Pre-Pre-Production: the Bigger Lights
Things haven’t slowed down much since Virginia powerpop outfit, THE BIGGER LIGHTS, began playing together in 2007. Less than a year into the life of the band, Doghouse Records came calling on the strength of the self-released EP, Third Act Stories, and subsequently released the Bigger Lights’ 2008 EP, Fiction Fever. After the prerequisite lineup changes and growing pains, the band are almost ready to head into the studio to lay down their debut full-length. Guitarist/vocalist J.K. ROYSTON cleared a few minutes from the Let’s Make A Mess Tour(with Hey Monday, This Providence and the Friday Night Boys), to fill LUCY ALBERS in on what to expect from their freshman full-length.
What’s the plan for making this album?
We’re going into the studio beginning the first day of August for six weeks. Our tentative plan is to release a single digitally in November to work people in and get excitement going for the record. The release itself will hopefully be out in January 2010. Of course, that’s the general timeline. We don’t have a set release date and it’s all subject to change depending on how everything goes.
How much material do you have ready for recording?
We’ve actually been writing since before our Doghouse EP came out. It was released digitally last year and in retail this past April, but we’ve probably been writing for the full-length since about lat November. We’ve got about 14 or 15 demos and about five more to finish up before we go into the studio. Our goal is to get about 20 to 25 pieces so we can really trim the fat off, and pick 11 songs from the top. We don’t want to put out an album that has a clear single and then just a bunch of other filler tracks. We really want to make an album where everything is kind of necessary. The EP we put out on Doghouse actually had songs we re-recorded from our unsigned EP, and one of the tracks was kind of a mesh of a few songs that we had had before that. When we look back, the last thing we put out with brand new stuff that kids haven’t heard was our unsigned EP. I think we really want to make this album 11 brand new songs that can help redefine the band musically and sort of take an opportunity to show kids that our band is something to get into, instead of just recycling stuff. By the time this comes out, we’ll have been working on it for a year, which is kind of a long time. The EP definitely did well, but it’s time to branch out and write new songs and see what we can do.
How do you think the new stuff that you’ve been writing compares to what we hear on the Doghouse EP?
I think with the EP, when we look back on it, we’re proud of what it was for that point in our career. But we really take it in context of where the band was at that time. We wrote one of the songs within the first two or three weeks of getting the band together, and one was written before this band was actually a band; it was just written and ended up getting used . Towards the end, I think we were starting to explore different sounds. It was kind of a rushed process when we signed with Doghouse and they wanted to get something out pretty quickly. I feel like we did the best job we could and it was good for what it was. But, as far as actually exploring for our main record, we could really dig into ourselves and try to figure out who we want to be as a band. We’ve had a few member changes and just now gotten to the point of being a five-piece band. Everybody has a relationship with the project and I think we understand who we are as a band, and I think this album will reflect that. While the EP was a sort of introduction to the world, and grabbed the attention, I think this record will be a lot more developed in terms of songs that are really personal. It’s a lot more of an honest songwriting approach and we’re going to go for a good production approach and just let each song be what it wants to be. Hopefully, we’ll have a record that comes out with a sense of diversity, without losing our identity from track to track. It’s definitely more in the rock and pop direction. It’s got a little bit of a throwback sound to it, like Queen and Aerosmith and Counting Crows and stuff like that. At the same time, I think that it’ll still be modern enough so kids who didn’t necessarily grow up with those bands can still get into it. But we just want to make a record that’s honest. We all love making music, so it’s going to be hard for us to label it at this point before we go into the studio. Our main goal is just to make a record that people can find something special in.
Do you think the member changes have changed your music at all?
I think it hasn’t directly changed our music. I think it’s allowed us to become who we wanted to be from day one. We’ve gotten closer to being the band we’ve always wanted to be–a rock band with some pop influence, something we felt was real and organic and honest. Some bands still do it, so it’s not dead, but I think bringing the new members into the band, with their abilities and perception of music, helps us get more comfortable and closer to the band we want to be. So I wouldn’t say they’ve changed us as much as enabled us to play music and write music that we’ve wanted to write since the beginning.
