk energy and Kesha's irreverent lyrics and attitude. "I want my music to be fun, unapologetic, rowdy, quirky, humorous, and interesting," she says, "but with substance behind it. I'm an emotional person underneath all my fronting. I want people to listen to it and feel like they can relate."
Not surprisingly, the songs showcase Kesha's flair for storytelling, though her choice of subject matter isn't exactly conventional. There's a song about the time Kesha threw up in a closet during a party at Paris Hilton's pad ("Party at a Rich Dude's House"), and one she says is about the time "some dumb bitch fronted like she was my friend but then secretly tried to bring me down" ("Backstabber"), and another about finding out her boyfriend was cheating on her with a famous pop starlet who shall remain nameless ("Kiss & Tell"). Oh, and the one she wrote about beginning to see the universe as a cyclical chain of connected events after meeting a guy in a club ("Chain Reaction," which has been featured on MTV's The Hills).
Kesha credits her love for story-songs to spending her formative years hanging out with veteran songwriters in Nashville. Her mom Pebe, a former punk-rock singer, is a songwriter whose career took off in Music City in the late '70s when a song she co-wrote, called "Old Flames Can't Hold A Candle To You," became a hit for Joe Sun in 1978 and a country chart-topper for Dolly Parton in 1980. But by the time Kesha was born in 1987 (during a party in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, Pebe was going through a bad patch, struggling to support Kesha and her older brother through her music. "We were on welfare and food stamps," Kesha says. "One of my first memories is my mom telling me, 'If you want something, just take it.'"
In 1991, Pebe moved the family back to Nashville, where she had landed a new publishing deal. Kesha saw the inside of a lot of recording studios. "I thought everyone grew up in a recording studio," she says. She attended a music school in the Tennessee countryside ("where some of the kids didn't have any shoes," she recalls), took songwriting classes, and fell in love with country music greats Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, and Patsy Cline. "I'd listen to these beautiful songs and they all told stories," she says. "Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline is one of my all-time favorite records." From time to time, Pebe let Kesha sing on tracks she was working on. "My mom always told me, 'You have a good voice, practice singing,' so I'd sing everything all the time," Kesha says.
When Kesha was 17, she quit high school, "which was crazy because I was enrolled in an International Baccalaureate program and was going to go to Columbia University and study psychology," she says, "but I wanted to move back to L.A. and pursue my music." That's when she met Dr. Luke. "I had been looking for a female artist with an incredible, distinctive voice who had her own style," Luke says. "Kesha didn't sound like anybody else." Dr. Luke was also working with red-hot hip-hop artist Flo Rida on a track for his second album. One night, Kesha was hanging out with them and the rapper told her he wanted a female voice on a track and asked if she wanted to lay down a vocal. Naturally, she obliged. In February, that track, "Right Round," soared to No. 1, selling more than 636,000 downloads its first week out, and shattering the all-time one-week digital single sales record. (Kesha also contributes her sassy vocal stylings to "Touch Me," another track from Flo Rida's upcoming 2009 album R.O.O.T.S.)
"When I first heard my voice on 'Right Round' on the radio, I started screaming and crying," Kesha says. "I may seem kind of crazy, but behind it all I have my s**t together. I'm working really hard to make this happen and it's nice to see that hard work pay off. I mean, three years ago I was stealing canned vegetables from the dollar store to survive. Now I'm on a No. 1 song, working on my album, and have a little change in my pocket. To be able to take my mom out to dinner is the best feeling in the world."
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Caleb Followill - lead vocals, rhythm guitar
Jared Followill - bass Matthew Followill - lead guitar
Nathan Followill - drums
When Kings of Leon released their third album Because Of The Times in April 2007, Entertainment Weekly called it their "crowning achievement," while Rolling Stone wondered: "How good can the Kings of Leon get? They've already gone further than anybody could have guessed."
Coming as it did on the heels of 2003's rowdy Youth and Young Manhood and 2005's brawny Aha Shake Heartbreak, the expansive Because of The Times was indeed a pivotal and game-changing album. It led the Followills - Tennessee-bred Caleb, Nathan, and Jared, and their cousin Matthew - to astonishing success around the world. In the U.S., the band has sold out New York City's fabled Radio City Music Hall and The Greek Theatre in Hollywood. In the U.K., Kings of Leon headlined this summer's legendary Glastonbury Festival, as well as the Oxygen Festival in Ireland, and sold out their upcoming December show at London's 20,000-seat 02 Arena (where Led Zeppelin held its reunion concert) in less than an hour.
