View all of Tim's I Will Never Be The Same photos here.
To paraphrase a great, sometimes it's a long, strange trip. You set out prepared for one thing, and you end up on a wildly different journey. Thus began Friday, Nov. 6th, as CWG Metal reviewer Dave Brooks and CWG Hard Rock/Metal reviewer Tim Bannock set out for the Dakota Bar in Santa Monica to watch I Will Never Be The Same tear up the stage in support of their debut album, Standby.
The Script recently stopped by TV Guide for an exclusive interview to give fans the scoop on their debut album, what it's like opening for U2 and what fans can expect in the near future.
Make sure to check out the video below to learn a little bit more about your favorite Irish rockers and head over to The Script's official site to see a full list of dates for their upcoming tour with David Cook.
The Script recently stopped by The Ellen DeGeneres Show to perform their hit single "Breakeven." The Irish trio has sold over 2 million albums worldwide, and have been the opening act for some of the biggest names in music including Paul McCartney and U2. Now the group is preparing to hit the road with David Cook on a countrywide tour. Take a look at their performance here and check out all of the upcoming tour dates at the bands official site and MySpace.
Hot Chelle Rae announce themselves as a force to be reckoned with on their debut album Lovesick Electric. How can you argue with bold, swaggering vocals, monster sing-along choruses, crunching rock guitar, and a propulsive rhythm section that just won’t quit?
“We wanted the music to sound larger than life,” says guitarist Nash Overstreet of the group’s epic dance-rock sound. “We wanted it to sound explosive and new and fun and be better than anything out there,” adds frontman Ryan Keith Follese. Indeed, stomping, blistering jams like “I Like to Dance,” “Never Have I Ever,” “Say (Half Past Nine),” and “Bushes,” will sound equally fierce whether they’re blasting from a car stereo or emanating from an arena stage.
As one reviewer has already raved about the Nashville newcomers: “Hot Chelle Rae are honest to goodness rock and roll at its finest — ripe and arrogant, sweating with tangible promise that hangs in the air at their live shows. Posh arrangements featuring refreshingly tasteful guitar, sly lyrics, and a 22-year-old lead singer dripping with charisma, leave you knowing that these guys will end up somewhere—everywhere.”
High praise, but not surprising considering that all four band members were raised with music in their DNA. Ryan, his brother/drummer Jamie, and Overstreet are the sons of A- list Nashville songwriters with multiple number one hits between them, while bassist Ian Keaggy's dad is a world renowned Grammy-nominated guitarist.
While doing their on again/off again routine, St. Louis rockers Story of the Year or SOTY recently stopped by Long Beach to pay their respects to a local charity event but before hitting the streets they decided to do what they do best and that’s playing music.
Dan, Ryan, Phillip, Adam and Josh gave me the opportunity of a lifetime, when I got word that I'd be interviewing the entire act before they were due to meet up with their fans for a quick signing session - not to mention their headlining performance for later on that same night. The band spoke to me about what they’ve currently been up too and what to expect from them come the New Year.
Rebelution released their first full-length album "Courage to Grow" in June 2007, which ultimately became a breakthrough album for the band. It went on to garner mass downloads and radio play on monster stations such as San Francisco's Live 105 where their single "Safe and Sound" was played on heavy rotation, with spins on San Diego's 91X and Los Angeles' KROQ. The album hit an all time high when it was selected as iTunes Editor's Choice for Best Reggae Album of 2007. "Courage to Grow" has been in the top 10 iTunes Reggae album sales since its release two years ago, and it remained in the Billboard Top Reggae Album Chart for 36 weeks and peaked at #4.
THE FUTURE:
Now, Rebelution is giving their fans and fans to come 12 brand new signature tracks on "Bright Side of Life," which is the first release under the band's newly founded record label 87 Music. The album is truly the soundtrack for the summer, with an overall theme of encouragement, a blend of the band's cohesive mix of reggae, rock, and hip-hop influences, and kick back, "worry free" vibes. For the rest of 2009 moving into 2010, the band will be touring nationally to promote the new album, and will also be recording an "iTunes Live Exclusive at the Palms in Las Vegas" feature later this year.
Brand New, who will release Daisy 9/22, are slowly starting to get fans amped up for their new album by releasing videos from the Daisy Studio Sessions.
With rehearsals and jam sessions being outside of the norm for Brand New the footage from the Daisy Studio Sessions becomes that much more special. "Sowing Season" has been stripped down, re-imagined and reinvented in this beautiful acoustic version.
This is not a sequel. This is what happens when the sun dips down, that swollen moon comes up, the sea water ripples and cools, and the Pacific Coast Highway still feels warm on your bare feet with a little of that leftover sunlight trapped in the blacktop. This is the last hiss of the last popped bottle cap, when the bubbling depths of a golden Corona swallow that last sliver of lime. This is where the story continues, with the top down, the wind spraying loose sand from your hair. This is what happens when you don’t go home with the sun… and you follow the moon.
