As most of you know the Keys in my blog title references the fact that I am a pianist/keyboard player. My band Citizen Shade has been as busy as ever in 2016 and I am always excited to keep you posted on what life is like in the band. I realize I have been bouncing between my solo work and style without giving you all some behind the scenes of the band so I promise to get better at that!
Run Down of What We Have Been Up To:
- Featured at the end of last year as the cover story for “YES! Weekly” and received a lot of attention from our interview.
- Performed as an additive element and featured band for the “Black Irish Dance Groups” show Shade.
- Shot a Mashup of our favorite current hip-hop songs to start of the new year with our great friend KENZ. (She was on the voice, and she is amazing. If you have yet to watch the video here is the link!)
- Shot another video of “Love Yourself” by Justin Bieber while we still had KENZ in town to feature on her channel. (See that video below)
- Had our logos designed, branded everything from our website to our social media. Got our merchandise ordered and received it the day before our show!
Those are all the bullet points of big things that have been going on in the band, but let me try to tell you how that is 10% of what happens with the band.
Playing shows, shooting videos, signing posters, and taking photos with our wonderful fans is such an fun part of the band life, but I promise it’s not all the band does. Every single day…and I really mean every day, I am on the phone with the guys or meeting up in person to work. While I would love to say that we are playing music every single time we meet up, that just isn’t feasible. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes that what everyone else sees ends up boiling down to the above listed points. When we are meeting we are discussing all aspects of the band; the live show, merchandise sales, the next song in the studio, purchases for the band, online presence, publishing/licensing, music video shoots, etc. I am a night owl as is Will (lead singer of Citizen Shade) so you can find us meeting at 6pm and working tirelessly till 3am the next morning. Totally normal for us.
Currently we are working on finishing up a brand new set of singles that we have worked very hard to make perfect. The roughs are almost finished and then it’s off to mixing/mastering. While we may be able to write a song in a day, nailing all of the details and dealing with the lag of email correspondence can stretch out the timeline for our releases. We are comfortable with this though, because we want the best that we can possibly produce to be released and so we meticulously pour over the details.
After the heavy amount of studio time our focus has been on booking shows within reasonable traveling distance to create a type of “Spring Tour.” We are very excited to push our music out of our hometown and into the surrounding areas. If you have a venue you love in the Carolinas/Virginia area let us know and we will try to get out there!
Living the day-to-day band life at this stage means working for a future. Investing everything we have in the goals that we have set ahead of ourselves.
I wonder what your perception of life in a band is, or if you have any questions about it?
I love interacting with you all and hope that you feel free to ask away!