But if critics thought that Because of The Times was the work of a band "at the peak of its powers" (as the Los Angeles Times put it), they may want to reconsider that assessment after hearing Kings of Leon's new album Only By The Night, due from RCA Records on September 23rd. Only By The Night picks up where Because of The Times left off, continuing Kings of Leon's shape-shifting evolution and cementing their status as a world-class rock band.
"After three records and touring for five years straight, we knew what we were capable of," says the band's drummer Nathan, "we just had to put our money where our mouths were. We had to take it to the next level. You always want your next record to be better than your last." Adds frontman and lyricist Caleb: "There's never a time that we'll make a record and won't attempt to do something better than what came before."
With its stunning melodies, ringing guitars, and razor-sharp grooves, Only By The Night delivers on the promise Kings of Leon have shown throughout their career. From the desolate atmospherics of the opening track "Closer" (which Caleb says is about a lovesick vampire) to the emotional intensity of the closing ballad "Cold Desert" ("about a man at the end of his rope who picks himself back up"), Only By The Night is all heart from start to finish.
Album highlights include the insistently chugging first single "Sex on Fire" ("there's always been an element of sex in our music, so I thought I'd just wrap it all up in one song and be done with the sex for the rest of the record," Caleb jokes), the throbbing, propulsive "Crawl" (about relationships of all kinds and taking them for granted), and the sonically sweeping "Use Somebody," which Caleb wrote while feeling lonely on the road. "It's about being far from home." Then there's the soaring uplift of "Manhattan," which is partly about dancing and enjoying life and partly about the struggles of Native Americans. "'Manhattan' is actually a Native American word that means 'island of many hills,'" says Caleb, who adds that his family has Native American blood. Finally there's the driving, forceful "Notion," which finds the singer pushing back against anyone who says anything against anyone in his band.
Caleb's instinct for insularity is not surprising given that the band is made up of family members. The familial vibe extended to the recording process when Kings of Leon returned to Nashville's Blackbird Studio in April 2008 with their long-time producer Angelo Petraglia and Nashville-based producer/engineer Jacquire King, who also mixed Aha Shake Heartbreak. "Angelo keeps it fun and youthful," Nathan says. "He and Jacquire were cool enough to tell us when we really needed to stop playing Wall Ball and get serious, rather than being stern and scaring the shit out of us. It kind of took the pressure off."
Petraglia and King also encouraged the experimental process the Followills first engaged in when making Because Of The Times, giving the band the freedom to explore all of their ideas. "We had the opportunity to really get in there and be more hands-on as far as the production goes," Caleb says. "We wanted to prove ourselves a bit more. We got to kick our heels up, have drinks, and relax while recording." Adds Nathan: "You can tell from the music that we're definitely comfortable."
"To me it sounds like the Kings of Leon are back not only as a band, but as friends," Caleb says. "Every night after recording we'd go to a bar together, hang out and talk about what we were going to do the next day, rather than all of us going to our separate homes. It was really a big family vibe. That's where the title comes from. It's also a reference to a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, and it has five syllables, like all of our album titles."
Caleb had written most of the lyrics and melodies for Only By The Night during some downtime at home recovering from shoulder surgery. "I think the pain pills inspired him a little more than he realized," Nathan says with a laugh. "He would play us a song and we'd say, 'When did you write that?' and he'd say, 'I don't really remember writing it. I just woke up with an empty bottle of wine and my songbook open and these words written down.'" Says Caleb: "Those pills can make you feel so nice. I think a lot of the pretty melodies came from that and from me just opening more."
Another influence could be their experiences playing arenas, not only in support of Because Of The Times, but while opening for U2 in 2005 and Bob Dylan and Pearl Jam in 2006 and 2008. "We definitely wanted the songs to sound good in a 15,000-seat venue, but we also wanted them to have the kind of intimacy that would get the point across at a club show for 300 kids," Nathan says.
Overall, the Followills knew it was time to be honest about their ambitions and prove what they could really do. Caleb, for one, unleashes some of the most righteous, anguished singing he's ever recorded. "I knew it was a risk for me to go in there and really open up and belt the way that I know that I can; the way that I used to when I was younger," he says. "I just hid my singing for so long because I was nervous that people would listen to my lyrics, assume I wasn't intelligent because I'm from Tennessee, and pick me apart, so that's why I sang the way I did. But going into this, I knew these melodies that we were playing were too beautiful for me to fuck it up. I had to go for it."
"Basically we got the point where we realized that we can be known as a band that hit it hard for three records and disappeared, or be a band that was smart enough to realize that not very many bands get to make four records, so let's make the most of this," Nathan says. "Because honestly, we were horrible housepainters and that's what we'd be doing if we weren't doing this!"
