We're Back: The Creation of "Rhythm 'N' Moves"

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 11:07:48 -0700

Hello Guys and Gals,

Bryson here. I thought I’d write a blog to catch everyone up on what has been going on with Capital Lights the past few years. I know most of you are confused as to why we are about to release a 2nd album considering the band broke up in 2009. Others of you had no idea we even broke up. Then there are some of you who have never heard of Capital Lights and are wondering why you even started reading this blog. That being said let me give a quick summary of Capital Lights’ short-lived (year and a half-long) career to catch everyone up!

Our professional career started on January 1st 2008. Jonny, Brett, Michael and I had put the band together just months before that day. We had spent the latter half of 2007 talking with labels and writing songs. It was late December 2007 when we signed with Tooth & Nail Records. On New Year’s morning 2008 the four of us jumped on a plane to Seattle to begin recording our debut album with well-known producer Aaron Sprinkle. We spent one month in the studio making the record, and then we hit the road in February.

Capital Lights spent all of 2008 and half of 2009 touring the country. We toured with some amazing bands such as Hawk Nelson, Run Kid Run, Thousand Foot Krutch, Fireflight, Kutless, Pillar and many others. Our debut album "This is an Outrage!" was released on July 8th, 2008. We had a couple successful singles on Christian Rock Radio that year called "Outrage" and "Out of Control," and we also had some success with a Christmas single we released called "His Favorite Christmas Story."

Jon Odle joined the band as full-time bassist that September. The five of us were very blessed with some amazing opportunities. From playing shows in front of thousands of kids, to being able to walk into a mall and randomly hear our songs or see our music video playing in different stores, God truly gave us the full experience.

Well, all good things must come to an end, and sometimes sooner than later. For a number of reasons the five of us felt like God was calling us elsewhere in life. After a lot of prayer, on July 1st, 2009 we played our last show on main stage at Cornerstone Festival in Illinois...exactly a year and a half from the day we started our career in the Seattle studio.

Ever since we disbanded in 2009, the five of us have gone through many life changes such as getting engaged, getting married, going to college, getting degrees, purchasing houses, failing at attempted aviation careers due to colorblindness, getting jobs, losing jobs, and getting ourselves into debt in some way or another. Growing up is great isn’t it?! In the midst of these life changes we have all stayed close friends and we still hang out very often.

In October of 2009 (only three months after we broke up) Tooth & Nail Records brought up the idea of a second album. Strangely enough, I had actually been writing some new songs at the time just for the heck of it. We did not immediately come to an agreement, but kept the idea of a second album in the back of our heads.

The guys and I continued working on new music throughout 2010, with the plan of eventually releasing another album. The label once suggested that we record the music at a studio in Nashville, and then I would track the vocals with producer Aaron Sprinkle in Seattle. Problem was that none of our schedules would allow that kind of travel time. At some point I pitched the idea of recording the album in our hometown (Sand Springs, OK) and us producing the album ourselves. A close friend of ours named Nathan Griffis had all the recording equipment we would need. The label was hesitant at the idea of having no professional producer and wanted to hear samples before they gave their approval. The band got together and recorded two tracks called "Let Your Hair Down" and "Newport Party" and sent them to the label. Luckily, they loved the songs and gave the approval for us the record the album on our own.

We started recording our second album "Rhythm ‘N’ Moves" in March of 2011. We tracked some of the instruments at a local church but most of the recording was done at my house. The making of "Rhythm ‘N’ Moves" was the most unorthodox, out of the ordinary recording process you could imagine. Sometimes when bands describe the process of recording an album, they say something majorly deep and meaningful like “In order to record this album, we had to become more than just a band, we had to become a family.” Or maybe “in order to record this album, I had to search deep within and really find my true self.” Let me just say that is definitely not the story with "Rhythm ‘N’ Moves."

In order to record this album, we had to mute the television, put the dogs outside, and make our friends stay quiet long enough to get a good vocal take. That’s not to say we didn’t enjoy it. We had a blast making the record! We were able to make it exactly the way we wanted it and on our own time. Sometimes we would spend hours just experimenting with different instrument effects while grilling out burgers and hot dogs at the same time. We made it fun, and that is the whole idea of this album…fun.

When you listen to "Rhythm ‘N’ Moves," you are not listening to a group of emo kids pouring out their heart and soul, trying to deeply express their selves through the art of music. Not at all. When you listen to "Rhythm ‘N’ Moves," you are listening to a group of friends in a living room watching House Hunters, making music during commercial breaks

Don’t get me wrong, we put a ton of effort into it. All I am saying is that we made the recording process FUN and that is what we want everyone to get out of it. A lot of time and thought was spent each individual song and we hope everyone finds them easy to relate to, but our main goal was to release a record that you will enjoy cranking up loud in the car and singing along with.

Capital Lights has been blessed with the greatest fans and some amazing memories, and you never know what God has planned next. As for now, God has granted us the opportunity to release an album that was written & recorded exactly the way we had in mind. Bottom line - We enjoyed making "Rhythm ‘N’ Moves" and hope that you have just as much fun listening to it!

Hello from Bryson!

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 09:09:03 -0700

Well hello! This is officially my first blog! Hopefully there will be many more to come and maybe I'll get better as they go. As for now, we are keeping it real at home in good ol' Oklahoma! It's about 100 degrees and 100% humidity. On top of that, I think that in Oklahoma mosquitoes outnumber humans 90 to 1. Nobody in the state is happy, but other than all that we are glad to be home for the time being!

For those of you who don't know, we are a pretty new band on Tooth & Nail. We just signed in December, recorded our album with Aaron Sprinkle in January, and it just came out July 8th! It's called This is an Outrage! Go pick it up if you dont have it! We are very happy to finally be at part of the Tooth & Nail family. Growing up, many of our favorite bands were T&N artists... A few of us including myself started playing music because of MxPx! So it's a great feeling to finally be here.

So far things have been great! A few weeks after we got back from recording we went out on the" Green T" Tour with Hawk Nelson and Run Kid Run. We couldn't have asked for a better tour to be on! Hawk and RKR are some of the coolest, most down to earth guys ever. By the end of that 3 month tour we were all pretty much family. On the last date in Indianapolis we pulled a tour prank which we thought was genius. Whoever has seen a Hawk Nelson show knows that they play a song called "Hello" and Jason will bring a few people on stage to play kazoos with him. Well, we figured he would look pretty stupid doing that if another band had already done it that night... so we did. We covered that song and brought 3 girls on stage, gave them kazoos, did the whole deal, EXACTLY the way Hawk does it every night... So later, when it was time for them to play it, he felt pretty awkward (or as they like to call it, hawkward). But they outdid us and brought like 60 kazoo player on stage. It almost collapsed. They win.

We shot our music video for "Outrage" a few days ago in Nashville at the Belmont Mansion. Dave Hill was the director. It was a lot of fun and very tiring once we started the live shots, but I think its gonna turn out real good! Dave did a great job and had some cool ideas! The vid should be out in a few weeks so keep your eyes open for it!

Oh! and we will be on the Creation Tour in October and November with Kutless, Thousand Foot Krutch, Pillar, Run Kid Run, and many more. It's gonna be great! That's all for now! Hopefully see everyone at a show soon!

Bryson

Tooth & Nail - Artist Blog - Capital Lights

We're Back: The Creation of "Rhythm 'N' Moves"

Hello from Bryson!