Capital Lights

Some of you, from the states smack in the middle of our fine country, might recognize these guys as afterEIGHT. If so, you’d be partially correct. Then again, you’d also be waiting for a hardcore, screamo sound that will never come.

Now, these Tulsa boys are known as Capital Lights. And they’re the latest signees to Tooth & Nail. With a new name comes a new, pop-oriented sound that has estranged their faithful, but given birth to a whole new realm of potential audiences, especially since they booked an enviable spot on the Green T Tour. Playing alongside Hawk Nelson, Run Kid Run and 700-1,000 kids a night can’t be bad for business, after all.

We recently spoke with guitarist Brett Admire before a soundcheck about the changes in the band, the horrible band names they threw away and how they ended up living a musical dream.

SA: Biggest highlight on tour so far?

Brett Admire: Yeah at one of the shows, the crowd got into us a bit more than most crowds. There were 1,300 people all jumping at the same time. That was cool to me because we’re nothing right now.

SA: Where was that at?

Brett: That was right outside Philadelphia.

SA: Let’s go back to the name change. Can you tell us about that?

Brett: It’s pretty simple. Me and Bryson, our singer, he was the original member of afterEIGHT when it first started in ‘02. I joined a year after that. We had three other dudes and played forever as a screamo band. Bryson was a screamer and played bass. We had a pretty good following around the Tulsa/Arkansas/Kansas/Missouri area. Then our drummer got married, so Michael – our drummer now – jumped in. After that, we played for a couple more years.

About a year ago at the very beginning of 2007, we had a falling out with our singer and we just let him go and our guitar player quit. It was down to me and Bryson and Michael. We picked up Johnny and we really wanted to change styles. He was going to try vocals and was going to write catchy vocals instead of dark, screamo stuff. We played as afterEIGHT a little bit under that style. But we always hated the name and we’re like, ‘This is our best opportunity to change it.’

However, we started getting label attention and we didn’t want to change it right in the middle of talking to labels because they would think we’re unstable and out to just change crap all the time. So we got signed to Tooth & Nail and we asked them if we could change it. They said, ‘Yeah, we never liked it. We were just gonna stick with it because we didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.’ So we changed it after coming up with 20 different names. EMI lawyers looked them all up. There’s no meaning to this name at all.

SA: Just sounded cool?

Brett: Yeah, it just sounded cool. We would try to think of cool things. We recorded on Capitol Hill [in Seattle] with Aaron Sprinkle and we thought that word sounded cool. We changed the ‘o’ to ‘a’ so it’s not political. We didn’t want people asking if it was political. So ‘Hit The Lights’ was another name and we put those things together and called it ‘Capital Lights.’ So it all fell into place there.

SA: What’s the worst band name in that naming session?

Brett: Someone came up with the band name, The Ornament, and a lot of us made fun of that. We had one name we really wanted called Search Party but it was taken from a band in the ’60s. We were super bummed out because we loved that name.

SA: Was that a long process or just an afternoon session or osmething?

Brett: We tried all last year to think of a name and never could. And then when we started to think about it again in January and they said they were putting us on these tours but we had no promotion yet so if we were going to change it, we had to change it then. We spent day and night thinking of names, writing them down, emailing them to lawyers and we finally came up with this one.

SA: You said you were fielding multiple labels? And why Tooth & Nail?

Brett: I think it was the aura that comes with them and the mystique. When we were growing up, Tooth & Nail was the first label we even knew about. MxPx was my favorite band and Bryson’s. I can speak for him because we grew up together, making music together. We learned to play music through them. Then we started learning about other Tooth & Nail bands over the years and they seemed to be the coolest. Then Aaron Sprinkle started producing a bunch of their albums and he became one of our favorite producers. So when we were talking to labels, that was cool to have everything we grew up listening to and thought was cool right there.

SA: How were the recording sessions with Aaron?

Brett: We were in there for a month – all of January. It was awesome. That’s how we got signed or noticed was that we sent him one of our tracks and he sent it to Brandon [Ebel]. He really liked it and he’s only gotten Ruth signed and another band signed ever and now us. So when we were heading up there, we were wondering if we’d be nervous. But we walked in and he was the normal, regular guy. We weren’t nervous at all. But when he would come up with these ideas for keyboards, it would blow our minds. We’d say, ‘Yes! Who could believe eight years ago that we would be sitting around talking about MxPx with Aaron Sprinkle.’ And we had MxPx’s guitar tech on our album. Who would have thought this was possible? [Laughs]

SA: How was the studio atmosphere he creates?

