- A ROCKET TO THE MOON
Looking back now, it’s difficult to believe that A Rocket To Moon all started in Nick Santino’s bedroom three years ago when he harmlessly posted a few songs on the Internet. However what began as an electro-tinged sonic experiment quickly snowballed into a full-fledged band that’s toured with acts like 3OH!3 and Cobra Starship, played festivals like the Vans Warped Tour and Bamboozle and gained fans all over the world. “I never actually intended for A Rocket To The Moon to get this far,” Santino admits, adding he couldn’t be more thrilled about the current incarnation of the band. “I always wanted to take it to the next level and put a couple of guys in the act instead of having all the focus on me, so after Bamboozle ’08 we started performing as a full band and right now the sound is perfect.”
The current incarnation of A Rocket To The Moon—Santino, guitarist Justin Richards, bassist Eric Halvorsen and former The Receiving End Of Sirens drummer Andrew Cook—have put their collective experiences into the band’s full-length debut On Your Side, an instantly infectious collection of upbeat pop music that was produced by Matt Squire (Panic! At The Disco, Boys Like Girls). “We had never recorded a full-length before and we learned so much from working with Matt,” Santino explains, adding that On Your Side was recorded in a scant seventeen days—a fact that only adds to the album’s sense of urgency. “We did it really quickly but we didn’t feel any pressure because we spent so much time preparing before we went into the studio,” he continues. “Justin and I are big country fans, so it’s got that feel to it mixed with a ‘90s pop-rock kind of vibe; it’s just an all-round fun album that doesn’t fit into one genre.”
From heartfelt piano ballads such as “Like We Used To” to energized radio-friendly rockers like “Dakota” and electronica-inflected tracks like “Sometimes,” On Your Side is an exercise in versatility that shows how much the band have evolved as musicians and songwriters over the past few years. “There are so many different styles of music on this record, but I think Matt Squire helped us pull it off tastefully so it definitely all still sounds like A Rocket To The Moon,” Santino says. “One of my favorite songs is “Like We Used To” because it has a lot of pedal steel and banjo on it, which is something that’s totally new for us,” he beams. “What can I say? I’m a sucker for a good love song.”
Lyrically On Your Side is a concept album of sorts that pits the characters of “Dakota”—the protagonist of the band’s breakthrough single—against “Annabelle” (the new album’s opening track). “We kind of developed this theme that all the negative songs are about this character Annabelle and all the love songs are about Dakota—and that concept just came together when we were in the studio,” Santino explains, “I think the album is a good balance of those two dueling feelings.” While On Your Side is rooted in personal experience, the band were careful not too make the songs too literal in order to allow each listener the opportunity to have his or her own unique interpretation. “A lot of the time Justin and I will find ourselves making up stories or writing from other people’s points of view and I really think that’s the beauty of writing songs,” Santino explains.” You can do whatever you want, so why limit yourself?”
This attitude carries over into the band’s mission statement—and from their inception A Rocket To The Moon have never had any interest in pigeonholing themselves into one style. “I think it’s pretty awesome that we’re able to tap a couple of genres instead of getting stuck in just one,” Santino says. “Your options are pretty much unlimited if you can do a radio tour with a band like the Fray and then come back and tour with Boys Like Girls and Cobra Starship and have all different types of listeners embrace your music,” he continues, adding that the restless band are already working on songs for their next album. “We just want to try new things and crossover into different places; one of the most validating things you can experience as a musician is to turn listeners on to something they wouldn’t normally be exposed to on their own.”
Speaking of which, the band’s connection with their fans runs deep, a fact that has helped separate the act from their peers and forge lasting relationships. “A lot of bands have different onstage and offstage personalities, but we are always true to ourselves and try to get the fans as involved in the band as possible,” Santino says, adding that he personally mailed out copies of his debut EP to fans who supported him when A Rocket To The Moon was just starting out. “We go up there and be ourselves and don’t pretend to be rockstars; our job is to bring music to our fans, not to act like we’re better than them and that’s something I think people can really sense.”
“I just can’t wait to get these songs into people’s hands,” Santino responds when asked how he feels for the album to finally be completed after all the work that’s gone into the On Your Side. “We got the masters back the other day and I was sitting there with a big smile on my face as I listened to it. I was thinking, ‘You just recorded with one of the best producers around and you’re about to release a real record—and a couple of years ago you were just sitting in your bedroom at your parents’ house not doing anything,’” he explains, taking a moment to reflect on the band’s whirlwind success that is looking to only grow more dizzying upon On Your Side’s release. “It’s been an amazing ride so far and I can’t wait to see what happens next.”