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"Growing up without a mom in my neighborhood was very hard," Krista says. "My father worked all the time, so my brother, sister, and I were mainly raised by my grandmother, who was very old school and conservative. When I discovered music, it was therapeutic for me because I tend to internalize everything and wouldn't tell anyone how I felt. I kept journals and wrote poems and turned them into songs. I would lock myself in my bathroom and climb in the tub to write because it was the only place where I felt truly safe. Songwriting became the only way I felt I could express myself and people would understand me."
Those early writing sessions would become the seeds for the songs that make up Krista's debut album, Taking Back Brooklyn, in which she sets emotionally raw, brutally honest vignettes from her life to a genre-defying blend of hard-edged rock and engaging pop that reflects the diversity of her upbringing. Krista is as inspired by the boisterous attitudes of early female MCs (Salt-n-Pepa, Queen Latifah), as she is by the escapist rock of Evanescence and Linkin Park, and the sassy R&B of Mariah Carey and Alicia Keys. One moment her music pulsates with the rhymes of a boastful, street-reared MC (bringing to mind the storytelling of early Biggie Smalls), the next her melodious voice soars over lyrics of alienation and suffering, often in the same song.
"This is my debut album and I want to show everybody who I am, which is someone with a lot of different sides," Krista says. "I'm an R&B girl, but I love rock and pop. And I rap, too. Well, I call it 'talking with attitude.' But I didn't want to come out and be just one thing when I know I'm not just one thing. I want my fans to know me for everything that I am on this album." And lyrically? "The album is about taking it back to where I'm from" the whole collage of living in Brooklyn," she says. "But it's also about what art and writing and music mean to me. How I want to take back from my life what has been taken from me."
Shepherding Krista through the process of making her first album was her producer and songwriting collaborator Camus Celli, who has worked with such artists as David Byrne, and Gavin DeGraw. After being introduced to him, Krista went to see Camus at his Brooklyn-based studio. "I sang Sarah McLachlan's 'Angel' for him a capella and that won him over," she says. Camus took Krista under his wing, working with her for two years to help develop her sound, and making her the hallmark singing to his VEL Records. "We would go to the studio and experiment and try things out until I felt comfortable with myself," Krista recalls. "It was a very organic process. His support really gave me the confidence to show who I was."
The result is a dynamic 12-song portrait of this fiery young artist as she takes listeners through her struggles and triumphs. On the first single "Temporary Insanity," she relates a tale of a fight that broke out among her family members. "Instead of engaging in the chaos, I just decided to walk out of the room and write a song about it," she says, "because it was either that or I'd start throwing things, like my brother did. He threw a garbage can at a mirror and that inspired me. I was like, 'Wow, we are just a little bit crazy.'" Other songs proved to be healing as well, like the sultry "Missile," about losing your identity in a relationship; "Please Don't Go," a pleading ballad written for Krista's father; "Scarred for Life," about an emotionally abusive boyfriend; and "Ashes of Pain," a song about salvation that underlines how Krista's strong faith has gotten her through it all. "I like to write songs for other people, but 'Ashes of Pain' is my song," she says. "It's about letting everyone know that no matter what I've been through, I've always kept my relationship with God strong. That he has a plan for me, which is the reason I do what I do."
Krista also proves her versatility as an artist by effortlessly shifting gears from the driving, anthemic pop of "Don't You" straight into the hard-edged "Stained," in which she makes powerful use of her ability to both trill like a songbird and rhyme like a tough-talking MC: "From the bottom of my heart / BK from the start / Where Brooklyn at? / I'm in Sunset Park," she raps before singing "It's not where I'm from, it's who I am" in the angelic tones of the singer/songwriter that she is.
At 16, Krista realized that being able to express herself as a performer was her dream, so she dropped out of high school to pursue it. "I think people from my neighborhood recognized that I was different," she says. "They would tell me that I didn't belong with them" not in a bad way, but in the sense that they knew I could do something good with my life instead of being caught up in the streets. That's when I started to reconsider where I was going in my life."
Indeed, Krista's career has already begun to take off. She's signed a recording deal with J Records, which will release Taking Back Brooklyn this summer, and has already wrapped a sold-out tour with West Coast rapper Shwayze. She has also performed at the X-Games, the Bamboozle Festival, and last year's Lollapalooza, winning audiences over with her powerful performances. "I love performing," Krista says. "When I'm not performing, I feel like I don't exist. I just love giving myself to the crowd because that's who I am."