How did you get hooked up with producer Paul Barber?
We talked to a lot of different people about the project, and a lot of people we look up to have worked with Paul. And he’s actually from where we’re from. Some of our good friends are in a band called My Favorite Highway, and he did [their 208 debut, How To Call A Bluff]. He’s been recording their stuff for years, and we’ve always admired the way that band has recorded. We asked them what their experience was like working with him and they told us we should talk to him right away, and that he was a huge part of how they came about with an identity for the band. So we started talking to Paul, and even within the first conversation, we felt a really good fit. He’s been familiar with our band for a really long time, and we’ve been familiar with him for a really long time. I think his understanding of music and how an album is made is really parallel with the kind of album we want to make. When we were expressing what we wanted to do, he seemed to be on the same page as us, as far as a production and what we wanted to achieve; more so than anybody else we talked to. We really just have this sense that he’ll challenge us to be a better band. I think he can help us find an identity that we’ve been searching for and help us grow a lot.
Are you nervous about meeting expectations fans and the label might have?
I think that any songwriter or artist who says they’re not worried about meeting expectations on some level is fooling himself or herself. One thing we’ve learned through years is that you have to learn how to trust yourself. At the end of the day, the label is going to have their expectations and the kids that follow you are going to have their expectations. You sort of have to remember that and trust that it’s your art and your career. Nobody is going to know better than you what kind of songs you should write or what music inspires you. If you kind of stay focused on that, you can walk away from the process knowing that you wrote the best songs you could, or recorded the best record you could, and whatever happens after that is out of your hands. It’s like, we did our job as musicians and created something we believe in and think is special, and if people latch onto that, that’s fantastic. If it meets expectations, then everyone is happy and it’s exciting. But at the end of the day, all you can do is all you can do. If those nerves bother you too much and you start allowing that to affect the way you record or write, you have a much more dangerous possibility of making a record you didn’t want to make, or allowing your songs to become contrived because you were to busy worrying about meeting others’ expectations. That’s something we’ve been really trying to keep in mind while we write. Whether we write something that’s easily classifiable or whatever, if it’s something we’re excited about, and something we can play for years and be proud of, that’s going to be the number one criteria over anything else.
What music have you been listening to that might inspire the direction of this album?
We’ve all been branching out and listening to as much music as possible. That’s not necessarily part of making a record, that’s just us. We got into this because we love music. Personally, I listen to music 75 percent of the day; I can’t live without it. And most of the band is the same way. As far as specific records or artists we’ve been listening to a lot, collectively, we’ve definitely been listening to a lot of bands we grew up with like Aerosmith and the Beatles; Bands that played in an era where rock music brought thousands of people to a show and stood for something big and bold and rebellious. It was a thing people were drawn to; it was magnetic. And the inspiring thing about it is that it was bigger than any one person, it was something to believe in. We’ve been listening to bands from that era because there’s something real and larger than life about it. At the same time, I think that we definitely love pop music a lot. I have to admit that I’ve been listening to Taylor Swift like it’s my job. I just think that girl is an amazing songwriter. She can write songs that are honest and focused and there’s something about it that I’m drawn to. And I think everything Butch Walker has ever done is just amazing. Anything that’s real and honest to the songwriter or the band is inspiring to us and we just try to learn something from everybody. I would expect, with this record, with everything that influences us the way we write and the way we record, I hope we just come out with a really pop-influenced rock record that has a lot of movement power.
Do you have a set date as to when the record will be out?
We’re going to go in to the studio on August 1st for six weeks until mid September. Our tentative plan is to release our single digitally in November to work people in and get excitement going for the record. The release itself will hopefully be out in January. Of course, that’s the general timeline. We don’t have a set release date and it’s all subject to change depending on how everything goes.
