Tapping into an energy comparable to that of Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Tom Petty,California-based quartet Brightshine redefines improvisational rock by focusing on strong songs and arrangements, creating an irresistible style that is syncopated, ethereal and rocking.

Your single "New Days" has an upbeat chorus with some catchy riffs. What inspired this song?

“New Days” came to me in the darkest days of the pandemic. For me the song was a little like the flower that spouts up through the concrete, a glimmer of hope in the darkness of the pandemic. So I think there was something either in me or coming from somewhere else that wanted to reassure me and anyone who might hear the song that it’s always darkest before the dawn.

The music video for the track is amazing, yet simple. It features the band setting up for gigs and such. How did you decide on this approach?

“New Days” is a song about lockdown, and the persistent, all-consuming solitude and sadness that suddenly became universal for all of us. It’s also about the hope that we would someday be delivered from that state and that maybe we would learn and grow from it and create a better world from some of what we learned from the isolation. Covid stripped away many of the veneers of society, and left much of it exposed in a way we'd never seen. Not only were we suddenly privy to the insides of peoples' houses, but everything we'd taken for granted was gone and we suddenly could see all the inner workings of the system underneath. 

With the “New Days” video, our goal was to capture this unique situation—these simultaneous feelings of desolation and revelation. The choice to use real concert footage, as well as candid shots of the band setting up, was made in order to illuminate that juxtaposition, and further drive home how far away from reality lockdown had taken us. 

You're also celebrating the release of your new album “The Wire.” Let’s talk about that seven-minute title track. Was the song originally intended to be that long?

I try to have very few expectations for my songs before I bring them to the band. I have such an amazing personal and musical rapport with everyone that I can trust them to take the song somewhere I might not have thought about, which, to me, is what makes recording the songs live on the floor of the studio so magical. In the improvised sections it’s important to me to take off my producer hat and just be an improvising musician, to be in the music rather than outside of it trying to control it, so I didn’t know how long it would be when we were cutting the track. When that type of magic hits and you are recording it’s the best—we definitely captured lightning in a bottle with that jam at the end of “The Wire”!

That jam session towards the end is incredible. What guitar was used for that?

Thank you! I was using my Tom Anderson Angel for that tune. It’s an amazing instrument with an Alder body, which gives it the nice beefy sustain and a Swamp Ash top which gives the tone lots of sparkle and complexity. I’ve only used Tom Anderson Guitars since I began gigging and recording; they feel like an extension of me at this point and enable me to express myself in a way I have never been able to with any other instrument.

Further into the album, “Until We Fall” is more of a unique ballad with how its melody sways. What was the inspiration behind this song?

Until We Fall came out of me noodling around in the key of A one morning. Out of that I ended up with the verse vocal melody that starts the song instrumentally. As soon as I had the melody, I immediately came up with the instrumental interlude section that comes after the intro melody and before the vocal comes in. It's pretty rare that I write the melody of one of my tunes on the guitar; I almost always sing it over whatever chord changes I’m writing, so this song was different in that way. The rest of the song came out really fast.  

Only when I was finished was I able to stand back and see how the lyric “standing on the tallest bough, swaying in the wind, until we fall” fits the music really well, creating kind of a weightless feeling, like being up high in a tree and maybe being precariously off balance. There are some odd time sections in the chorus that add to the floating vibe. All of that came during the writing process without me being conscious of it. If I had tried to create something like that intentionally it most likely wouldn't have worked so well!  

What was your songwriting process like for this album?

The songs on “The Wire” fall into 2 categories. The first category would be songs like “New Days,” “The Wire” and “Until We Fall,” which came to me in the way that I typically write songs. The second category would be songs that I co-wrote with other band members.  

Most my songs come out of me when I’m practicing, recording or working on something else for an upcoming gig. A chord progression or guitar lick or vocal melody idea will come and I’ll hear it and like it, and then make sure it’s not someone else’s song that just popped into my head. I then just start playing it over and over again until I hear a melody. After that I'll start putting words to the melody. Once I have a section worked out, I will sing it over and over again refining it. Often I’ll then write two or three more verses, continue to play that over and over again until different sections present themselves. Some songs get choruses and bridges and some do not depending on what comes out. You never know when songs will come, but when they do it’s always pretty magical!

For this album, I wanted to expand my palette a bit and write with some of the other band members, as I knew they would add so much depth and width to our songwriting. We had a rehearsal in January 2020 that our bassist Murph couldn't make until later so I booked Eric (keys) and Celso (drums) to come in a few hours early to do some writing together. We would discuss a certain feel or just have Celso start playing a groove. When we locked into something Eric would improvise some changes and melodic ideas on top of that and then I'd come and jam along. We ended up with 4 really cool 30-60 second ideas. I had those song starters ready to go when Covid hit, which turned out to be really fortunate because I immediately had ways to collaborate with other members of Brightshine even though we couldn’t be together.  

I ended up taking those songs and extending some sections and creating some new ones and writing lyrics to them. The songs that made the album from this collaborative batch were “Airborne,” “Shedding The Blues” and “Eyes Prize”. I brought them to our first recording session in November 2020 and wanted to intentionally not arrange them anymore than was already apparent in my guitar and vocal performance of the song. I played them the original jam that we had done together and then I played them what I had come up with and we created the arrangements together by just playing through the tunes a few times and letting everything fall into place organically.

What are you hoping listeners take away from “The Wire”?

There are many different ways that people experience music. If you are a drummer, you might be really focused on the drums. I know some people that don’t really pay much attention to the lyrics. I know other people that can’t really listen to music unless they like the lyrics. Some people can listen to 4 or 5 different instruments at once simultaneously and fathom the connection between them on various rhythmic and harmonic levels. Others lock into one thing at a time. For some people listening is entirely emotional and for others it’s visceral, all about the groove and dancing. So it’s really impossible to tell how people might hear what we are doing. However, I would hope that the folks that end up listening to “The Wire” find that it moves them on many levels and rewards repeated listenings.

What advice do you have for aspiring musicians?

Play from your heart, work hard on learning your instrument thoroughly. Learn another instrument and learn to play types of music you don’t naturally listen to. Connect with your musical community and find folks you vibe with, play with them and learn from them. Become a well-rounded person. Your music will be deeper if you can connect with ideas and people outside of the word of musicians. 

Is there anything else you’d like to say to your listeners? 

Thank you for listening. I hope you dig it!

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