And then there's the matter of releasing her debut album. For Krista, having the public finally hear her music means everything. "It means life," she says. "This album is going to come out and I'm going to come to life. Up until this point I've just been floating, but once the album drops, my life is going to begin."
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The Best Damn Thing is brimming with gutsy guitar riffs, instantaneously catchy sing-along party-starting choruses, power pop punk, and rebellious rock 'n' roll attitude. It's a marked departure from the darker, more introspective tone of Under My Skin-and on tracks such as the defiant, riotous, kiss-off-to-a-cheating-boyfriend "Everything Back But You," Avril took pleasure in creating scenarios for her lyrics that weren't, as she says, "straight out of my diary." The result is a collection of songs that reveal just how far she's evolved as a songwriter and singer, from the sassy, empowering "I Can Do Better" (one of Avril's personal favorites) to the irrepressible first single "Girlfriend"-which unexpectedly combines a hip-hop beat with beefy power chords, hand-claps, and a chanted girl-group-style chorus with a punk rock twist-to the emotional ballad "Keep Holding On," which she wrote at the request of 20th Century Fox for the studio's fantasy/adventure film Eragon.
As an artist with a keen and well-trained ear for powerful, magnetic pop melodies, Avril was intensely involved in every aspect of The Best Damn Thing's creation: From being fiercely independent while writing her own songs ("I didn't have an A&R guy on this record," she emphasizes. "I knew exactly how I wanted it to sound"), to choosing her producers and musical collaborators, to obsessively going back and tweaking guitar tones and drumbeats in the studio, she worked hard to ensure that it would be her best record yet.
The album features the production skills of Butch Walker (who has also produced The Donnas, American Hi-Fi, and Avril's second album, Under My Skin), Dr. Luke (Pink, Lady Sovereign), Rob Cavallo (Green Day, My Chemical Romance, Goo Goo Dolls), and her husband Deryck Whibley (from Sum 41). The process turned out to be a blast: "I didn't know making a record could be so fun," she says. She was eager to work with her good friend Butch again, as she says, "What's great about Butch is that he's a talented artist as well as being an incredible producer." And about collaborating with Dr. Luke, she adds, "Luke and I had a really good connection and chemistry." The relaxed atmosphere in the studio comes across in the songs themselves-Avril's laughter rings out in "I Can Do Better," and in "Girlfriend" you can hear her, she says, "playing a beer bottle" (by blowing into it) in the last few choruses.
Four of the songs on The Best Damn Thing-"Innocence," "Hot, "One of Those Girls," and "Contagious"-were co-written with Avril's former bandmate Evan Taubenfeld. "Evan is one of my best friends in the world," she says, affectionately. "He's been with me since day one".
Of course, all of the spiky, buoyant energy that drives the album will come to life in the live show that Avril is planning for her tour later this year-she has assembled a new band, and is even bringing along two dancers ("I'm doing choreographed dancing for the first time ever," she grins. "It's going to be such a blast").
A great deal has happened in Avril Lavigne's life since she released her debut album, Let Go, in 2002, when she was 17 years old. That album snagged 8 Grammy nominations and four Juno Awards (including Album of the Year and New Artist of the Year), spawned the anthemic hit singles "Complicated," "Sk8ter Boy," and "I'm With You," and sold more than 16 million copies world-wide. Under My Skin cemented the Napanee, Ontario native's superstardom, entering U.S., Canadian, and U.K. charts at #1, unleashing smash singles "Don't Tell Me" and "My Happy Ending," and collecting three more Juno Awards along the way. In 2006, Avril married Sum 41's Deryck Whibley and branched out into acting, appearing in Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation and lending her voice to Dreamworks' animated film Over the Hedge.
She may be a bit more sophisticated these days, but she's still peerless, and still fearless. The Best Damn Thing is Avril Lavigne at a new stage in her life; she's passed through the shadows of teen angst and emerged in a spotlight, ready to have fun and rock out and yes, even dance. It is, just as she intended, the best damn thing she's ever done.
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Here you'll also find a bustling funk-tified cover of The Jam's 'Pretty Green' sits alongside thunderous versions of Ryan Adam's 'Amy', and Coldplay's 'God Put A Smile Upon My Face', both bringing crescendo and euphoria to the melancholy from which they were born. Elsewhere he re-constructs a new version of Kanye West's 'Touch The Sky', reuniting it with it's original form, courtesy of Curtis Mayfield's 'Moving On Up', before climaxing into Kings Of Leon's 'Pistols Of Fire', Kasabian's 'LSF' and The Smith's seminal 'Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before' also take a ride on the Ronson soultrain.
