The four members of Portland, Oregon’s Brightwood prefer to do things on their own, like on their completely self produced 2008 album Wake. And it is clear that these mostly melodic, sometimes ambient rockers, need the help of no one. With over 30,000 friends and thousands of plays a day on the bands’ Myspace page, Brightwood is a force to be reckoned with. After a song appearance on MTV’s Real World, participation in Invisible Children’s “The Rescue,” some west and east coast touring, and plenty of Youtube videos to document, Andrew, Collin, Matt, and Stephen are quickly sharing their heart and inspiration with the world. After one listen, one watched video, or one look at the bands web spaces, it’s hard to believe the word “unsigned” that is placed so surprisingly on myspace dot com slash Brightwood. “Frankly we just haven't had the right offer yet and we don't feel any huge pressure to sign soon” Says guitarist, Collin. But in the likes of label established bands such as Anberlin and Copeland, Brightwood aims at sending a positive message with an appealing and vivacious sound, and they do it equally as masterful.
Wake 8 Aug 2008 PURCHASE WAKE :
Brightwood’s completely self-produced, first full length Wake begins with the ambient, instrumental track “This Present Slumber,” which opens the door to the chilling sounds of the album to follow. Two tracks forward “Swan Song” highlights the bands explosive side. With a deceivingly soft open speeding towards a quick pause in sound the track’s chorus bursts to life. Crashing drums, and gut-wrenching vocals make “Swan Song” one of the bands' favorites to play live.
The all-around softer “Dreamer to A Dream” is an emotional ballad full of harmonized vocals and soothing bass backbeats. Lyrics like “The moment I'm feeling courageous/ You always leave me tongue tied/ And now it's too late because you're far gone/ Wish I could say I tried” tell the sad story of an un-pursued feeling.
Deep into the album past “Cloak And Dagger,” another heartfelt tack, one of the album’s best, and “Marked And Tied” the partly acoustic, vocally spotlighted swooner we reach the title track “Wake.” This song, which was donated by the band to raise awareness about child soldiers in Uganda, is a spacey and dream-like play. The softly echoed guitar ties in perfectly with the gripping sounds of vocals, drums and bass.
Following in the footsteps of artists, sounds, and ideas which inspire them, Brightwood has crafted a masterpiece all their own. The collected and atmospheric feel of Wake is a sound that will stamp Brightwood as the next big ambient rockers. Keep an eye out Brian Eno.
"We definitely try to maintain a very accessible sound, so hopefully you'll hear some catchy
melodies if we're doing our job correctly."
Collin, guitarist of Brightwood anticipates new music from the band, chats about DIY'ing, participating in positive orginizations, and tour vlogging!
First of all just introduce your band members and what each of you does in Brightwood. Andrew - Guitar & Lead Vocals
Matt - Bass
Stephen - Drums & Vocals
Collin - Guitar
How did the band start? Stephen and Andrew have the convenience of being brothers and have been in bands together throughout their high-school years. They met Matt in college and after cycling through a few members, asked him to come down from Alaska and play bass. I joined almost three years ago after a previous project ended.
We discovered you after hearing your song "Unspoken" on MTV's Real World. How was your song chosen, and what has it done for you in terms of publicity or new fans? We work with a couple different licensing companies that do all our song pitches for us, so it seems they thought that song would fit in with that episodes theme. Good publicity is always a welcome thing, and we definitely notice surges of interest in our music when one of our songs gets placed.
What are you most proud of about your debut LP Wake? What are your favorite tracks? I think the biggest source of pride we get from WAKE is that it was entirely self produced. I personally can't take much credit since I just strummed a few strings here and there, but Andrew and Stephen are very gifted individuals when it comes to anything musical. I think we all enjoy playing our moodier dynamic songs best like "Swan Song" and "Vis Major".
So you're writing new music? What can we expect from you this time around? More of the staple sound that makes Brightwood what it is. We definitely try to maintain a very accessible sound, so hopefully you'll hear some catchy melodies if we're doing our job correctly. Blending ambience and tasteful instrumentation is always a priority, but I wouldn't be able to put my finger on exactly what to expect.
For now you guys are a pretty do-it-yourself band, any plans to find a record label, or will you continue to do things on your own? We're always willing to explore any opportunity that presents itself, be it a record contract, distribution deal or another DIY album. Frankly we just haven't had the right offer yet and we don't feel any huge pressure to sign soon. But we plan to stay open minded about the future of the band.
It is almost hard to believe you guys have never been signed, given how professional and well put together both your music and media are (i.e. myspace, photos, physical album).
How do you make it happen? Again, I have to give a lot of credit to Andrew and Stephen being very dedicated guys, as well as our friends who have been gracious enough to help us out with our media stuff. Andrew and his wife actually graduated with a degrees in Graphic Design and did all of our album artwork. Stephen is a pretty savvy designer as well and has an eye for photography that he loves developing while we're on the road.
You support organizations like To Write Love On Her Arms and Invisible Children, recently offering a free download of your song "Wake" on biggestlabelever.com. Tell us more about your involvement with organizations such as these, and what it means to you as a band to be involved with such positive causes. I heard a staggering statistic a while back that more than 75% of teens spend 80% or more of their day listening to music and their teachers and less than 20% of that time talking with their parents. With that in mind we have a very sobering responsibility to kids that listen to our music since that's their main influence throughout the day aside from their peers. I guess we'd rather the music and lyrics running through their heads have something positive to say rather than morally demeaning themes. Partnering with organizations like TWLH, Invisible Children and the child sponsorship program we recently teamed up with call Action for Empowerment (AOET) seems a natural thing since we are all trying to do our part in making the world a little more compassionate and understanding.
Your tour vlogs on Youtube are very entertaining. Will you continue to make more videos for your fans? So long as my faithful MacBook doesn't die on me and our Flip still takes video we'll definitely still make videos. It's actually a pretty therapeutic activity for me in the van on long drives.
Going along with the Youtube videos, it's clear you all have a great sense of humor. Please entertain us with one of your funniest Brightwood moments. We were recently in Austin for SXSW and had an interesting experience with some of our friends involving a certain flying rodent bombing us in our hotel hallway. I won't spoil it with all the details, but be expecting some video footy of it very soon.
Lastly, tell our readers where they can find your album Wake, or your t-shirts! Check out our website and online store at www.brightwoodmusic.com to purchase physical copies of our CD's along with our T-shirts. You can purchase music digitally
through iTunes or the Bandbox player on our Myspace page.
Thank you! And if you'd like to add any additional comments please go ahead! We'll hope to see everyone at a show soon and stay tuned for some new material coming soon! We love you all!