“We can’t sit on the beach with an acoustic guitar forever!” proclaims Cisco Adler. “This is not a one-trick pony.”
His other half, Aaron Smith (a.k.a. Shwayze), closes his eyes and nods and offers, “We’ve already got that beach-time summer vibe, chilling during the day. Now we want some stuff for the clubs that bangs your ears out and you can dance to it. This is definitely an evolution from the first one.”
That first one, the self-titled Shwayze, ushered the unlikely duo to unlikely heights. A string of multiple hits (“Buzzin’,” “Corona and Lime”) fueled by millions of Internet plays carried them to top ten album sales, landed them a coveted slot on the Vans Warped Tour, and turned them into reality television stars on MTV. In a wound-up world, Shwayze was a life-lesson in laid back lassitude, a coast-to-coast call to make every day a lazy day. And if success always breeds a bit of contempt, Let It Beat comes out swinging.
The Dear Hunter--Casey Crescenzo (singer/pianist/guitarist/lyricist/multi-instrumentalist), Andy Wildrick (guitar), Erick Serna (guitar), Nick Crescenzo (drums), Nate Patterson (bass)—just released a video update about their upcoming headlining tours and the shows they’re doing with Thursday and Thrice, all of which kick off September 23 in Akron, OH at Musica.
The tour dates can be found on their Myspace page (www.myspace.com/thedearhunter). A sneak peek of the forthcoming video for “What It Means To Be Alone” is also included in the update.
You could say Kate Voegele is an overachiever. At 22 years old, the Cleveland, Ohio native has spent the better part of the last two years juggling life as a full-time singer-songwriter, part-time actress and a college student, rarely pausing to take a breath. "Multi-tasking has always been my thing," she says. "For my first album, I somehow scheduled my classes around recording sessions, and still got a 4.0 grade point average. Then I took a break from school and went on the road, but halfway through, I got offered One Tree Hill completely unexpectedly. That was when life got ridiculous."
Ridiculous in the sense that Voegele went from being a complete unknown to a TV star, and from a girl writing songs in her dorm room to a bonafide recording artist with legions of loyal fans, all in less than a year. Voegele is still pinching herself just to make sure it's really happening. "Sometimes I look around and wonder what I’ve done to deserve all this," she says with a laugh.
It was by virtue of her talent, vivacious personality and sheer determination that Voegele scored the tie-in of a lifetime: playing the spunky Mia on popular teen drama One Tree Hill, but performing her own music. Thanks to that confluence of events, her MySpace Records debut, Don't Look Away, sold close to a quarter million copies, climbed to No. 4 on the iTunes chart and sent Voegele upstream to Interscope (which has a distribution partnership with MySpace). Now Voegele is seeing her musical wish list come true with A Fine Mess, her second serving of undeniable pop-rock charm, produced by Mike Elizondo (Maroon 5, Fiona Apple) and scheduled for release in May 2009.
Brimming with optimism, first time independence and the wisdom that comes from one too many broken hearts, A Fine Mess is the continuation of a road Voegele was destined to travel, and, like every milestone in her career thus far, she navigates it with gusto. "It's easy to get caught up in trying to write hit songs when you're working on a second record," says Voegele. "But for me, it's about remembering why I started expressing myself through music in the first place — how it came from a need to write and there was nothing mechanical about it. Those are the best songs, when I'm not thinking about it, which usually means that I write at really inconvenient times."
In Voegele's nomadic world, that means songs penned on airplanes and tour buses, cafés in Wilmington, North Carolina and hotel rooms in Los Angeles. "I got all this inspiration and a bunch of ideas from a year and a half on the road," she explains. "I've traveled to so many different places and had all these unexpected adventures with great people — that's where this body of work comes from.
White Lies have had a busy 2009 – Their chart topping debut album To Lose My Life (Geffen/Fiction) received glowing critic’s reviews and following the March release stateside, the band kicked off a coast to coast US tour with a raucous filled SXSW in Austin, TX and ended the trek with a performance to a packed crowd at the annual Coachella Music Festival in Indio, CA.
The band has spent the summer performing at major festivals around the globe including Beicassim, Glastonbury, T in the Park, Lollapalooza and this September will play both Reading and Leeds, as well as embark on a European tour with Coldplay before returning to the US to hit the road with Kings of Leon.
Kate Voegele recently shot Myspace’s The Fit on Robertson Blvd in Los Angeles. She stopped by Intermix, Rock & Republic and Diavolina to try on some outfits and show off her favorite looks for the camera.
Article and Photos By: Tim Bannock