You may be familiar perhaps with his version of Radiohead's 'Just' – the re-jigged, recorded and layered with added hip hop beats, soulful progression, funk ballast and vocals courtesy of Alex Greenwald of Phantom Planet that rocked the airwaves and dancefloors around the world and even won praise from the bands Ed O'Brian. 'Just' was a catalyst in the conceptualisation and creation of 'Version', a visionary new album project that see's Mark taking on some of contemporary pop music's big hitters in a similar vein.
Using his own unique re-interpretive style, Mark has set out to demonstrate pop voyeurism and experimentalism are not alien forms. Here his eclectic taste has allowed him to pick and rework songs he has loved in a new, original and refreshing format. 'Version' is a positive, never derivative, journey through the art of the song…with added horns thrown in for good measure.
"With my first album, I had all these people like Mos Def and M.O.P guesting. This time its not about that. Despite the big names, it's about the songs…The songs here are the guest stars. With 'Version' I've taken these songs that I love and turned them into Motown/Stax 70's versions. I keep the utmost respect and appreciation for the original versions of songs I use. It's not like I'm thinking it's a shit song that I can make good, it's more like it's a great song and I'm now going to make it bounce."
Mark released his own massively acclaimed, shamefully ignored and criminally unworked debut solo album 'Here Comes The Fuzz' in 2003 through Elektra right before the label imploded as it was. In the wake of the label/album's demise, it is as a producer where Mark has found his rhythm and sound.
P.T.O Production credits over the past 12 months include tracks on new/forthcoming new albums by Christina Aguilera, Robbie Williams, Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse, GHOSTFACE KILLAH, his Allido protgs Rhymefest & Daniel Merriweather to name but a handful.
His label Allido Records, released 'Blue Collar' EARLIER THIS YEAR, the debut album from Grammy winning Chi-town rap sensation Rhymefest, with Australian wunderkind Daniel Merriweather (That's him killing it on 'Stop Me') to follow in the next 12 months. He is the current face of DKNY (LAST YEAR, PROBABLY NO LONGER RELEVANT) but doesn't talk about that stuff at all. Oh and then there is his live band…a full on funk-soul-hop-pop revue that you need in your life.
Back to the business in hand, 'Version' is the sound of Mark Ronson…A man who's musical vision and verve transcends seasons and genres, where Biggie Smalls can sit on a cloud humming along with Al Green to an old Ryan Adams cut and where Nile Rodgers can jam with Sly And The Family Stone whilst the UK's biggest popstar revisits Baggy for kicks and where music is music. It's a beautiful place that hopefully you'll love visiting again and again.
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Soon, back to Nashville it was, where Landon applied himself to more benign interests such as Algebra and Chemistry and lucky for everyone who has heard his debut RCA album, LP Music - learning to make his own sounds as he began to rifle through the wonders of his dad's record collection.
It was Landon's father, a studio veteran himself, who encouraged Landon's musical curiosity, as Landon recalls 'Ray Stevens being the first CD I ever owned.' Pretty soon Landon was unearthing his own musical breadcrumb trail David Mead and Rufus Wainwright who showed him the beauty of a melody; Bands like Radiohead helping to etch a deeper emotion into his songwriting; Masterworks from groups such as Led Zeppelin and the Beatles imbuing in him both the love of a creative turn of phrase and a knack for writing indelible hooks. And there's no denying the upper register of Harry Nilsson floating around somewhere amid Landon's creations, completing a patchwork topography of the singer/songwriter's musical exoskeleton that pop writer Nick Hornby would be proud of.
Landon also credits his mother for nurturing his poetic side. For the record, she still sends him words of wisdom meant to buoy one's strength on those days where the setbacks seem to outnumber the milestones. 'And' laughs Landon, 'she still cuts my hair.'
With all these threads in hand, Landon Pigg has fastened together his own mercurial outlook on life which he effortlessly and magically captures on his debut album. Yet, he'll also be the first to tell you it does no good to equate all these disparate strands with 'figuring him out.' Those who try to solve him like a puzzle end up confused. He likes to keep his thoughts to himself. Likes to keep even 'himself' guessing. Fortunately, a faithful listen to his new CD reveals he's really not that different from any of us. The songs, which Landon says are 'about things like losing love and finding hope about how life will start to make sense and then stop again,'- reflect an uncanny ability to cobble his own confusion into unforgettable music.
