NASHVILLE |FROM: MITCH SCHNEIDER/TODD BRODGINSKI/LATHUM NELSON (818-380-0400) LOIS NAJARIAN @ J RECORDS (646-840-5670)
SPLENDER
TO RELEASE SECOND ALBUM ON J RECORDS;
VIDEO FOR KICK-OFF SINGLE ‘SAVE IT FOR LATER’
SHOT IN LOS ANGELES
SPLENDER will release their second album–and first for J Records–August 20. Titled TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN, it is being kicked off with the soaring melodic rocker “Save It For Later,” which lead singer and songwriter WAYMON BOONE infuses with a poignant live-for-now urgency. The first single, “Save It For Later” hits airwaves in late June (it goes to modern rock and adult top 40 radio June 24, with a Top 40 impact date set for July 22) and is already setting off instant sparks at radio. The New York-based band shot a video in Los Angeles this weekend–directed by Nick Egan (Oasis, Alanis Morissette, Bon Jovi)–with tour dates soon to be announced.
In the three years since their debut album Halfway Down the Sky-which produced the Top 20 modern rock song “Yeah, Whatever” and pop hit “I Think God Can Explain”-WAYMON BOONE, (vocals, guitar), JAMES CRUZ (bass, vocals),JONATHAN SVEC (lead guitar, vocals) and MARC SLUTSKY (drums, percussion) build up a following on the road. Along the way, they tightened their music and developed their songcraft, both melodically and lyrically, with WAYMON‘s vivid imagery encompassing love, fury, fear and affirmation. When their trusted A&R man James Diener-“our fifth member,” according to WAYMON-moved to J Records, the band didn’t hesitate to follow. “At the time we signed with J, they hadn’t put out an act or even set up an office. But with Clive Davis and James Diener over there, that was enough for us to make the switch.”
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN is testament to their evolution. Adhering to the contours of each song’s structure, SPLENDER finds myriad variations on the basic idea of rawk: just check out the opening track, “Happier This Way,” from the swinging, Stones-like opening riff through its reflection in the drum part, which quickly powers up to a massive backbeat that slams through showers of muscular guitar. With each new section, the band adjusts, following the tension as it eases and cranks back up. This is classic rock band arrangement, confident, even swaggering, yet alert and responsive at the molecular level.
The new album was produced by Mark Endert (Fiona Apple, Tonic, Vertical Horizon, The Ours), whom WAYMON describes as “a mad scientist. From day one we spent an enormous amount of time on every sound and every idea. That brought more out of us, but the setback was the amount of time it took. To focus that long in a studio is very difficult, because I always try to capture what a song meant to me at the moment it was written. To spend that much time examining every detail in the studio while still going for that kind of purity, that became a call to arms for me.”
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