Brett: It’s very relaxed. He’s real loose but real concentrated at the same time. Sometimes he’ll seem way relaxed but he’s just really focused into the music. I remember sometimes we were wondering, ‘Is he even coming up with ideas?’ Then he would walk in and kick us out of the room and we’d walk back in and say, ‘Woah, I can’t even believe he would come up with that.’

SA: Were there any major points of tension in the studio?

Brett: No, because we were so prepared with our songs that we had everything down exactly the way we wanted them. That was one thing about Sprinkle that was really cool was that he was never anti- any of our ideas. If he didn’t like one of the ideas, he wouldn’t say ‘that sucked.’ He would either try to make a better idea or change it around to make it work. So there was nothing about changing lyrics or anything like that. We were worried about that because we’d never worked with a producer before and so we were worried he’d change everything. But instead, he trimmed a lot of fat off the songs and made them that much better. He was great at that.

SA: How do the songs translate to the live stage?

Brett: I think they translate a lot better than I thought they would. When we first started writing them, they were really poppy and I wondered how they would translate. But the crowd seems to be really getting into them even though they’ve never heard them. We have this one song, “Outrage,” which I think will be our first single, people come up all the time and say, ‘I love that third song you played,’ which is cool.

SA: A slot with Hawk Nelson seems to be a real bonus spot for a brand new band. How’d you land that spot?

Brett: The label set it up. From what we heard, Brandon Ebel worked really hard to get us on this spot. And it’s been huge. Not very many new bands get to open up their first U.S. tour playing in front of 700 or 800 or 1,000 kids per night. For someone as new as us, we’re super-fortunate.

SA: How do you best take advantage of that? Does that put a pressure on?

Brett: Yeah, we have 20 minutes to go out there and make an impression on everyone and make sure they don’t forget us. What we’ve been doing is playing a Hannah Montana song – just the chorus of “Best of Both Worlds” – and that’s been our trademark for this tour because it’s all over YouTube. But a long time ago, this guy told us that if you’re going to play a show, you should always make an impression or memory in that person’s head. Because if you make a memory, they’ll either want to buy something from you or keep coming back because they’ll want to relive that memory that they first had.

So that’s been our goal is to create a moment or make a memory. Obviously nobody knows any of our songs, so we can’t go out there and play just those. So we have to go out and create a stage show and do our best. That’s what we’ve been doing – playing cover songs and such if that’s what it takes. We’ll be that band they remembered until the next time they see us. Or hopefully. When it’s Run Kid Run and Hawk Nelson coming after you, it’s easy to be forgotten by the end of the night.

SA: You end up hanging out with the merch?

Brett: Yeah, we try to be out there almost all the time, usually when the other bands are playing we’re watching them, but we make sure we’re completely fan based or oriented.

SA: How do you describe the band now compared to the old days of afterEIGHT? Do you run into fans wondering?

Brett: It was weird for awhile when we changed over. A lot of our close friends got it. They understood why we did it. But other fans, a lot of people got kind of mad or angry. We were their favorite band and they felt we betrayed them. But as for me, I feel that old band was a stepping stone to get to this point in our career. We had alright songs and put on a good live show. A lot of the labels knew about us because we’d sent so many songs to them. So when we sent songs that were good enough to be on the radio, they relistened to them because we sent them stuff before. So that was basically a stepping stone because had we just jumped from nothing, from never playing a show, to this, I don’t think we would be successful at it.

SA: How much fun are you having right now?

Brett: Oh man, we’re having a blast. We’re not just growing up listening to this music but instead I’m playing it and doing shows. It’s awesome. It’s better than I thought it would be. I always had this impression that when you start out, you’re just in the crappiest of crap bands. We’re just real fortunate we have a decent band and trailer and we’re on a decent tour. God has blessed us so much more than I had anticipated from the very beginning.

• http://www.myspace.com/capitallights

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