Guided by a host of maverick producers, Dan Brodbeck (Dolores O' Riordan), Paul Ebersold (3 Doors Down), and Clif Magness (Avril Lavigne, The Calling), he fuses his own raw edges into subtle and rollicking pop gems, like the plaintive 'Sailed On,' or the sparse but scrappy 'Last Stop,' which brandishes ripe examples of what can only be described as musical Pigg-speak 'I pick up all the pieces of the chords I didn't use'.
The hint we've been waiting for about solving at least part of the musical puzzle?
'Maybe there is a naivet in my approach,' he says. 'I never had a guitar lesson when I started out. I've always felt that when you don't learn all the rules you're much more inclined to break them with a smile.' Which dovetails nicely into another inclination of his: You might not always get to hear Landon speak his mind but you'll always hear him sing it.
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Gifted Trio of Ordained Clergymen Won't Give Up Their Day Jobs In Catholic Parishes of Ireland
Debut Album, Produced by Mike Hedges, Is Coming
November 18th On RCA Victor
(NEW YORK) - A vocal trio of three Roman Catholic priests from Ireland is on the brink of creating an international musical sensation as The Priests.
In an April ceremony on the steps of London's historic Westminster Cathedral, the group - comprised of two brothers, Father Eugene O' Hagan and Father Martin O' Hagan, and Father David Delargy - was signed by Sony BMG (UK). Their Priests' debut album is set for US release on RCA Victor Records on November 18, 2008.
The Priests commenced recording May 23 in Dublin and will continue in Belfast and The Vatican in Rome. Their album will include performances in Latin, Spanish, German, Italian, and English of such enduring classics of faith as "Ave Maria," "Panis Angelicus," "Abide With Me," and "O Holy Night." The Priests are working with legendary producer Mike Hedges, well known for his work with U2, The Cure, and - in a foreshadowing of his current assignment - the Manic Street Preachers. The Priests will be accompanied by the Vatican Choir on the recording, arranged and conducted by Pablo Colino the Emeritus Director of Music at St.Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, Rome. A major television special is in the works, as well as an international launch event scheduled for September at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Northern Ireland.
The extraordinary combined talents of Father Eugene O' Hagan (48), his brother, Father Martin O' Hagan (45), and Father David Delargy (44) first were recognized while they attended Queen's University in Belfast and while training for the priesthood at the Irish College in Rome. During the latter period, the three singers were invited personally by the Papal Master of Ceremonies, Monsignor Magee, to sing for the Pope in the sacred liturgy.
Upon their return to Ireland, each of the Priests will continue to tend to the spiritual needs of his parishioners and to the official duties of his church. The Priests' global recording contract exempts each member from undertaking any promotional or recording duties in the event, for instance, of officiating at a wedding or christening of a parishioner. Additionally, the trio has stipulated that a percentage of the proceeds from their record sales will be donated to a charity of their choice.
"We have been inundated with good wishes from our brother priests, from parishioners, and from many friends in the music world," reports Father Eugene O' Hagan in a blog entry at www.thepriests.com.
"It was our intention to make a record for posterity...but imagine what we felt like when Sony BMG popped up out of nowhere and expressed an interest. Fantastic-unbelievable!"
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With his remarkable, rough hewn vocals and evocative, finely etched songs, Ray LaMontagne has, in but a few short years, become the rare artist of whom the world waits with to see what each new work will reveal. Now, on his much anticipated third album, the Maine-based singer and songwriter has crafted a warm and welcoming record which unveils heretofore untapped depths of ingenuity and optimism. Touching upon a range of styles and musical setting spanning pastoral folk, railroad blues, front porch country, and plangent balladry "GOSSIP IN THE GRAIN" proves to be LaMontagne's most creative and emotionally expansive collection to date.
LaMontagne's 2004 debut, "TROUBLE," became one of that year's most acclaimed debuts, spawning an instant classic single in the album's title track. He returned two years later with the stunning "TILL THE SUN TURNS BLACK," a deeply personal work haunted by a complex and compelling melancholy. The album proved both another popular and critical success, debuting in the top 30 on the Billboard 200 and further marking LaMontagne as a major American artist.
After spending 18 long months on the road, LaMontagne returned to Maine and decompressed. He listened to little music, choosing to focus his energies on restoring his new house, once owned by the late Norman Mailer. In early 2008, he began plotting out his next record and before winter's end, was ready to return to work. Where LaMontagne's previous records had been recorded closer to home, this time he opted to cross the Atlantic in order to work alongside his longtime collaborator, producer Ethan Johns at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios in Box, Wiltshire.
"Ethan came to me last time," LaMontagne says. "I was living in Woodstock and he traveled out there so I could be close to home. He recently moved back to England and he lives about 10 minutes from the studio, so it was only fair that I go to him this time."