2. BOYS LIKE GIRLS
Boys Like Girls didn’t have to look far for inspiration when it came time to record Love Drunk, the long-awaited follow-up to their self-titled Columbia Records debut. After spending three years on the road in support of Boys Like Girls – which has sold more than 700,000 copies to date, is certified gold by the RIAA, and spawned the top ten Top 40 radio hit “The Great Escape” – the four friends from Boston knew how much they’d progressed as a band, and they credit a lot of that growth to their fans.
“Being able to play your songs almost every night for three years straight, you notice that they’re morphing into different interpretations, and bits and pieces are changing as you progress as a band,” says front-man Martin Johnson of his band’s evolution since the release of their debut in August 2006. “When we came into the studio and started banging this new record out, it was like second nature to us. We didn’t want to write an album that was the same as our first record, but we still wanted to do something that would be fun and different and cool, and stay totally locked in with our fans because they’ve been here for us since the beginning and allowed us to evolve with them. They are the most important thing to us.”
So Boys Like Girls did what they do best, embracing the same dynamic in the studio that has become a trademark of their live shows. It started with the songs but ended with the performances. In a day-and-age where technology rules and albums can be recorded with the press of a button and the loop of a sample, Johnson, guitarist Paul DiGiovanni, bassist Brian Donahue and drummer John Keefe wanted to capture their essence as a band, making spontaneity more important than pristine over-processing.
It’s the mindset that rules their live show, and it’s the mindset that would shape Love Drunk.
“I feel like modern recording has pressed bands into this tiny little box. It’s a futuristic war against recording where you master the super-compressed record, then it compresses down to an MP3, then it compresses down to whatever else… A lot of music just isn’t sounding organic anymore,” says Johnson. “We’ve had so much fun playing together, I feel like the music has built itself into something bigger with the live show. There is a whole large spectrum of sounds that comes with this record that we’ve been really happy to explore.”
Look no further than “Love Drunk,” the album’s anthemic lead single and title track and a punchy celebration of love’s intoxicating effects: “I used to be love drunk, but now I’m hung over/ I’ll love you forever, forever is over/ We used to kiss all night, now it’s just a bar fight,” Johnson sings, the track finding an all-too-happy medium between the band’s pop-rock debut and the more electronic fashion of bands like the Killers and Franz Ferdinand.
“Heart Heart Heartbreak” ramps the arena-ready sound up another notch, the verse-chorus-guitar solo combo custom made for audience participation; and “Contagious” follows suit with a penetrating bottom-end and rich vocal harmonies, further elevating Boys Like Girls to infectious new heights. On the less raucous end of the musical spectrum, a string section helps set the tone for the tender ballad “Two Is Better Than One,” while the more mid-tempo “The First One” offers an endearing take on bouncing back from a broken heart.
Recorded between Vancouver and New York City, production duties were split between the team of S*A*M and Sluggo [Metro Station, Cobra Starship, Gym Class Heroes] on the east coast and Brian Howes [Puddle of Mudd, Chris Cornell, Hinder] on the west coast. The band recording half the album with each producer but with end results as seamless as the band’s infectious sound. “What was fun about this record was experimenting with new stuff, going for a vocal melody, a chord progression, or something I might not have tried on the last record because I was scared of reaching outside the boundaries. It was about doing something fun and unique and trying to find a sound that nobody had really done before, and I think we definitely opened up our boundaries quite a bit.”
Voted Spin.com’s Artist of the Year after receiving an astonishing 68% of the total vote in 2007, Boys Like Girls spent three years on the road, touring with the likes of Good Charlotte, Avril Lavigne and the Vans Warped Tour and developing one of the most loyal fan bases in modern rock. After selling more than 3.0 million digital singles – including 1.5 million copies of “The Great Escape,” 900,000 copies of “Hero/Heroine” and 600,000 copies of “Thunder” – Boys Like Girls chronicled their rise from Ramen Noodles and sleeping on fans’ floors to headlining their hometown arena with the release of their first DVD in November 2008, readbetweenthelines.
“This has all been such an amazing, gradual chain of events,” recalls Johnson, the band’s principal songwriter. “I think the most amazing part of it, aside from the really humungous shows and being able to play in front of amazing crowds, was watching as the word of mouth spread in the beginning. We had yet to have exposure on the radio or anything like that, and, through touring with different bands like Cartel, Hello Goodbye and the All American Rejects, all of a sudden people were singing along to every word. Before we knew it, we had sold 100,000 records and were going to radio with ‘The Great Escape.’ It was such a crazy whirlwind to watch it all happen. Then, to be able to headline your own tour and see the reaction when you headline your hometown arena — it’s totally incredible, and I wouldn’t have done anything any other way!”
“I don’t think anybody really knows what to expect from us on this record, but I think once people hear it they are going to understand it and understand the progression we’ve made. It was hard, and there was definitely pressure, but this is a huge step for us.”