LaMontagne's two previous albums were largely solo affairs, with Johns serving as multi-tasking instrumentalist. "GOSSIP IN THE GRAIN" sees him joined by members of his touring band, bassist Jennifer Condos and guitarist Eric Heywood (Johns largely handles drum duties, as touring drummer Jay Bellerose was on the road with Robert Plant & Alison Krauss at the time of the recording). Along with his band members, LaMontagne is also joined on two tracks "A Falling Through" and "I Still Care For You" by singer/songwriter Leona Naess, a friend and artist whose work he has long admired.
"Ethan and I work very well together, one-on-one. I don't know what it is that's going on there, but we can sort of read each other's minds a little bit, so it's really easy for us to work together alone. It's uncluttered. But we've done that. Touring with Jen and Eric has been amazing. They are both incredible people and musicians. I just love the sound we create as a band. It felt like a natural evolution to record this album together.
The sessions concluded in early spring with about 14 tracks recorded, but upon reflection, LaMontagne decided to cull the collection by half. Left with less than a full album's worth of material, he reached into his bag of songs and pulled out three more pieces "Sarah," "Meg White," and the autumnal title track which ultimately went on to define the record's liberated aesthetic and attitude.
While "Winter Birds" and "Gossip In The Grain" retain the sparse atmosphere of his previous record, the album is through and through a shaggier, more loose-limbed collection. Songs like "Henry Nearly Killed Me" and "Hey Me, Hey Mama" have a rambunctious energy and high-spiritedness that show a hitherto undisclosed side of LaMontagne's talent. "Meg White," a rollicking paean to Jack White's drum-beating older sister, lets slip a mischievous wit that the songwriter has previously been loath to reveal on record.
"Well, she does rock," LaMontagne points out. "She deserves a song."
Throughout the record there are recurrent themes of reconnection, of relationships torn down and then reborn, presented with the most sanguine outlook of LaMontagne's career. While some songs, such as the tender "Sarah," feel intensely confessional, others appear to reveal truth through carefully drawn characterizations. As ever, LaMontagne is reticent about delving into the emotional source of his material, preferring to let the work speak for itself.
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Like the origin of any unlikely hero, Say Anything was forged from conflict: a feisty young punk band from Hollywood formed during the birth of "hipster" elitism, always out of place. In that day any group of rich kids with a penchant for the Velvet Underground and enough five o'clock shadow could be paid millions of dollars to be walking billboards for "anti-culture" consumerism. Say Anything shunted pretension, choosing initially to play sincere and nervous rock music and opening locally for the touring bands they closely identified with (The Weakerthans, Rilo Kiley, The Promise Ring). A few years passed and songwriter Max Bemis continued to feel alienated from the collegiate "scene;" He witnessed young rebels devolve into the counter-culture cliches they sought to avoid in the first place, "reverse psychology" victims of homogenized humanity. By identifying this mass-marketed "hip" lie, Bemis found his "arch villain" and, imbued with purpose, Say Anything's music became a new monster - as theatrically pop-based as it was angular and dark. Influenced by bands like Fugazi, The Who, Botch and Smashing Pumpkins, Say Anything dually expressed its irreverence through sing along punk and almost awkwardly confessional Woody Allen-esque lyrics.
The band soon released their rock-musical debut Say Anything...Is a Real Boy on Doghouse Records, garnered a cult fan base, and then entered a partnership with RCA Music Group. They earned a niche of their own, more relatable than sometimes high fallutin' "indie rock" bands but more intelligent than the youth oriented "emo craze." A cathartic live show began to attract thousands of kids a night. Say Anything became unusually critically-lauded for such a pop-based "punk" band. Bemis's openness with his bipolar disorder increased awareness of the disease's affect on musicians and led to him creating a close, respectful relationship with Say Anything fans that has endured their success. Their sophomore double record In Defense of the Genre affirmed they weren't leaving fans behind despite the "hype machine" they'd been placed in. Say Anything's first two records went on to sell several hundred thousand copies and the band became an underground rock fixture rapidly leaking into the mainstream.
So now what of the good fight? Had their cause fallen by the wayside of the normal mechanizations of the music business? After his tumultuous early twenties, overcoming an abusive relationship and a struggle with mental illness, Bemis was finally able to clear his head. He even fell in love and got married. Informed by this spiritual awakening, he finally sat down to write a record that would encapsulate Say Anything while at the same time naturally appeal to a broader audience. Recorded early in 2009 by acclaimed producer Neil Avron (Everclear, Linkin Park, Weezer), Say Anything's self-titled record is almost undeniably the one they'll be known for, highly accessible but replete with dark, sardonic lyrics and musical twists.
It feels like the record the band has been destined to make: one that your Jonas Brother worshipping 12 year old sister and your quarter life crisis Arcade Fire fan big brother can both somehow enjoy. The record explodes with the gnarled, chunky chords of its fierce opener "Fed to Death," defining the band's crusade against both nihilism and fundamentalism. The Clash-meets-Queen single "Hate Everyone" cheekily captures the first stage of personal renewal: waking up on the wrong side of the bed. "Do Better" is an orchestral do-good-feel-good anthem for the mentally perverse. "Mara and Me" finds Bemis declaring to fight his alienated nature over a frenetic Mike Patton-eque musical landscape replete with mathcore flourishes, circus music and a "surf" breakdown. "Property" tells the story of the world's worst boyfriend, skewering modern gender politics and serving an evil 50's doo wop love song over a punk rock beat. "Crush'd" satirizes Justin Timberlake and Lil Wayne, while at the same time evoking a sweaty, Jewish Coldplay. The proverbial hooks keep coming all the way to an epic resolution, the "Hey-Jude" meets Minor Threat hymnal "Ahhhh....Men." The record tells YOUR story: it's both a strange romantic epic and a call to arms.
Like Spider-Man, Say Anything is a bunch of skinny, weird dudes who have been given a gift; the privilege to speak their minds in the venue of mass culture. They aren't the type of band to take that for granted. Making music, despite being a rather silly preposterous enterprise, CAN actually affect massive change. There are wrongs to fight against: society eating itself, the influence of a corporate controlling power, the death of TRUE morality or even one person feeling their will to live slip away. This album is a weapon for that fight and clearly Say Anything wants you enlisted, laughing like a lunatic and dancing all the way.
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The band got its start when Clark grabbed the drummer he befriended in a college psychology class - the one with the bleached-blond five-inch mohawk, Bortscheller - to play on the songs he'd been working up by ear (he doesn't read music). The group took off quickly as a four-piece, but Clark and Bortscheller soon found themselves in the market for a new bandmember to complete what was now going to be a trio. They found their missing piece in a literal digital haystack: MySpace.
"I was living in Texas where I'm from, and I got a random friend request from these jokers," laughs guitarist Jake Mai. Their energetic, catchy sound had him hooked and Mai quit his job and flew to Albany to join the band, giving Young and Divine their distinctive harmonies in the process.
After just two weeks of rehearsals all three could tell the chemistry was perfect, and the crew bonded over their childhood musical loves. As a kid, Clark ditched his piano lessons when he discovered Blink-182 and Nirvana, Mai learned dirty Adam Sandler songs on the acoustic guitar before finding Third Eye Blind and Aerosmith, and Bortscheller was convinced to pick up the drums for a Metallica cover band that never materialized. All three cite Green Day as a powerful influence.
Young and Divine's first few tours saw the trio grappling with busted transmissions, stubborn germs, and shady characters eyeing their gear. But their shows were making an impact and a fast following of loyal fans started trucking to every show within driving distance.
Young and Divine independently recorded their self-titled debut release with Kenneth Mount and Zack Odom (Cartel) at Atlanta's Tree Sound Studios, where the trio became acquainted with working in the studio and jam-packed 12-hour workdays. But most importantly, their super-charged choruses, powerful guitar lines and ear-grabbing melodies got hammered into the final 13 songs for the album.
"'Shake That Bubble' is about going to a club and it's your spot, you've got the hook up," Clark says of the group's dancey first single, where synths and a bouncy beat complement a barrage of guitars. "And it's also about what girls do at clubs - or what we're hoping they do."
The album's head-nodding opener is called "Bonus Track" and the tune usually leads off shows, too because it gives Mai a perfect opportunity to spin kick and oozes positive vibes. "That's all I want to be around now. I was tired of the old ways and hanging around negative people," Clark explains. "Strangers by Day" is what the trio call their hook-up song about "people you want to keep on the down low," and "Nicole Deserved It" is the true tale of a girl who quit her job as a camp counselor to hang out with Clark after a show one summer. "She ended up being a crappy person, so I decided she deserved what she got," he says.
With Young and Divine due later this year, the trio are itching to get back on the road and show off some of their new tricks. "I've been practicing an idea for a drum solo now that everybody's going to be involved in," Bortscheller says. "A lot of bands forget they're entertainers," adds Mai. "Our sets are dynamic but we stick to our roots: we're a rock band."
